The Effects of NTC Methods on Vocabulary Acquisition  in Preschool Children

Ranko Rajović; Katarina Aladrović Slovaček; Mirna Kovačić

doi:10.23947/2334-8496-2026-14-2-331-341

Authors

Ranko Rajović Faculty of Pedagogy, University of Primorska, Slovenia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5319-0958
Katarina Aladrović Slovaček The Faculty for Teacher Education University of Zagreb, Croatia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0706-9436
Mirna Kovačić Kindergarten Nova Gradiška, Zvončić Branch Office, Nova Kapela, Croatia https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8803-8899

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23947/2334-8496-2026-14-2-331-341

Keywords:

early childhood, vocabulary development, lexical-semantic development, educational intervention

Abstract

Introduction/Objective: Lexical development in early childhood is important for later literacy and academic success. This experimental study investigated the effectiveness of the NTC (Nikola Tesla Center) learning system, a pedagogical approach integrating movement, associative thinking, and play, on mother tongue vocabulary acquisition in preschool-age children. Methodology: A pre-test/post-test control group design was employed with 40 children (aged 22–34 months; 20 boys and 20 girls), equally divided into experimental and control groups. Participants completed a 20-item picture vocabulary test at three time points: initial, middle, and final. During four weeks, the experimental group participated in 12 NTC-based workshops involving motor-cognitive polygons, riddles, and associations, while the control group received standard curricular activities covering the same concepts. Due to non-normal data distribution, non-parametric statistics were used. Results: Groups did not differ significantly at initial testing (p > .05). Significant improvement over time was found for 19 of 20 target words in the experimental group (p < .05). The experimental group also demonstrated significantly greater vocabulary gains than the control group (p < .05), particularly for initially less familiar concepts, including iron, garlic, hyacinth, and nail. Progress was independent of age and gender, while dialectal forms were frequently replaced with standard forms by final testing. Conclusion: The findings suggest that integrating movement, associative thinking, and cognitive challenges may support vocabulary acquisition in early childhood. The greatest progress on less familiar words indicates potential benefits for deeper semantic learning. NTC-based activities may therefore represent a useful pedagogical approach for supporting lexical development and standard language competence in preschool children.

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