Children and Books: An Evaluation According to Piaget's Play Theory

Abstract

The child faces various educational stimuli at every stage of the life-preparation process. It is known that picture story books prepared for children are also accepted among these educational stimuli. In this context, this paper aims to examine the children's plays in pictorial story books according to Piaget's play development theory. The document analysis as a qualitative research technique was employed, and the data set of the study was determined by homogeneous sampling method. The data set of the researcher encompasses 200 illustrated story books published between 2012 and 2015, and the books with an inscription of “Recommended for 4-6 years of age". Upon examination of the books, it was found out that only 18 of the 200 illustrated storybooks contain plays. According to the result obtained from the research data set, it was also found out that the plays included in the picture story books published for the children between the ages of 4 and 6 are either plays types behind the normal development of children or beyond normal development according to Piaget's play development theory, and plays suitable for children’s play development was given only little place. Based on the findings, picture story books written for children were interpreted to be not suitable enough for children’s play development level with regard to Piaget’s play development theory.