Abstract:

Pedagogical diagnostics of school maturity and school readiness is one of the key topics in kindergartens in the Czech Republic. Practice from schools shows that pedagogical diagnostics of kindergarten and primary school teachers is often rather intuitive. One of the reasons is probably the unavailability of diagnostic materials, which are in the competence of each teacher. Another factor may be influenced by the conception of education, as the Czech Republic is one of the few European countries where postponements of school attendance are implemented; and for its implementation the parents need a report from the school counselling centre, i.e. from a psychologist or special pedagogue. In most European countries, a child's entry into school is linked only to a given age. This increases professional pressure on teachers and their competences in the field of pedagogical diagnostics, as teachers must be able to approach each child individually according to his/her current skills and abilities and further develop his/her potential.

There are several diagnostic materials which Czech kindergarten teachers have at their disposal. One of which is the Diagnostics of a Preschool Child by Bednářová and Šmardová (2011), which, however, does not have an evaluation standard. Another material called We prevent learning disabilities from Sindelárová (2016) is rather avoided by many teachers because, as its name suggests, it combines the concept of learning disabilities with reading and writing, i.e. with a pupil in the 3rd grade of primary school. Carefree years (Kucharská, Švancarová, 2004, 2017), another diagnostic material, maps the child's skills and abilities only partially, primarily there is the absence of language resources, however, it can be relatively newly and deeper diagnosed thanks to the material Seidlová Málková and Smolík (2015) Diagnosis of language development (this material has a population standard). In general, it can be stated that for the diagnosis of school maturity and readiness, there are very few comprehensive materials in our conditions that cover the all-round development of the child.

We present partial results of a research survey, which are focused on the evaluation of the iSophi tool by kindergarten teachers who have undergone basic training and use the tool in their practice. The subject of the research was the iSophi tool, which is used for a comprehensive diagnosis of preschool children (it focuses on a total of seven areas of the child).

The statistical processing shows that 41% of respondents worked with diagnostic tools of a similar type. Based on statistical testing (use of the chi-square test), there was no statistically significant difference in the overall evaluation of the tool between teachers with less than 5 years of experience and over 20 years of experience. All respondents would recommend the tool to their colleagues.

Keywords:

Pedagogical diagnostics, preschool child, school maturity, school readiness.