Abstract:

The topic of visual communication in education and the application of visual aids in the education of students from different courses of study continue to be very relevant. In Bulgaria, especially for primary school pupils, the illustrative element is increasingly used in foreign language teaching. Images accompany literary texts and help their perception and are used to provoke creative thinking and writing in children. The illustrations in the textbooks and books on natural and social sciences clearly present and inform about natural, cultural and other objects from the real world. In mathematics, it has an important role to play in helping to learn numbers and solve problems.

The illustrated books accompany the everyday life of adolescents outside the school process. Even before they learn to read, children love to look at illustrations in children's books and when adults read to them they actively participate in the process of reading and listening. The children study the illustrations in the book, and thus get to know the characters, the environment in which the action takes place, and at the same time watch the connection with the text. The responsibility of book illustrators and publishers is great. Sometimes the child may be disappointed with the illustrations and do not want to read a book because of them. On the other hand, parents and adults who bring up, communicate and educate the child need to select the illustrated books according to age, to assess whether the literary texts are appropriate and to be able to assess the artistic merits of the book. Illustrations in fairy tale books are not always suitable for the little ones. Adults very often buy and give their children books with illustrations from their childhood, but will a modern child appreciate them as an adult when he was a child. There are no unambiguous answers to these questions, because every child perceives the world differently. From an early age, the character, preferences, tastes, and rates of perception are formed, which in each of them are individual, although sometimes similar, as it is with adults.

In the present text the results of a study conducted on children in primary school from schools in Bulgaria are presented and analyzed. The survey presents children's views on the illustrated books. It addresses issues such as: whether illustrations help them in reading and perceiving texts, what are their aesthetic preferences for illustrations, do they stimulate their creative processes for writing and drawing, etc. Apart from the point of view of each child who has participated in the study, the results take into account the greater similarities and differences in the answers to some of the questions, which may outline certain trends in some directions, and others, determine a purely individual approach to perception and evaluation of the illustrations. The results would be useful to guide adults in the way the modern child perceives and relates to the illustrated book.

Keywords:

Illustrated book, children's book, primary education, research.