The purpose of this study was to examine three-year-old preschoolers' picture-book reading activity in social contexts called 'classroom.' It is specifically meant to find out how they go about reading picture books, and what kind of meanings they con...
The purpose of this study was to examine three-year-old preschoolers' picture-book reading activity in social contexts called 'classroom.' It is specifically meant to find out how they go about reading picture books, and what kind of meanings they construct by engaging themselves in the picture book reading activity in the classroom context, where children's books were chosen and displayed by the classroom teacher in line with the weekly themes based on the National Curriculum guidelines.
Two research questions were posed:
1. What are the patterns of picture-book reading activity among three-year-old preschoolers in ordinary classroom situations?
2. What is the meaning of group picture-book reading activity in the classroom for three-year-olds?
To address the research questions, the ethnographic research method was employed. The data was collected from a class of three year olds in a daycare center located in Bundang, from June through September, 2012. During this period, the researcher stayed with children as a classroom teacher with another teacher, doing participant observation. In all, 12 three-year-olds participated in the study, and the co-teacher was very supportive and worked as the second observer.
The major findings of the study were as follows. In relation to the first research question, two broad ways of picture book reading among were identified when they read picture books in classroom situations. First, they 'read' picture books by staying within the boundary of picture book itself. They open up an imaginary world by physically opening up picture book, and enter into the pretend play scene using their five senses. Sometimes they also focus on only what they can read, like some alphabets, small numbers, and 'written pictures' according to their expression. The other way of reading picture books was encountering their personal experiences when they are engaged in picture books reading activity. They recollected their own personal experience as if they are browsing through photo albums, and also tried to match the picture books contents with what they remember from grown-ups reading time. Occasionally, they only rely on what they remember and some other times they embellish their stories relying on the cues they get from the books. They also 'read' books hopping around a multiple texts like stories from different books, stories heard, past experiences and the book itself. In sum, they are constructing and creating stories among themselves, weaving through multiple sources, rather than merely listening to the readings by teachers and showing respond to the fixed stories.
As for the second research question, namely, the meaning of picture- book reading activities for 3 year olds in the classroom, the analysis showed the following:
First, it was an occasion for the children to expand and deepen their current understanding by re-visiting what was meaningful to them. Second, it was a context where children wrestle with the relationship between pictures, written texts, and stories in the picture book. And they took advantage of picture-book reading as an opportunity to keep in touch with society and learn the societal values and rules. And children tried to mark their social standing by comparing and showing off their reading skills, and finally, and most importantly, it was an activity that let them experience the joy of co-working and co-creating stories.
In conclusion, this study argues for allowing children to 'read' picture books in their own way, so that they have an opportunity to understand the world around them and appreciate the joy of picture book reading with their peers, instead of regarding book reading as a tool for teaching vocabularies and how to read.