Speech and thought development as part of reader preliteracy

This diploma thesis focuses on the issues of thought and speech development in the area of reading preliteracy of preschool children. The thesis is divided into theoretical and empirical parts. The theoretical part is devoted to the issues of reading preliteracy, thought and speech development in the area of reading preliteracy, drawing attention to the risk of developing specific learning disabilities and discusses the impact of pre-school institutions on children. The empirical part is compiled based on this knowledge. The aim of the empirical part is to map the level of reading preliteracy in children aged 5 - 6 in Humpolec. Specific research questions investigate the preliteracy teaching skills of kindergarten teachers, as well as the way how teachers develop these reading skills and a range of tests for the subsequent evalution of reading preliteracy levels of children. The empirical part of the thesis combines two methods of data acquisition, questionnaire surveys and observation of children during the performance of tasks in the tests. There was a relatively good level of reading preliteracy among children aged 5 - 6, but with large individual differences among children. KEYWORDS children of preschool age, reader preliteracy, thought, speech, vocabulary, memory, attentio