| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺北教育大學 === 幼兒與家庭教育學系碩士班 === 98 === This study explored a two-year picture book reading process of a teacher and a group of children in Kinmen County. The aim of the study was to understand the way children responded to picture books, how the teacher guided and participated in the reading together process, and how these children’s responses and the teacher’s participation differed or changed in two years.
The teacher (the researcher) and the 18 children were members of the same kindergarten class in the first year of the study. They read picture books together every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon for two years. In the second year, the children were enrolled in the same elementary school and 12 of them continued participating in the monthly gathering to read picture books with their formal teacher, who was then a graduate student in early childhood education. The researcher chose 20 audio-taped records out of the 61 reading sessions in the first year and 15 audio-taped and video-taped records out of the 20 reading sessions in the second year with the principle of including picture books of various styles. After transcribing the reading records verbatim, the researcher segmented the transcripts by issues, and coded every speaking turn to find out how these children responded and how the teacher participated in the reading process. As to children’s responses, the aspects attended to include the contexts of interpretation, the ways the “protagonist” was identified, the issues raised, and the ways child readers evaluated every picture book. Regarding the teacher’s participation, the aspects examined include the ways the teacher guided the session, the issues raised and the ways she responded to the children’s queries and comments. Following a thorough analysis of the reading processes each year respectively, the findings of each year were compared to find out the differences and changes in two years.
Regarding children’s response, the results of the analysis include the following: 1. The contexts of interpretation: the child readers used either single context (life experiences, the story itself, existing knowledge, the pictures, and the author’s intention) or compound contexts to interpret the stories. When responding to issues in different domains such as the characters and the plot, the child readers applied different contexts of interpretation. The seven children who voiced their thoughts more frequently appeared to develop a personal pattern in applying the contexts of interpretation. Overall, the child readers applied more diversified contexts of interpretation and depended less on their daily experiences when they were first graders. The diversified contexts might contribute to their greater and multi-faceted appreciation of the picture books. 2. To identify the protagonist: the children referred to a certain character’s actions or characteristics and drew on their daily experiences to construct their definition of “significance.” 3. Types of issues: The children responded to the questions the teacher posed when they were kindergarten students and were invited to prepare questions beforehand when they were first-grade students. Most of the issues brought up by these first-graders were about the characters. Among them, most were about the intentions of these characters’ actions. 4. Overall evaluation of a picture book: The children pointed out a certain aspect of the book as the reason for enjoying it, such as the characters, the plot, the pictorial expression, and a certain object. Kindergarten children expressed their desires to participate in the story. While they became first-graders, their reasons of appreciating a picture book include the atmosphere and the space the picture books provided for exploration. Regarding the teacher’s participation, what was found from the analysis include: 1. Guiding the reading process: the teacher took different actions, applying various strategies before the story-telling, while telling the story and in the after story-telling discussion sessions. 2. The amount and types of issues raised: As mentioned, the responsibility of preparing questions for discussion laid on the teacher and the first-grader respectively in two years. As a result, the amount of teacher’s questions decreased greatly in the second year. Interestingly, just like the children, most of the questions the teacher posed in the first year concerned the characters. 3. Responding to children：The teacher probed or commented on children’s responses and expressed her personal opinions in both years. However, the way the teacher probed differed in two years. Also, the teacher allowed more space for children to express themselves in the second year.
Following the report of the analysis, the researcher pondered upon the way her different role as a teacher and a researcher impacted on her perspective on the reading process. Lastly, the findings were further interpreted in the contexts of the reading culture of the class as well as in the context of the researcher’s long-term observation of these children’s families. The methods and results of other empirical studies on young children’s picture book reading were compared with the current research to point out the unique contribution this study might make to our understanding of young children’s developing sense of being a reader.
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