Features of play activities of senior preschool age
At this stage of development of the game, word and deed come together, and role-playing behavior becomes a model of relationships between people that are meaningful to children. The stage of the actual role-playing game begins, in which the players simulate the labor and social relations of people familiar to them.
A scientific understanding of the stage-by-stage development of play activity makes it possible to develop clearer, systematized recommendations for guiding the play activities of children in different age groups.
In order to achieve a genuine, emotionally rich game, including an intellectual solution to a game problem, the teacher needs to comprehensively guide the formation, namely: purposefully enrich the child’s practical experience, gradually transferring it into a conventional game plan, and during independent games, encourage the preschooler to creatively reflect reality.
The game is dynamic where the management is aimed at its gradual formation, taking into account those factors that ensure the timely development of gaming activity at all age levels. Here it is very important to rely on the child’s personal experience. Game actions formed on its basis acquire a special emotional overtones. Otherwise, learning to play becomes mechanical. Emotions cement the game, make it exciting, create a favorable climate for relationships, increase the tone that every child needs - a share of his mental comfort, and this, in turn, becomes a condition for the preschooler’s receptivity to educational actions and joint activities with peers.
All components of a comprehensive guide to the formation of play are interconnected and equally important when working with children. As children grow older, the organization of their practical experience also changes, which is aimed at actively learning the real relationships between people in the process of joint activities. In this regard, the content of educational games and the conditions of the subject-game environment are updated. The emphasis of activating communication between adults and children shifts: it becomes businesslike, aimed at achieving joint goals. Adults act as one of the participants in the game, encouraging children to engage in joint discussions, statements, disputes, conversations, and contribute to the collective solution of game problems that reflect the joint social and labor activities of people.
So, the formation of play activities creates the necessary psychological conditions and favorable soil for the comprehensive development of the child. Comprehensive education of children, taking into account their age characteristics, requires systematization of the games used in practice, the establishment of connections between different forms of independent play and non-play activities that take place in a playful form. As you know, any activity is determined by its motive, that is, by what this activity is aimed at. Play is an activity whose motive lies within itself. This means that the child plays because he wants to play, and not for the sake of obtaining some specific result, which is typical for everyday life, work and any other productive activity.
Stages of development of gaming activity.
It should be noted that the emergence of new types of games does not completely cancel the old ones that have already been mastered - they are all preserved and continue to be improved.
Competitive games are included in a special class , in which the most attractive moment for children is winning. It is assumed that it is in such games that the motivation to achieve success is formed and consolidated in preschool children.
In older preschool age, construction game
begins to turn into work activity, during which the child designs, creates, builds something useful, necessary in everyday life. In such games, children learn basic labor skills, learn the physical properties of objects, and actively develop practical thinking. In the game, the child learns to use many tools and household items. He acquires and develops the ability to plan his actions, improves manual movements and mental operations, imagination and ideas.
Game components.
D.B. Elkonin identified individual components of games characteristic of preschool age. The components of the game include: game conditions, plot and content of the game.
Kuraev G.A., Pozharskaya E.N. Age-related psychology. Lecture 6
Each game has its own playing conditions - children, dolls, other toys and objects participating in it
. Selection and combination of them significantly changes the game in early preschool age. The game at this time mainly consists of monotonously repeated actions, reminiscent of manipulations with objects.
For example, if the play conditions include another person (a doll or a child), then a three-year-old child can play “cooking dinner” by manipulating plates and cubes. The child plays cooking dinner even if he later forgets to feed the doll sitting next to him. But if you take away a doll from a child that prompts him to this plot, he continues to manipulate the cubes, arranging them by size or shape, explaining that he is playing “with cubes,” “it’s so simple.” Lunch disappeared from his thoughts along with the change in playing conditions.
The plot is the sphere of reality that is reflected in the game
. At first, the child is limited to the family and therefore his games are connected mainly with family and everyday problems. Then, as he masters new areas of life, he begins to use more complex plots - industrial, military, etc. The forms of games based on old stories, say, “mother-daughter” games, are also becoming more diverse. In addition, the game with the same plot gradually becomes more stable and longer. If at 3-4 years old a child can devote only 10-15 minutes to it, and then he needs to switch to something else, then at 4-5 years old one game can already last 40-50 minutes. Older preschoolers are able to play the same thing for several hours in a row, and some games last for several days.
Those moments in the activities and relationships of adults that are reproduced by the child
constitute
the content of the game.
Contents of games for younger preschoolers
- imitation of the objective activity of adults. Children “cut bread”, “wash the dishes”, they are absorbed in the very process of performing actions and sometimes forget about the result - why and for whom they did it. Therefore, having “prepared lunch”, the child can then go “for a walk” with his doll without feeding her. The actions of different children are not consistent with each other, duplication and sudden changes of roles during the game are possible.
For middle preschoolers
the main thing is the relationship between people, game actions are performed by them not for the sake of the actions themselves, but for the sake of the relationships behind them. Therefore, a 5-year-old child will never forget to place the “sliced” bread in front of the dolls and will never confuse the sequence of actions - first lunch, then washing the dishes, and not vice versa. Parallel roles are also excluded, for example, the same bear will not be examined by two doctors at the same time, two drivers will not drive the same train. Children included in the general system of relationships distribute roles among themselves before the game begins.
For older preschoolers
It is important to obey the rules arising from the role, and the correct execution of these rules is strictly controlled by them.
Kuraev G.A., Pozharskaya E.N. Age-related psychology. Lecture 6
Game actions gradually lose their original meaning. Actual objective actions are reduced and generalized, and sometimes completely replaced by speech (“Well, I washed their hands. Let’s sit down at the table!”).
Game functions.
