Preparing Books for Children from Birth through Age Six: A New Children's Reality Approach

Abstract

Works of literature for children are supposed to give prominence to the child's self. In other words, the level of the works is expected to be appropriate to the characteristics of this demographic. In works of children's literature, the prominence of adults and their worlds along with their ideological, religious, and traditional statements, instead of those of children, indicate that books for children are formed not for children but for adults and their ideologies. This situation reveals an adult's will to shape the child. Merging perceptions, which are unfamiliar to the child's own and pertaining to the adult's world, into books for children may cause a child to take an early step towards adult life. The fact that children find ideologies, behaviors, actions, and senses pertaining to adults' lives, rather than their own, may cause children to feel alienated from their childhoods. Publishing books for children by reflecting perceptions unfamiliar to the children's worlds may cause "adult children" to appear in books for children. This article proposes that works of children's literature should reflect the children's reality. Thus, the child can be an active participant in the process of reading culture.

Improving Reading Comprehension Skills with Children’s Books through Metacognitive Strategy: The Turkish Context

“…In particular, intrinsic motivation, self-sufficiency, interest, purpose, and beliefs are important motivational variables in reading comprehension (Guthrie &Wigfield, 2000). Moreover, the reality (his nature, interest, need, perspective, language, and cognitive capacity) in which the reader resides while grasping the text, and the reflection of this reality in the text, may also help to shape the meaning (Çer, 2016b, 2016cSever, 2008).…”

Analysis of the Textbook Coloring Pictures and English Reviewed by Cognitive

“…The key in advancing children's willingness to learn is the educational process through learning activities. In this regard, one of the most fundamental objectives of children's learning activities is to develop their imagination, and critical thinking in an appropriate way from their developmental stage (Cer, 2016). Children actively interact with their environment by doing these learning activities.…”

“…It is very important for books to reflect the child's imagination and the truth of reality by being written according to the child's ability level because books can be involved in children's emotive and cognitive behavior. The relationship between the child and the book is directly related to the cognitive level of the child (Cer, 2016).…”

The Acquaintance Level of Turkish Prospective Teachers with Qualified Works of Children’s Literature

“…Moreover, just as in adults' books, the primary concern of the author in children's books is to produce an artistic work which is appropriate for children, instead of teaching certain moral values or ideological statements and beliefs (Aslan, 2008(Aslan, , 2014Çer, 2016c). In other words, approaches by which the child imagines, thinks freely, learns how to decide and how to cope with violence, reveals his creativity, and which supports his entrepreneurship, but does not exploit his feelings, are supposed to be preferred because the child, through such approaches, gains sensitivity to being human, life, and nature with the help of his affective and cognitive capacity.…”