Book Selection Preferences of Preschool Children
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14712/25337890.3994Keywords:
attitudes towards reading, books for children, children’s reading preferences, preschool ageAbstract
The study focuses on the preschool children’s preferences in selection of books. The importance of this issue lies in the promotion of children’s relationship with reading and in the potential for developing language and literacy skills that access to books and texts enables children to develop. In this study, we analyse empirical fi ndings that reveal different criteria in the selection of children’s books by adults and by children themselves. Following this, we present the results of interviews with 31 preschool children (mean age 5 years and 6 months), which were thematically related to the identifi cation of the child’s favourite book, the criteria which the child uses to defi ne this book as attractive for reading, and the book-reading habits in the child’s family environment. Through inductive thematic analysis of the interviews, we identifi ed that children consider the theme of the book (also including themes and other stories already familiar to them), its characters (often familiar from the media), the presence of fantasy elements in the story, the attractiveness of the illustrations, and the presence of interactive elements in the book as decisive factors in their book preferences. However, the presence of humour in the text of the book was the most frequent criterion mentioned by the children as a criterion for the attractiveness of the book. This fi nding shows potential for further investigation enabling to clarify specifi c understandings of humorous motifs in children’s book texts from children´s perspective.
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