The impact of location of sounds in visuals found in visual vocabulary of children on their sense of sound

First graders of elementary school are in the concrete operational stage. Elements of visual reading and visual presentation learning are widely used in the textbooks and teaching materials that are utilized in this stage. In particular, teachers use a good many visual elements in the stage of sense of sounds during the literacy education process. Visuals that are used in this process in relation to sounds make voice training easier, ensure memorability of sounds and increase learning process of the students. This study discusses the impact of location of sounds in visuals found in visual vocabulary of children on the sound teaching in the literacy education. The study was conducted on the first two sound groups of sound-based sentence method (e,l,a,t,i,n,o,r,m). The study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, sound-based visual vocabularies of the children were determined. In the second stage, as part of the sound-based visual vocabulary, the visuals that the children know most were put in the measurement instrument and the impact of sounds in visuals on the sound teaching in literacy education was examined. Working group of the study consists of a total of 91 elementary school students from four elementary schools that are classified based on socio-economic level in the Elazığ province (low-public school, medium-public school, high-public school, high private school) and selected based on convenience sampling. In the study, the measurement instrument developed by the researcher was used. The measurement instrument is operated in two stages. The first stage includes recognition situation of 4 visuals and 2 distracter visuals which are determined for each sound. The second stage includes the sense of 4 visuals and 2 distracter visuals which are determined for each sound. In the study, statistical packaged software was used on computer for statistical analysis of the data. In the data analyses, %, frequency and chi-square test were applied. As a result of the study, majority of children recognized the visuals of sum of all sounds. It was also concluded that when it comes to sense of sounds in visuals of sum of all sounds, the students mostly sensed the sound in visuals with the sound in the beginning, followed by the visuals with the sound doubled, in the end and middle. Moreover, the study found that students sensed the sounds "e", "l", "a", "i", "n", "o" mostly in the visuals with the sound in the beginning, the sound "t" mostly in the visual with the sound in the end, and the sounds "r" and "m" mostly in the visual with the sound doubled. The study also concluded that there is a significant difference in the sense of sounds in visuals of sum of all sounds included in the study depending on the variable of school status and type. Accordingly, it was found that students who go to a socio-economically higher private school sense the sounds better in all locations of sounds in visuals compared with the students who go to other type of schools. Findings of the study revealed that there is a significant difference in other locations of sound in visuals in the sense of sounds in visuals of sum of all sounds included in the study in favor of those whose pre-school educational period is longer, except for the visuals where the sound is in the middle based on the pre-school educational period variable. Students who received 2 to 3 years of pre-school education sense the sound better in visuals where the sound is in the beginning, in the end and doubled compared with students who received 1 year of pre-school education. Keywords: Literacy Education, Visual, Visual Vocabulary, Sound, Sense of Sound