Reading is of the utmost importance since it helps develop other important linguistic abilities and competences that influence the development of individual’s literacy. The family has a primary role in developing a positive attitude towards reading. It impacts the child's motivation and interest in reading in early childhood. During this period, one of the most important activities is reading out loud to children, which creates an active reading process. Parents are the ones that should introduce books to their children and provide them with quality reading materials. Recently, personalized books have become popular in children's literature. They allow you to alter the name of the main character, its appearance and the book’s content to match the child’s interests. Foreign research show that personalized books have a positive impact on the emotional responses of children and parents and help increase the interest and motivation for reading.
The research part of the master's thesis focuses on the impact of “Hooray Heroes” (Mali junaki) personalized books on the development of family reading. In the first part of the empirical research, the results of a quantitative survey were used to explore the user experience of parents, which are already familiar with personalized books, and research whether they feel personalized books influence the child’s interest in reading. The second part of the thesis was a qualitative survey that included three families and researched the way personalized books influence emotional, verbal and non-verbal responses of children while reading. It also explored the opinion of parents and children on personalized books, and whether they feel those books have a positive impact on developing family reading habits and reading motivation.
The results of the empirical part show that parents feel more involved in the process of family reading when they are able to actively participate in the creation of personalized books. Moreover, personalized books influence the emotional and verbal responses of children while reading, improve reading motivation and develop family reading habits. The parents participating in the qualitative research confirmed that those were the things that made children more interested in the books: the name of the main character, their graphic image and personalized illustrations. The parents confirmed that personalized books improve reading motivation, contain educational content and encourage reading in a home environment. They believe that children are more concentrated due to personalized elements in the book.
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