Perception of Fiction for the Development of Personal Meaning at Senior Preschool Age

• Authors: Daina Liegeniece , Inese Freiberga
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Fiction encourages the development of a personality if children have grasped the author's idea and the value system on the level of personal meaning. The article presents a theoretical model for encouraging the development of personal meaning related to fiction at preschool age. It is based on conclusions from the areas of phenomenology, hermeneutics, social genetics, social constructivism and art pedagogy as well as studies in cognitive psychology - research in the "theories of mind" about understanding other individuals' mental states at preschool age. The structure of the model is composed of successive stages requiring an interactive introduction of a piece of fiction in a situation topical for children, with the participation of their peers and the teacher. In discussion after the perception of a piece of fiction various experiences meet, associations form, analogies in one's own experiences and those of others are discovered. The processing of the perceived data continues in productive children's activities and they become personified in narrative interconnections: in children's stories about a piece of fiction.The aim of the study is to create a theoretic model for the development of personal meaning in the perception of a fairy tale and prove its productivity by revealing the manifestation of the criteria related to personal meaning in children's stories determining their levels. The study described in the article has been carried out in two stages: the aim of Stage 1 is to create a model for the development of personal meanings in perceiving fairy tales; the aim of Stage 2 is to investigate the productivity of the model for the development of personal meanings and work out criteria for the manifestation of personal meanings in children's stories generalizing them in levels of personal meaning development.Materials and methods include content analysis of stories narrated by children aged 5-6. After analysing the acquired data it is possible to single out several criteria and indicators for the manifestation of personal meaning as well as the levels of personal meaning in perceiving fairy tales. When summarizing the results, it can be concluded that the involvement of a fairy tale into a context topical for children, its interactive perception and social interaction with peers and an adult in a discussion, as well as the portrayal of the perceived information in a productive activity, encourages the development of personal meaning. This proves that fiction may encourage self-regulation of senior preschool children in their relationships with peers that are based on the intentions, experience and understanding of the situation as well as empathy of the other peers.

Keywords

EN

personal meaning; social interaction; interactive perception of a fairy tale; meaningful verbal units; transformation of experience; depth of fairy tale perception; content analysis of children's stories

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Ad verba liberorum
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 62-78

Dates

published

2010-12-01

online

2012-08-21

Contributors

author

Daina Liegeniece

• Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy, Liepāja University

author

Inese Freiberga

• Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy, Liepāja University

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10196-011-0019-9