CHILDREN'S ABILITIES IN THE AREAS OF COMPARISON, ARRANGEMENT AND WORK WITH A WHOLE

Comparison of objects, their arrangement and work with a whole and its parts are among activities that children at 3-6 years of age should be able to deal with. A pilot study took place in severals nursery schools in the Czech Republic, whose aim was to assess the skill level of children of four age categories (three-, four-, five- and six-year-old children) in the areas of object comparison, object arrangement and work with a whole. Three different activities of increasing difficulty were prepared for each of these areas. Children thus solved nine tasks in the course of three weeks. Tasks focused on inherent comparison (finding differences in pictures), basic comparison (comparison of weight), chronological arrangement (arrangement of cards with pictures according to time progression), qualitative arrangement (arrangement of objects according to weight), composition (assembling a picture from its parts), completing (finishing a half-drawn picture) and reproduction (construction of toy bricks according to a printed plan). Teaching aids or work sheets were created for these tasks. Experiment was carried out by observing children completing single activities. A video record and photodocumentation of the activities were made. Based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of the pilot study it was discovered that for the examined sample of children, the most difficult activities were arrangement and orientation in time. Comparison appeared to be the least difficult activity.