Study of illustrations in fable books for preschool children

The preschool stage is a fundament in a child?s life. This period is an important duration for children?s visual evolution. Before they start speaking, children learn to see and recognize things. As a matter of fact, there is a very close connection between seeing and learning. For a child who hasn?t learned to read yet, it is the cover and illustrations of a book that attracts their attention. Most illustrations used in books improves children?s learning and sensation, and influences the development of a child?s taste of art by improving children?s sense of beauty. Good illustrations smooth the way of children?s understanding and influence their desire for reading. Illustrations have a great impact on children?s reading habits. Books including pictures of good quality stimulate children?s thoughts and feelings, and have an effect on gaining aesthetic values. Therefore, illustrations included in books for children at that stage should be appropriate. (Tuğrul ve Feyman, 2006, s.387; Tür ve Turla, 1999, s.13; Zembat ve Unutkan, 2001, s.5).During the developmental continuum of a child at the age of 0-6, each material given to a child should be elected heedfully. The language and manner of telling and the visual components in fable books play a significant role on children?s life. The preschool period is an epoch when children?s aesthetic tastes grow and their visual build-ups start to arise. Therefore, illustrations in fable books should be well prepared and fit a child?s developmental qualities.This study investigated illustrations in fable books used in nursery schools. Depending on views of experts, the convenience of illustrations in fable books used in Kindergartens was tried to prove depending on developmental characteristics of preschool children.In this study, the document investigation method, one of the qualitative investigation methods, was performed. To obtain the data, materials consisting of 13 criteria were prepared. The scope effectiveness of the data collecting materials was ensured by taking opinions of 10 experts. Samples of this investigation were set by purposeful sampling method. The reliability of the obtained data was calculated by using the ?Percent Compatibility Formula?. By using the narrative analysis approach, the frequencies of all obtained data were identified and the data were interpreted with the help of samples from books.The samples of this study were taken from total 9 Nursery Schools, 5 government and 4 privat schools, in the center of Eskişehir used during the semesters of 2007-2008. By using the data collecting material consisting of 13 criteria, quantitative data were obtained from the investigation of these 20 fable books. This investigation was performed by using the same number of forms as the amount of illustrations in each fable book. The data collecting materials consisted of 3 options: ?Yes? ?Partly? ?No?. The investigation was made by 3 experts, including the investgator. Depending on the common views of these experts, forms were created for each illustration in the fable books. These forms were used in order to analyze the data.According to the results gained from the investigation; it was found that the right emphasis on illustrations, the harmony among illustration forms and the sufficiency of the illustration size with regard to their functioning were convenient, while the conspicuousness of illustrations on the covers of the books, the straight reflecting of characters? behaviours (gestures, mimic, feelings, etc. ) in the illustrations, the adapting of colours of illustration components to reality, the relevance of figures to places in the illustrations, the proportion among the components in the illustrations, the relevance of the illustrations on the cover of the books to the story, the relevance of the illustration to the content of the story, choice of the right illustration colours for the story, the colours of the illustrations used to attract attention of children, and the compatibility of the illustrations with the age of the children were partly suitable.