THE ROLE OF LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE IN UNDERSTANDING A TEXT IN A SCIENTIFIC-POPULATIVE STYLE

Abstract

Reading comprehension skills are crucial for students' successful learning across all subjects. This article explores the role of linguistic knowledge – namely lexical, grammatical, and syntactic skills – in the comprehension of texts written in a popular-scientific style by 5th-grade students. The research material is the text "The Heroism of Spitamen" from the 5th-grade history textbook "Stories from History". Through various tasks, students’ understanding of pronouns and homonyms, recognition of similes, analysis of direct speech, and the influence of conjunctions on text comprehension were examined. A total of 35 fifth-grade students participated in the study. The analysis revealed that while students were relatively successful at identifying the subject of direct speech, they showed low performance in understanding referential words, homonyms, similes, and complex sentences that included the negative correlative construction “not only... but also” (represented in Uzbek as “...gina emas, balki... ham”). The findings suggest that developing students’ analytical thinking and paying attention to linguistic elements in text-based learning is essential.