The diploma thesis entitled “Speech and Language Activities in Kindergarten during the Covid-19 Pandemic” consists of a theoretical and an empirical work.
In the theoretical part, I defined the notion of speech and language. I focused on the speech-language development of the preschool child and recorded the key milestones in the speech development of the preschool child. In addition to speech development, I was interested in the promotion of the child's speech-language area, how the language area is defined in the national document Curriculum for Kindergartens - how the language area is structured, what the tasks of the educator are, language activities, etc. I also wrote down the role of the kindergarten and the role of the adult in the development of the child's speech. I touched on the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, where I wrote down some basic information. I was also interested in how kindergartens functioned during the Covid-19 pandemic and how educators and parents promoted speech and language activities during the pandemic in Slovenia and in other countries. Finally, I presented recommendations on speech and language activities in kindergartens during the covid-19 pandemic.
The purpose of the thesis was to find out how educators developed the speech-language development of preschool children during the epidemic of Covid-19 and whether parents prepared a variety of activities or developed the child's speech area during the epidemic. To carry out the empirical work, I designed two questionnaires. The first one was addressed to preschool teachers and the second one to parents of preschool children. The survey was administered to 100 preschool teachers and 100 parents of preschool children. The survey was carried out over a period of 2 months.
The results of the survey showed that the epidemic did not contribute to the development of the preschool child's speech development and that the quality of development was impaired. Although most of the respondents had organized various activities for the children to develop their speech, it all depended on various factors. Most of the parents and educators interviewed used different ways of cooperation during the epidemic, which did not depend on the age of the child, the parents, the educators, and the seniority of the educators. Most of the respondents were aware of the importance of developing speech during the epidemic, as they prepared
different speech and language activities such as reading books, picture books, singing songs, etc.
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