The effect of child literary prodocts on the development of reading skill

Reading is a skill that enriches life and makes it more colorful, having a fundamental role inthe improvement of human culture and awareness, so it must be persistently developed. Thedevelopment of this skill, as of very early stages of primary school, continues throughout life.Reading skill is an intellectual activity with which children must be equipped as from the early ages.Cautiously selected child literary texts have a fundamental role on developing this reading skill.In this research project, it is primarily aimed at identifying the effect of the child literary texton the development of reading skills by means of data collected from 360 students from nine primaryschools which are located in different socioeconomic ambiances (centre, town or village, etc) ofKızılcahamam District in Ankara. Through prepared ?Data Collection Form?, it has been obtainedsome valuable information related to students? reading skills, their socioeconomic background and theenvironment they study in. With the help of these data, the relation between students? reading skillsand their competence in reading comprehension, and the effect of child literary texts on their readingskills have been analyzed.In the study, students have been presented reading comprehension questions based on sixtexts in order to measure the relationship between child literary texts and reading skill. Divided intothree groups as informative texts, narrative texts and poetry, these texts are thought to include themajority of child literary products. For three of these six literary texts, it has been attachedimportance to be suitable and address the children?s age, needs, interests, and their understanding andspeaking skills in terms of child literature. On the other hand, it hasn?t been paid such kind ofattention and sensitiveness for the other three texts. As a result of the study, it has been discoveredthat the average percentage of points students have gotten from the texts suitable to the level ofstudents equals 80 percent while the average they have gotten from badly chosen texts amounts to 46percent.The analyses have demonstrated that reading skills of the students significantly diverseaccording to the data relating to their sexuality, socioeconomic conditions and the environment inwhich they study. Similarly, factors such as students? reading habits as a leisure time activity andwhether there occurs a library at their home or not have also significant effects on the divergence ofstudents? reading and reading comprehension skills. However, students? habit of going to library hasunexpectedly no significant effect on the students? ability to read. This situation to a great extentstems from the absence of library in the residential area some students live.In final part of the research project, the effect of child literary products on the developmentof reading skill has been evaluated and made some suggestions in the light of the findings obtain fromthe study.