Stage 2 Child Studies

Assessment Type 2: Practical Activity

Area of Study 4: Socio-Cultural Influences

The Benefits of Literature & Stories to Young Children

Introduction

Development in childhood has been observed in different ways such as physical, cognitive, motor, linguistic, emotional and social development. According to Bloom and his colleagues, the first four-year of the life, mental development occurs as much as in the following thirteen years. Actually, in the period up to seven years old, development is very fast. Therefore, in preschool period that is given various living opportunities, child’s mental development is more distinctive. It is observed that during preschool period, children who face with different stimuli are more successful in using language (Gürkan,2000). In other words, it is accepted that the experiences in the early years of life affects the child’s attitudes and behaviors for a life time and these early years are very significant in terms of development and mental health. The child requires an expert guidance, in this period in which basic emotions, basic behavior features and personality are constituted. The various stimuli environment given the child plays an important role in development of his imagination and the sense of curiosity. (Gönen vd.. 2010). Literary children’s books have important effects on different areas of child’s development. Children’s books are important tools which creates ‘’an enriched language environment’’ primarily, in acquisition of linguistic skills from the beginning of the preschool period. Children’s books, which gives clues regarding his native language’s structure and function and reflects the power and beauty of language and comics starts to take place in child’s life as visual and linguistic stimuli when he reaches three years old (Sever,2010 36-37). The books that is appropriate to child’s language World are the tools that children examines taking their hands as a concrete object and concretes their conceptual development with visual objects, develops visual and auditory perceptions in preschool period. From the beginning of preschool period, the child learns the articulation rules of language such as stress, intonation, liasion through questioning/reading literary genres such as poem, tale, story, fable; riddles, stories and narrations. Above all, these books help the child develop listening skill which one out of the four language skills. They enlarge child’s vocabulary, lead understanding linguistic structures intuitively and provide being sensitive in making accurate sentences. They improve understanding and expressive skills. They teach children pronunciation of the words accurately, the power of expression and sophistication of language, structure of meaning, vocabulary, features of language; in