Exploring children's idiomatic comprehension

In this research, it was aimed determine to examine the comprehension achievements of idioms by preschool children. Data was collected from 108 participants aged 60-72 months studying in various kindergartens and gathered through an Idiom Comprehension Scale which contains items consisting of idioms used in children's boks. The idioms in the scale consist of 18 idioms that are rated in three different ways in terms of transparency and familiarity. The participants were answered meaning of the idioms in given context. The responses of the participants were received in writing. Analyzes were evaluated by two experts. The obtained answers were encoded and transferred to the statistics program. Depending on the research questions, descriptive statistics were calculated and Mann Whitney U techniques were applied. As a result of the statistical analysis, it was determined that very few of the participants could understand the idioms. It was found that the participants understood opaque idioms difficult than the middle and transparent ones. When considered in terms of familiarity, it was seen that the participants understood the idioms with high familiarity better than the medium and low ones. Participants were also understood idioms with low familiarity better than idioms with medium and high ones and the understanding of transparent idioms of 66-72 months participants was higher than those of 60-65 months. Although the participants' success in understanding idioms did not differ significantly according to their gender and duration of education, it was found that there were some differences according to the type of school. In the process of acquisition and interpretation of idioms, it was suggested to consider these findings obtained from the research. Key Words: Idiom, figurative language, familiarity, transparency, language acquisition