Abstrakt: | This article focuses on the currently highly topical issue of the assessment
of children’s readiness for schooling. The process by which a child
arrives at the level of maturity required to commence schooling is an extremely
complicated one. If there are indications that the child is not yet
ready to start their school career, then a diagnostic assessment of their
strengths and weaknesses in all possible areas should be carried out. On
this basis it is possible to take steps to ensure that the child compensates
for any gaps in their competencies, and one may consider delaying the
implementation of compulsory education. The starting point for this text
is an inner need to share the author’s experiences and reflections about
the above topic. In the second half of the school year 2013/2014, our psychological
and pedagogical consulting service experienced a major surge
in the number of parents who wanted their children to be examined –
children who, it was expected, would be sent to school from September
2014 onwards, as required by law. Above all, these included parents of
children born in the first half of 2008. In many cases, the fears of such
parents turned out to be justified. However, it was also the case that seeing
a pedagogue and a psychologist allowed them to prepare their pre-school children more effectively for the new challenges awaiting them.
This text presents the results of research into the assessment of children’s
readiness to attend schooling. It points out the particular areas in which
the subjects who were assessed had difficulties. The research involved took
account of knowledge and competence in respect of both large and smallscale
motor skills, visual and auditory analysis, language and pronunciation,
and mathematics. It also included the sphere of social-emotional
competencies. The assessment of lateralization was an important point.
Our research exposed numerous areas in which at least some of the children
had yet to reach a state of full and proper readiness for schooling.
The article aims to highlight the responsibility that those engaged in making
such assessments should be seen as having, with regard to safeguarding
the future well-being of the children in question. |