Pre-literacy skills are skills the development of which serves as a basis for literacy. Fostering these skills involves both physical and cognitive preparation of the child. The previous studies show that literacy depends on the amount of reading and writing that a child was given at the preschool age, and on the encouragement the child received from the adult environment. Parents and educators play a very important role in raising the awareness of the importance of reading together in bot, the parental and kindergarten environment. It is therefore of great importance that enough time is devoted to this phase in child’s life and to this topic. The development of literacy begins even before school enrolment. The child receives its first pre-literacy experiences in the family and in kindergarten, where it listens to the parents and teachers reading fairy tales and sees how something is written down and read. The beginnings of Montessori pedagogy go back to the 20th century. The founder was Maria Montessori, who believed that education is important for the whole society. She wanted to keep the individual course of development in the child. She listened to the individuals and adjusted the environment for them. She combined three elements necessary for children's upbringing: the child himself, the teacher/educator and the adapted environment.
The purpose of this master's thesis was to present pre-literacy activities in public kindergartens and in Montessori kindergartens in Slovenia. In the theoretical part, we presented the types of literacy. We focused on the development of pre-literacy and reading skills in public kindergartens and Montessori kindergarten in Slovenia and abroad. In the empirical part, we compared literacy in the concepts mentioned above. We presented how the pre-literacy of each kindergarten influences the development of the child's graphomotor skills, and what differences there are between the children, aged 4 and 5, from the mentioned kindergartens. In order to deepen the whole work, we developed the graphomotor set Mihliš22, which serves to promote graphomotor skills. The set consists of exercises for a two-month program, exercise instructions, the Mihliš22 test and a rating scale, and the test instructions. The graphomotor set includes five areas for graphomotor improvement.
Despite the small representative sample, our research shows that there are similarities and differences in pre-literacy skills in the Montessori kindergarten compared to the public kindergarten. The results indicate that the Montessori concept introduces certain peculiarities into the preschool period. Some of these have benefits that translate into results. It would be useful to include them in the pre-school period in general. However, the public kindergartens have certain advantages in the development of pre-literacy skills, too.
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