Based on a retrospective analysis of the academic discourse of several decades, the article shows that the term
 “speech competence” has not received a commonly accepted definition, especially when it comes to the preschool age.
 The study conducted by the authors has made it possible to determine the phenomenological characteristics of the preschoolers’
 speech competence, considering it as a dynamic integral personal quality, manifested in the ability and willingness
 to successfully listen, perceive and reproduce information, be engaged in conversation, express personal opinions
 and points of view in the oral form in accordance with the age norm. Its lexical, phonological, grammatical, dialogical
 and monological functional components have been identified and defined subject to pedagogical impact. These components
 contain operational characteristics of the speech competence of preschoolers. The speech competence of preschool
 children includes also the following meta-components: awareness of the ways and means of speech interaction; adequacy
 of selection of available speech skills, their application in speech activity; orientation in a communication situation;
 complex, variable and creative application of speech and non-speech means in accordance with the set goal. Following
 the internal structure of the speech competence of preschool children in the educational process should make it more
 systematic and the results of this process easier to measure in their complex, integrative wholeness.