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Factors of children's school readiness
Ljubica Marjanovič Umek, Urška Fekonja & Katja Bajc
Full text (pdf) | Views: 46 | Written in Slovene. | Published: December 21, 2006
Abstract: The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of preschool on children's school readiness in connection with their intellectual abilities, language competence, and parents' education. The sample included 219 children who were 68 to 83 months old and were attending the first year of primary school. Children were differentiated by whether or not they had attended preschool before starting school. Children's intellectual ability was determined using Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM; Raven, Raven, & Court, 1999), language competence using the Lestvice splošnega govornegarazvoja–LJ (LSGR–LJ, Scales of General Language Development; Marjanovič Umek, Kranjc, Fekonja in Bajc, 2004), and school readiness with the Preizkus pripravljenosti za šolo (PPŠ, Test of School Readiness; Toličič, 1986). The results indicate that children's intellectual ability and language competence have a high predictive value for the school readiness — they explained 51% of the variance in children's scores on the PPŠ. Preschool enrollment has a positive effect on school readiness for children whose parents have a low level of education, but not for those whose parents are highly educated.
Keywords: school readiness, kindergartens, verbal competence, cognitive ability, parent educational background
