Gejala kecemasan saat melakukan perawatan ke dokter gigi dapat terjadi pada anak-anak. Pemberian informasi dapat berpengaruh positif terhadap penurunan kecemasan, salah satunya dapat dilakukan secara
vicarious learning melalui observasi model. Karakter tokoh dalam buku menjadi media yang tepat sebagai model karena membaca buku merupakan aktivitas bercerita paling populer dalam program anak usia dini. Proses pembacaan buku secara
reading aloud dengan teknik
dialogic reading membuat siswa aktif sehingga membantu proses belajar melalui interaksi sosial dengan teman sebaya dan guru.
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menurunkan kecemasan terhadap dokter gigi pada anak usia 4-6 tahun yang baru pertama kali ke dokter gigi (N=61) melalui aktivitas membaca buku bersama. Alat ukur yang digunakan adalah
Venham Picture Tests (
VPT)
. Desain penelitian ini adalah
One group pre-test post-test design dengan
follow up 1 minggu. Hasil analisa penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kegiatan membaca buku bersama dapat menurunkan kecemasan secara signifikan pada anak usia 4-6 tahun yang baru pertama kali ke dokter gigi.
Anxiety could occur to children while going to dentist for treatment. Informing children about dental procedure could help to reduce anxiety. Informing about dental treatment is a learning process, one process could be done through vicarious learning by model observation. Characters in book could be transform to a right media as model, because reading books is the most popular story telling activity in early childhood education. Reading book by reading aloud with dialogic reading make student active, that increases learning process by social interaction with their same age friends and teacher. This research is aim to reduce anxiety for 4-6 years old (N=61) children going to dentist for their first time through reading a book together activity. Test scale use is Venham Picture Test (VPT). The research design is One group pre-test post-test design with follow up after 1 week in the form of dental check-up. Books title used on this activity called Cat and Dentist, and its main characters courage to undergo dental check-up. Book was read by their teacher three times. Analysis result shows that through reading book together activity could lower anxiety toward dentist significantly for children of 4-6 years old that go to dentist first time.