Phonological Competence Levels in Children from Traditional and Montessori Preschools

Abstract

Phonetic sensitivity constitutes a crucial component of general competencies that facilitate the effective acquisition of various skills and form the foundation for the development of phonological competence in a given language. As children mature, their ability to accurately discern phonological elements improves notably. Well-developed phonemic awareness enables children to comprehend words and distinguish syllables and phonemes within phonetic sequences—an essential foundation for acquiring reading and writing skills. Consequently, it is worthwhile to examine the development of phonological competence in children attending Montessori and traditional preschools in order to determine whether significant differences emerge in the their word analysis and synthesis between the two groups.

This study aimed to compare phonological competence in terms of phoneme and syllable analysis and synthesis between children attending traditional preschools and those enrolled in Montessori preschools. Irena Styczek’s test was employed to assess auditory word analysis and synthesis.

The research, conducted among children from three age groups in both traditional and Montessori preschools, revealed statistically significant differences in five areas: identifying the consonant in the final position of a word, recognizing the initial consonant-vowel structure, distinguishing the final vowel, and performing both phoneme analysis and synthesis. The findings demonstrated that children from Montessori preschools outperformed their peers from traditional preschools across all age groups, highlighting the important role of Montessori developmental materials and targeted exercises play in building phonological competence, particularly in auditory analysis and synthesis.