Designing Methods of Interactive Cognitive Books and Promoting the Creativity in Preschool Children

Problem solving, creative and critical thinking are among the most important skills in today advanced world. This research intends to investigate the components of creative thinking and problem solving methods in designing methods of interactive books with cognitive approach in order to upgrade the creativity of children in preschool level. In this research, attempts were made to propose appropriate principles of designing interactive books and at the same time, investigate the impact of designing methods of these books in relation to promoting the level of children’s creativity in preschool level. The research method of this study is descriptive and analytic and the results are collected through library and field studies over 120 Iranian 4-5 years old boys and girls at preschool level 1 & 2 in two kindergartens using random sampling method. According to the results of this study, it is important in the design process of these books to generate creativity in design and illustration. Hiding complex concepts in book illustrations, paying attention to the cognitive skills of the preschool age group and purposeful design considering different stages of cognitive and psychological development of the children should be taken into account and necessarily, the idea of the book must involve the child with the subject in question in a certain way in order to challenge his/her mind and respond to many of his/her needs from various aspects such as social, educational, moral and emotional aspects. Paying attention to characterization in illustration and more using of unconventional elements, the structure of composition and surreal spaces in addition to realism enhances cognitive skills, question formation, ideation and creative thinking of children. Interaction of the children with their surroundings may take place in different ways, including Dynamic Interaction, Touch and Feel Interaction, Visual Interaction, Speech Interaction and Cognitive Interaction.  Interactive books can interact with children in different ways. These books encourage the audience to react to the book and by including many visual dimensions they help to the development of child’s abilities. These books also establish the spirit of interaction in children and by introducing new models can enhance the process of thinking. By using these books you can enhance the sense of aesthetics, creativity and level of visual literacy in children and help their cognitive development. By analyzing the visual characteristics of the images of interactive books we can understand that whatever the subject matter of interactive books for promoting the creativity of the children is closer to the experiences and concerns of the children’s life, they can communicate with the story better and better understand the concepts. The illustrations of these books are capable of enhancing the creative thinking skills of the children. Given the results of conversation with children and studying their paintings and also their feedback to the selected books, it can be concluded that paying attention to personality in illustration and more use of unconventional elements, structure of the composition and creating surreal space along with the realism can lead to formation of the questions, idea making and creative thinking. For this purpose, knowing the child audience and the stages of his/her cognitive development is essential. This research attempts to express the methods, criteria and processes of creative thinking and interactive books design practices in order to increase the cognitive skills and learning abilities with regard to cognitive development of the children. This article consists of four sections. First, it studies child psychology, creative thinking, cognitive development and learning and then, deals with interaction and interactive books. Third part deals with the way of designing these books for promotion of creative skills and in the fourth part, it includes a practical research on preschool children which is a field study that is performed to examine the level of children’s creativity while facing with interactive cognitive books. The results of the study of interactive books and their impact on the process of learning and promoting the creativity of the children show that coordination between images and written elements and their impact on what the child imagines and builds in her/his mind, helps the process of learning. Creativity requires learning and practice and seeing and interacting are the best ways of learning. Moreover, the results of this study show that in many cases, learning process in interactive books happens through the interaction between the characters of the book with each other and also with the cognitive image that children make of these characters in their minds. To achieve this goal, it is required that interaction and level of the story be in line with each other.