Preschool teachers’ book selection tendencies: an examination on picture books for children aged 3-6

Abstract

Children's picture books, which are considered the first examples of children's literature, are books specially prepared for the early childhood period. Children's picture books are a literary genre with features that have the potential to support all the areas of development that children in the preschool age group may need. Children's literature products support all areas of development of the child, but also contribute to children's awareness of their physical characteristics through books and support their cognitive development through understanding and questioning the book, support language development through concepts and words learned from the book. Children's books with pictures become more permanent materials in gaining social values, acquiring desired and positive behaviors. Especially in the preschool period, it is seen that the intended education and the behaviors to be adopted are completed thanks to picture books. In this research, it is aimed to determine the most preferred books among the illustrated children's books prepared for children aged 3-6, published in 2021 and beyond, for teachers to read/teach in their classrooms for preschool children Dec. For the purpose in question, 110 teachers working in different preschool institutions throughout the province of Istanbul were reached through Google Forms. 132 different illustrated children's book titles were mentioned by the participants, and the 30 books that repeated the most among them were determined. It is thought that this study will inspire the reasons for choosing the most preferred illustrated children's books in the preschool age group or other studies in the field of content analysis of books.