The thesis is titled Interpretative Reading and Questioning After Reading in the Preschool Period and is divided into a theoretical and an empirical part.
The key findings of the theoretical part pertain to the field of language in the Curriculum for Kindergartens, which is closely interconnected with other areas and significantly influences the child's holistic development. At the same time, it defines objectives that assist in planning activities within this domain. In reading and reading-related activities, the child's developmental stage and age are crucial factors, ensuring that the positive effects of reading reach the child, expand their imagination, thinking, emotions, experience of the text, and perception of the world. The educator's example plays a vital role, guiding the child into the literary world within the kindergarten environment. The educator must strive to complement logical reading with an emotional component, thereby transforming reading into an interpretative experience. This type of reading enables a deeper engagement with the conveyed story, and the quality of such reading is reflected in an understanding of its significance, the use of its key elements, and the observance of the phases of literary text interpretation. Children's experiences and thoughts can be effectively assessed and expanded through questioning, where it is essential to pose primarily open-ended questions at higher taxonomic levels, with Bloom’s classification of questions serving as a useful framework.
In the empirical part, I conducted semi-structured interviews with five preschool educators from Vrtec Trbovlje who worked with the second age group (children aged 3 to 6 years) to explore their attitudes towards interpretative reading and questioning in practice. The findings reveal that educators are highly aware of the significance of this field and incorporate it into their work in diverse ways. With years of experience, their appreciation of these areas does not diminish, although they require less time for preparation. They consider high-quality interpretation of all literary works to be important, and they generally prepare for it, taking into account the key elements and phases of presenting texts to children. After reading, they engage in questioning across all levels of complexity, predominantly using open-ended questions that foster higher-order thinking. Based on the collected responses and best practices, I formulated guidelines to assist preschool educators in planning activities related to reading, reading activities, interpretative reading, and questioning at various levels of complexity.
|
