Taikahattu ja hopeakengät - sadun maailmaa : lapsi päiväkodissa sadun kuulijana, näkijänä ja kokijana

My purpose in this study was to exlore what meaning and significance a fairy tale presented to a typical kindergarten group might have. The subjects were four children in a kindergarten group of 4-7-year-olds. “Meaning” refers here to the sense of something, some object or phenomenon, for someone in some situation. Three of the children were considered to have emotional difficulties, and one child had not manifested anything that was not considered normal. My purpose was also to draw conclusions as to whether the children could cope with and handle their real-life experiences by means of the metaphors offered by a fairy tale, whether they might find some solutions to their problems in this way, and thus perhaps enrich and enhance their personal lives. Should the fairy tale change their thinking patterns in a positive way, it would be labelled therapeutic. The term “fairy tale” refers here to stories which include some logic of the impossible, namely magic objects and supernatural characters and phenomena. My ontological approach was based on existential phenomenology, and within this framework on the holistic concept of man. The epistemological solutions had their roots in philosophy, psychology, educational science, and literary science. The research data were gathered over the period of autumn 1995 and spring 1996 through participatory observation and video and audiorecording of the presentation (e.g. reading aloud, dramatizing, etc.) of the longish story about the Wizard of Oz. Additional data were gathered from other story-telling sessions that I arranged for the four children included in the study. The research findings show that one of the children with emotional difficulties was not able to understand the story of the Wizard of Oz or any other imaginary stories at the level that would have enabled him to express themes of the story either through drawings or verbally. Comprehension of fairy tale meanings presupposes that the sense of the story gains some status or function in the child’s world picture. The three other children had reached the cognitive level required to make the story accessible, and when they concentrated on it they were also able to understand its messages. These children could both explain verbally and draw pictures of the fairy tale events. Thus, they also had the opportunity to transfer the messages and the experiences of the characters into their own life situations. In this way their life was enriched and thinking patterns changed in a positive wa