Language Testing in Focus: An International Journal

One of the fundamental goals of the Croatian language teaching of elementary school children is the mastering of communication competence that also includes the development of lexical competencies, i.e. mastering the dictionary. Also, research shows that a school-age child learns 500 to 700 new words during the year. However, research shows that the development of dictionaries is influenced by numerous linguistic but also discharging factors. Given that the adoption and learning of the language depends on cognitive abilities, equally cognitive abilities will also affect the development of a children's dictionary, that is, its width and depth. Therefore, the cognitive abilities of the students of two other grades of one primary school will be examined, and then a test of lexical competences and a productive dictionary test will be performed. The results obtained processed in the SPSS program for statistics. Children of higher cognitive abilities are expected to have a wider dictionary, that is, a better lexical density and diversity. These results compared with respect to gender, school success and parents' education. Children of educated parents showed better cognitive abilities and better lexical competence, and girls had better results on the lexical competence test compared to boys.