Abstract

Fairy tale is one of the most important genres in literature which reflects childish sensitivity, feeds child’s soul, enriches his/her imagination and prepares him/her for the future. Emerging as product of oral literature, fairy tales were used as an instrument of training in the past and they still have the same function today. Educators think that fairy tale is important for contribution to children’s linguistic skills, mental and spiritual development. It enriches the imaginative world of the child, feeds spirit of the children and prepares them for the future.  Fairy tales are also important in that they indicate the strength of language and contribute to development of artistic language development of the child. This study was conducted during 2013-2014 academic year in order to find out the attitudes of secondary school students towards fairy tales. The survey questions and attitude scale prepared by the author were administered to 387 students in four secondary schools predetermined in Kars and AÄŸrı provinces. The students studying at Grades 5, 7 and 8 in secondary school are sampling groups of the study. With this study, the students’ attitude for the effect of fairy tales on linguistic skills, vocabulary, Turkish course and human behaviors was discovered. In addition, it was also studied whether or not gender and classroom factors are important in respect to students' attitude towards fairy tales. The data of the study were analyzed by use of SPSS statistic program. The study has indicated that fairy tales create an affirmative effect on students.

Key words: Fairy tales, children literature, education, folk literature education, legend, Turkish education.