Özet:

In this study, it was aimed to reveal the awareness of prospective classroom teachers about children's books, who took the Children's Literature course, which is an elective course in the Department of Classroom Education, and those who did not. The participants of the study, which adopted the "case study" approach, one of the qualitative research designs, are 113 teacher candidates in total who continue their education in the 2nd grade in the Department of Classroom Education in the Faculties of Education of two different state universities. Since the data were collected before January 2020, there is no ethics committee approval. In the study, a semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers was used as a data collection tool. Content analysis, one of the qualitative data analysis techniques, was used in the analysis of the data. When the research findings are examined, it has been determined that the prospective classroom teachers who take the Children's Literature course have a good level of awareness about the educational features of children's books, the qualities to be considered when recommending a book, and the formal and content features that the books should have. It was observed that the awareness levels of the primary school teacher candidates who did not take the course in terms of the mentioned criteria were above the expected. At this point, parents and especially teachers have important responsibilities in choosing and recommending children's books, which play a major role in liking reading and gaining reading habits. For this reason, it is very important for both teachers and teacher candidates to know the features that qualified children's books should have and to have an awareness at a level to recommend books to students. However, it is recommended that the Children's Literature course be included in the program as a compulsory course instead of an elective course.

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