Article

The Effects of an Expressive Activities Program Using Picture Books on the Literacy Abilities of Children from Multi-cultural Families

Author

최나야

Information

pp. 45~63 / 2012 Vol.19 No.2

Abstract

This study was conducted to verify the effects of an expressive activities program using picture books on the literacy abilities of multi-cultural children. Fifteen second and third grade elementary school students from multi-cultural families in Bucheon participated in this program. Their reading and writing abilities were tested before and after the whole program and compared with the scores of peers from low income families. The participants explored the texts and representation techniques of selected picture books and created their own picture books over 16 weeks. The results of Mann-whitney-U test and Wilcoxon signed- rank test are as follows. Before the program was implemented, multi-cultural children showed lower reading fluency, reading comprehension, and dictation scores than the comparative group. After the whole session was complete, however, the experimental group had significantly improved in terms of their reading fluency and reading comprehension. They had therefore they caught up with the comparative group in two reading abilities, despite a gap persisting in dictation scores. In conclusion, an expressive activities program using picture books is an effective method, especially for improving the reading abilities of multi- cultural children.

Keywords