An art-based longitudinal study on reading: How do primary-school children feel while reading?

Abstract

Objective: One of the crucial indicators of being a reader throughout life is the positive and negative perceptions and feelings developed towards reading in childhood. This longitudinal research aims to determine how elementary-school children feel while reading and how they express their feelings through drawings. Moreover, the research intended to determine whether their feelings towards reading changed and developed after two years. Method: In accordance with the purpose of the study, the research was designed as a phenomenology method and conducted within the developmental research method according to the collected data. The research was carried out with 126 children from the second and fourth grade in an primary school in Inegol, one of the districts of the city Bursa and continued during the 20162017 and 2018-2019 academic years. According to an open-ended question prepared by the researchers;"Can you draw a picture about how you feel while reading a book?", the research data were collected through children's drawings. The drawings listed under the main theme "literacy" were coded within the typical facial expressions, and symbols, signs, words reflecting the emotional expressions and analyzed through calculating the frequencies based on these encodings of the drawings. Results: According to the findings, the vast majority of the children in the second grade and then also later in the fourth grade have positive feelings while reading. In the second grade, only six children and in the fourth-grade twelfth children stated that they have "different feelings" while reading. Girls drew "heart" images more than the boys when expressing their feelings in both the second and fourth grades. It was determined that approximately half of the boys and girls drew "open book" images while expressing their feelings on their readings in the second and fourth grade. There are differences according to grade levels in terms of drawing "thinking and speech bubble" images, and interestingly, in the second grade and following the fourth grade, the children wrote the names of their favourite books they have read or wanted to read in their drawings. Originality: One approach to understanding primary-school children and their experiences, feelings and inner voices is to invite them to draw pictures. When it has been discussed about the researches related to the reading skills, it is seen that the dimension that comes to the fore is not the emotions of reader but the cognitive or academic dimension of reading and the studies are mostly based on quantitative data. However no study has been found in which the feelings of primary school students' while reading are revealed through drawings. Conclusion: These results show that as the grades progresses, the positive emotions of the primary-school children continue throughout their school years; in other words, children nurture positive feelings about reading.