An investigation of the relationship between 60-72 month-old children's attention abilities and their geometry and phonological awareness skilss (A sample from Afyonkarahisar)

The aim of this researchis to investigate the relationships among the attention abilities of 60-72-month-old children and their geometry and phonological awareness skills. The accessible population of the research, which has a correlational survey desing, consists of 60-72-month-old children attending kindergartens and nursery schools in Afyonkarahisar in the 2018-2019 academic year. The sample of the researchwas 347 children among 60-72-month-old children attending upper-, middle- and lower-level socioeconomic schools randomly selected. As data collection tools, the "General Information Form" was used to collect demographical data about the children and their parents, the "Frankfurter Attention Test" developed by Raatz and Möhling in 1971 adapted to Turkish children by Gözüm (2017) to determine children's attention levels, the "Early Geometry Skills Test" developed by Sezer (2015) to measurechildren's geometry skills, and the "Early Literacy Skills Assessment Tool" developed by Karaman and Güngör Aytar (2016) to measurechildren's phonological awareness skills. According to the findings, it was revealed that children's attention skills were high, and their geometry and phonological awareness skills were low. Children's attention skills significantly predicted geometry and phonological awareness skills. It was observed that there was a positive and moderately significant relationship between children's phonological awareness skills and early geometry skills. According to the gender variable, the relationship between children's geometry skills and phonological awareness skills was positive and high in boys while it was found to be in a positive and medium level in girls. The relationship among the parents' education level and children's geometry skills and phonological awareness skills were found to be positively and moderately for those whose education level was secondary school and below and those whose education level was high school and university whereas it was concluded that there was a positive and high level of relationship in the group whose parents had graduate education. Keywords: Attention ability, geometry skills, phonological awareness skills, 60-72-month-old children, pre-school education