Abstract
Th e article focuses on one of the subtests taken from a complex diagnostic battery which was compiled in the 1970s by a team of psychologists led by Russian L. A.
Venger, with the purpose of evaluating the overall psychological development of preschool children. Venger's subtest of drawing patterns in response to dictation, which was originally created to test some assumptions that aff ect readiness for school, can now be considered as one of the diagnostic tools for identifying diffi culties with executive functions which play a key role in literacy acquisition.
The presented methodology has been validated on a sample of 176 Slovak-speaking 6-year-old children in Bratislava kindergartens. Th e results obtained are compared with the validation data from Czech authors, who, in the 1980s, tried to develop the methodology for a screening tool for diagnosing school readiness.