The Meaning of Learning by Young Children’s Encountering the Signs in Picturebook Play Spaces

Objectives This study was to explore the meaning of learning by young children’s encountering the signs in picturebook play spaces. Methods The free-play related with picturebook of 38 five-year-old children (21 boys and 17 girls) at A daycare center located in K city were observed for about 8 months from November 2, 2020 to July 30, 2021.. The children’s narratives accompanied in the picturebook play spaces were transcribed and analyzed in qualitative ways, of which analysis were supported by the data of interviews, the field notes and researcher diaries. Results The meaning of learning by young children’s encountering the signs of picturebook play spaces is, first, the moment of entanglement due to the connection with signs, which leads the children to keep learning through inter-wining imagination and signs, creating difference among the images, and orchestrating transformation and merging the plays. Second, the opening strength for the learning, in which the children take the lead in the learning through an endless desire for expression and through challenges and experiments in their own risk. Conclusions The children keep forming new learnings with their own unique ways, in which they attend and reflect on at the moment of encountering the signs, and they explore the entanglement of desires and challenges. This suggests that young children are empowered beings who can unlock the full power of growth and change.