Enhancing the early reading skills: Examining the print features of preschool children's book

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the uses of print features in preschool children's books in the US and Turkey, in order to helping adults to understand print features and supporting children's print awareness. In this context, two hundred children's books was randomly selected from the US and Turkey. Document analysis was used for examining the children's books. For the analysis of how to use print features, this study used coding systems adapted from McCarier, Pinnel, and Fountas (2000) and Zucker, Ward, and Justice (2009). After identifying children's book literature as concept books, theme collections, rhythm's books of language, and story books, we evaluated print features of books according to six features: labeling/environmental print, visible speech, visible sound, letters in isolation, font changes, and bold or unique fonts in the coding system. Findings of this study showed that examining children's books in the US contains more print features than examining children's books in Turkey. © by the authors.