Children's Reading Environments and Reading Education Are Represented in Picture Books
Hyun, Eunja, Sungkyunkwan University
Kim, Hyeonkyeong, Sungkyunkwan University
Lee, Minju, Sungkyunkwan University
Kang, Jungmi, Sungkyunkwan University
1. INTRODUCTION
1) Children and reading
People read books for various purposes. Generally, the reasons for reading are as follows: first, reading evokes
curiosity and sensibility; second, reading helps the reader build good viewpoints and enhances the personality;
third, reading broadens the reader’s experiences and strengthens the willingness to realize one’s goals; fourth,
reading makes the reader explore information and use it to create knowledge; and fifth, reading has therapeutic
value (Lee, Eun-ha, 2006).
First of all, people love to read for pleasure. Readers in post-modern society are increasingly reading for
pleasure. Today, readers aren’t passive, only listening to the author’s voice. Rather, they try to speak with the
author and take an active part in constructing the contents. In the ‘world of the text’, there is not only the
author’s voice, but also the reader’s voice (Tierney, Robert j. & Gee, Michael, 1990, pp.197-209). That is to say,
the reader is not just soaking in the author’s thought, but participates in the author’s work (Frank Smith,
“Learning to read like a writer”, 1984 from Tierney, Robert j. & Gee, Michael, 1990). Also, authors want to
interact with readers and want readers to make up the meaning more actively. When this happens and both
author and reader pursue the pleasure of reading, reading becomes similar to ‘play’. As if the author and the
reader are playing each other, each accepts reading as a pleasure, and scholars explain this as the theory of
‘inter-textuality’.
So then, what do children think about reading books? According to studies, elementary school students mainly
answered that they read books to get some information and knowledge (Kim, Soon-ja, 2006). It is similar for
infants and preschoolers. Most young c