A level determination study on children's books

This study aims to to determine the reading levels of children's books in Turkish with 10 local authors and 10 foreign authors. The research is a type of basic qualitative research, and the data collection process was carried out in two stages. In the first stage of the research, the "Children's Books Evaluation Form" was used to determine the appropriate age level of the physical and content features of the children's books determined and the data obtained were analyzed by descriptive checklist. In order to determine the readability levels of the books in the study, the "Ateşman Readability Number Formula" was applied and the obtained data were analyzed with descriptive analysis. As a result of the data obtained from the analyzes and expert opinions, a total of eight books, one domestic and one foreign, thought to belong to each grade level, were selected for the second stage of the study. The second phase of the study was carried out with a total of 94 students consisting of 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade students studying at a public school in Ankara in the spring term of the 2020-2021 academic year. The students applied the "Readability Evaluation Form" to the books selected for them and then read the books. When they finished the books, the "Reading Comprehension Forms" developed by the researcher based on the Barrett Taxonomy suitable for each grade level were applied to the students. The same process was repeated for the second books. The data obtained from the second stage of the study were analyzed with the descriptive statistics method. As a result of the study, it was concluded that evaluating the children's books in Turkish according to children's literature criteria in the present literature and applying readability formulas did not give consistent results; It has been shown that there are not sufficient criteria to determine the readability levels of the books.