In my diploma, I focused on the pre-school educators’ opinions about the role of a picture book in the speech development of a pre-school child. My diploma work is divided into two parts: theoretical and empirical. In theoretical part I first define language and speech, then I continue with the development of speech. I also mention the internal and outside factors that influence on the development of pre-school children's language. In the following, I describe the child's processing of literary texts, where I define the linguistic and pragmatic capability, pre-reading and pre-writing periods and list some key periods that are important for understanding the child's development of text processing. I defined a picture book, its characteristics and the role in the speech development of a pre-school child.
I contracted theoretical part with a presentation of criteria for choosing the appropriate literary text and some reading methods that can be used in both kindergartens and schools as well as at home.
In an empirical part, I study the opinions of teachers about the role of a picture book in the speech development of pre-school development using an anonymous questionnaire. The study included 33 pre-school educators of the first and the second level of educating. The second one performed quantitatively. The results are presented in graphs, tables and descriptively, supported on home and foreign professional and scientific literature. The analysis shows the educators belief that the picture book influences the development of the pre-school child's language development and that the use of them in the pre-school period seems to be very important. In the group they read to the children three times a week average, mostly picture books with text and without text. Everyone is aware of the fact that the stimulating environment, interaction with adults and peers, and reading are of key importance for children's language development. Because of the last parents are encouraged to read the children at home, as they have confirmed that differences in speech development are seen between the same old children where parents read and where parents don’t read them at home. Professional workers involved in the survey also mention various ways of using a picture book in the first and the second age period and how to use the picture book with text or without text. With my research I confirmed my assumptions about the role of a picture book in the speech development of a pre-school child and I also received insights into how many and how do the educators interact with the picture books, whether they know the domestic and foreign authors of the picture book, and with which areas, according to the Curriculum, most often associate the use of a picture book.
|