The Effect of interactive book reading-based activities on preschool children's scientific process skills

This research examines the effects of interactive book reading-based activities on the scientific process skills of five- to six-year-old children attending preschool education. The study group consists of 41 children (22 experimental; 19 control group) aged five to six who attend preschool education. In the study, which is quantitative research, a quasi-experimental design with a pre-test and post-test unequal control group was preferred. Personal Information Form and Scientific Process Skills Test (BSBT) were used as data collection tools. The scientific process skills of the children in the study group were measured by applying a pre-test, post-test and retention test. The researcher applied Interactive Book Reading Based Activities (EKOTE) lasting 21 sessions to the experimental group. Each of the interactive story books was planned to be read to the children 3 days a week. In addition, before implementing the interactive reading program, a two-day study was conducted to meet the children and introduce the program. The procedure part of the experiment was completed in a total of 21 sessions, three days a week (three sessions) over a seven-week period and an average of two packet hours each. The control elements were continued to be healed by the preschool teacher in the classroom of the Ministry of National Education [MEB] Preschool Education Program (2013). Descriptive statistics and normality distributions of the scores obtained by the children in the experimental and control groups from the pre-test, post-test and retention tests were determined with SPSS 25. As a result of these findings, it was concluded that the children in the experimental group, where interactive book reading-based activities were applied, had a significantly better development in science process skills compared to the children in the control group. In addition, it was observed that there was a significant difference between the post-test and retention test of the experimental group in favor of retention test. When evaluated in this context, it was concluded that EKOTE applied to the experimental group had a positive contribution to the children's scientific process skills and that the effect of this training program continued to increase after the program. It has been observed that ensuring children's active participation in the story reading process improves children's skills in observation, classification, measurement, prediction, producing solutions to problem situations, using space/time relationships, conveying scientific ideas and results, and using numbers and symbols. As a result, suggestions were made for the use of methods and techniques that ensure children's active participation in the story reading process in order to support the target skill.