Konu ve ana fikri doğru tespit etmek bir metnin çözümlenmesinde çok önemlidir. Okuma metinlerinde yer alan metin türleri genellikle hikâye edici, bilgilendirici ve duyguya dayalı türler olarak yer alır. Her bir metin türünde konu ve ana fikri doğru bir şekilde belirlemek oldukça zordur. Konu ve ana fikri tespit etmede, okuma metinleri bağlamında düşünüldüğünde gerek ilkokulda sınıf öğretmenlerine, gerekse de ortaokulda Türkçe öğretmenlerine büyük bir sorumluluk düşmektedir. Metinde anlatılan ve anlatılanla verilmek istenen mesajı öğrencilerin doğru bir şekilde algılayabilmesi için konu ve ana fikir kavramlarını öncelikle öğretmenlerin kendilerinin iyi anlamaları ve öğrencilerine de iyi anlatmaları gerekmektedir. Bu bağlamda sınıf öğretmenleri ve Türkçe öğretmen adaylarının eğitim fakültesinde aldıkları eğitimlerde konu ve ana fikri bilip bilmedikleri, doğru tespit edip edemedikleri önem arz etmektedir. Bu amaçla Kilis 7 Aralık Üniversitesi Muallim Rıfat Eğitim Fakültesi'nde 3. sınıfta öğrenim gören Türkçe Öğretmenliği Bölümü'nden 61 öğrenci ile bir çalışma yürütülmüştür. Çalışmada öğrencilere öncelikle konu ve ana fikir nedir, konu ve ana fikri kullanırken kullandığınız stratejiler nelerdir, hangi metin türünde zorlanıyorsunuz? Sorularının yer aldığı bir anket uygulanmıştır. Daha sonra öğrencilere 7. ve 8. sınıf Millî Eğitim Bakanlığı (MEB) yayınlarından seçilen üç farklı türde okuma metinleri verilerek öğrencilerden metinlerin konu ve ana fikirlerini belirlemeleri istenmiştir. Her bir öğrencinin üç metin türünde de konu ve ana fikri tespit ettikten sonra ankette verdiği cevaplarla karşılaştırmalar yapılmıştır. Araştırmanın sonucunda Türkçe 3. sınıf öğretmen adaylarının metinlerde konu ve ana fikri bulmada zorlandıkları, özellikle de duyguya dayalı metin türlerinin konu ve ana fikrini büyük ölçüde tespit edemedikleri bilgilerine ulaşılmıştır

The aim of this study is to determine whether prospective teachers who are studying in the 3rd grade of Turkish Teaching Department can correctly determine the main idea and the topic of the text in different types of texts. It has been tried to be determined by means of a questionnaire form how the students determine the topic and the main idea in a text, whether they can identify the topic and the main idea and which text types they have difficulties. As a result of the research, it was found that the 3rd grade prospective teachers in Turkish Teaching Department have difficulties in finding the topic and the main idea in texts, in particular, they can not detect the topic and the main idea of emotion based texts. Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 report shows that students in Turkey are experiencing problems in the sense that they are reading. According to this report, Turkey ranks 50th among 72 countries in reading skills. This result shows that reading skills of students in our country are inadequate. Students need to know some concepts such as topic and main idea to analyze text. Determining the topic and the main idea in a text is the best way to understand the text (Özbay, 2014: 4). Students with reading skills analyze the text better. They are more careful and more successful in determining the topic and the main idea of a text rather than students with reading unskilled (Pilten, 2007: 35). It is important that class teachers and Turkish teacher candidates whether they know and identify the topic and the main idea in the trainings they have in the education faculty or not. For this purpose, a study was carried out with prospective teachers. A questionnaire was applied including questions such as “what are the strategies you use for topic and main idea?”, “what are the main idea and the topic?”, and “in which type of text do you struggle with?”. Later on, students were given three different types of reading texts consisting of a narrative text, an emotion based text and an educational text in the Primary Education Turkish 7 Lesson Book and Primary Education Turkish 8 Lesson Book belonging to the Ministry of National Education Publications. Then students were asked to determine the topic and the main idea of the texts. In each of the three types of texts, each student’s answers were compared with the given in the questionnaire after identifying the topic and the main idea. The research was conducted in 2015-2016 educational year with 61 students from 3rd grade of the Department of Turkish Teaching in Kilis 7 Aralık University Muallim Rifat Faculty of Education. The "case study" pattern, which was implemented with a qualitative approach, was used to identify students' ability to find topic and main idea in different text types. An interview form prepared by the researcher was developed as a data collection tool in the research. A text type applied in every week and students asked to read the text and then find the topic and the main idea of the text. In the texts given to the students, an answer key was set for each text by referring to the opinions of the three field experts for the determination of the topic and the main idea and the answers of the students were evaluated according to this answer key. Questions were asked to the students via the interview form and the data obtained from the forms applied to the study group were coded and downloaded to the computer. The statistical evaluation was made using the SPSS version 18.0 computer package program. As a result of the answers given by the students, it was found that almost half of the students do not correctly define the topic. In addition, students can have an opinion on the topic by looking at the title of the text while they can not go from the title to find the main idea. Students most likely have difficulty in finding topic and main idea in types of emotion based and educational texts. But the students stated that they were not forced in narrative texts. As narrative text move around an event mesh they can be thought easier for students to find the topic and the main idea. Despite the majority of the students correctly identified the main idea and the topic at the beginning, then more than half of they were unable to detect the main idea and the topic correctly in the three types of texts. Students who can not correctly define the main idea according to the topic have shown great consistency in the main idea. Turkish teacher candidates do not enter into an effort to change the diagrams of the topic and the main idea during undergraduate education. It is also seen in this study that the students who make a certain definition on the topic and the main idea have different results in practice and they can not determine the concept of topic and main idea in the texts exactly. The works of Başaran (2006) and Pilten (2006) also support the results of this study. Students should be aware of the concepts of topic and main idea before determining the topic and main idea. It can be shown to students on sample texts that the topic and the main idea are different concepts. For this purpose, students can do text analysis. Before reading the text on the sample texts, it is possible to get a better understanding of the text by predicting the text by moving from the topic title and the images. Within the scope of the Reading Education and Private Teaching Courses taught in Turkish Teaching, students may be asked to make examples of activities involving different text types. Thus, each student will have a better understanding of the topic and the main idea of the text.