Play is the leading activity in preschool age; it has a significant impact on the development of the child. First of all, in the game children learn to fully communicate with each other. Younger preschoolers
They still don’t know how to truly communicate with their peers. This is how, for example, the game of railroad is played in the junior group of a kindergarten. The teacher helps the children make a long row of chairs, and the passengers take their seats. Two boys who wanted to be a driver sit on the outer chairs at both ends of the “train”, honk, puff and “drive” the train in different directions. This situation does not confuse either drivers or passengers and does not make them want to discuss anything. According to D.B. Elkonina, younger preschoolers “play side by side, not together.”
Gradually, communication between children becomes more intense and productive. In middle and older preschool age
children, despite their inherent egocentrism, agree with each other, distributing roles in advance or during the game itself. Discussion of issues related to roles and control over the implementation of the rules of the game becomes possible due to the inclusion of children in common activities.
Children communicate while playing. If for some reason the joint game breaks down, the communication process also breaks down. In an experiment by Kurt Lewin, a group of preschool children were brought into a room with “incomplete” toys (the telephone did not have enough handset, there was no swimming pool for the boat, etc.). Despite these shortcomings, the children played with pleasure and communicated with each other. On the second day, when the children entered the same room, the door to the next room was open, where full sets of toys lay. The open door was covered with mesh. With an attractive and unattainable goal before their eyes, the children scattered around the room. Someone was shaking the net, someone was lying on the floor, contemplating the ceiling, many were angrily throwing away old, no longer needed toys. In a state of frustration, both play activities and children’s communication with each other collapsed.
The game contributes to the development of not only communication with peers, but also voluntary behavior . Arbitrariness of behavior manifests itself initially in subordination to game rules, and then in other types of activities.
For voluntary behavior to occur, a pattern of behavior
which the child follows, and
monitoring compliance with the rules
. In the game, the model is the image of another person, whose behavior the child copies. Self-control only appears towards the end of preschool age, so initially the child needs external control - from his playmates. Children
Kuraev G.A., Pozharskaya E.N. Age-related psychology. Lecture 6
First they control each other, and then each of them controls themselves. External control gradually falls out of the process of behavior management, and the image begins to regulate the child’s behavior directly.
The transfer of the mechanism of arbitrariness to non-game situations during this period is still difficult. What is relatively easy for a child to do in play is much worse when given the appropriate demands from adults. For example, while playing, a preschooler can stand in a sentinel position for a long time, but it is difficult for him to complete a similar task to stand straight and not move, given by the experimenter.
The game develops the motivational-need sphere of the child. New motives for activity and goals associated with them arise. In addition, the game facilitates the transition from motives that have the form of affectively colored immediate desires to motives-intentions that stand on the verge of consciousness. When playing with peers, it is easier for a child to renounce his fleeting desires. His behavior is controlled by other children, he is obliged to follow certain rules arising from his role, and has no right either to change the general pattern of the role or to be distracted from the game by something extraneous.
The game contributes to the development of cognitive sphere . In developed role-playing games with its intricate plots and complex roles, children develop their creative imagination.
The game overcomes the so-called
cognitive egocentrism.
To explain the latter, let us use the example of J. Piaget. Piaget asked a preschool child: “Do you have brothers?” “Yes, Arthur,” answered the boy. - “Does he have a brother?” - "No". - “How many brothers do you have in your family?” - “Two” - “Are you his brother?” - "Yes". - “Then he has a brother?” - "No". As can be seen from this dialogue, the child cannot take a different position, in this case, accept the point of view of his brother. But if the same task is played out with the help of dolls, he comes to the right conclusions.
In general, the child’s position in the game radically changes. While playing, he acquires the ability to change one position to another, coordinate different points of view.
SPEECH DEVELOPMENT
In preschool childhood, the process of mastering speech is largely completed. This process includes different lines of development.
Components of speech development. By the end of preschool age, the process of phonemic development is completed. The sound side is developing
speech. Younger preschoolers begin
Kuraev G.A., Pozharskaya E.N. Age-related psychology. Lecture 6
be aware of the peculiarities of your pronunciation. The child stops recognizing incorrectly spoken words; he both hears and speaks correctly.
The vocabulary is growing rapidly . As at the previous age stage, there are great individual differences here: some children have a larger vocabulary, others have less, which depends on their living conditions, on how and how much close adults communicate with them. Let us present the average data according to V. Stern. At 1.5 years old, a child actively uses about 100 words, at 3 years old - 1000, at 5 years old - 2500-3000 words
In preschool age, the development of speech “to oneself” or internal speech is noted. The emergence of inner speech is preceded by an intermediate stage of so-called egocentric speech. At the beginning, egocentric speech is organically woven into the process of the child’s practical activity. This speech in external, verbal form records the result of the activity, helps to concentrate and maintain the child’s attention on its individual moments and serves as a means of managing short-term and operative memory. Then, gradually, the child’s egocentric speech utterances are transferred to the beginning of the activity and acquire a planning function. By the end of preschool childhood, the planning stage becomes internal, egocentric speech gradually disappears and is replaced by internal speech.
In a child’s communication with peers, dialogical speech , including instructions, evaluation, coordination of play actions, etc. In a preschooler, compared to a young child, a more complex, independent form of speech appears and develops - monologue speech. In a monologue, the child conveys to others not only what he has learned, but also his thoughts on this matter, his plans, impressions, and experiences. At preschool age, a child masters all forms of oral speech characteristic of adults. He has detailed messages -
monologues, stories.
The use of new forms of speech and the transition to detailed statements are determined by new communication tasks. Full communication with other children is achieved precisely at this time; it becomes an important factor in the development of speech.
Speech grammar At an early age, the grammatical structure of speech develops. Children learn morphological (word structure) and syntactic (phrase structure) patterns.
In primary and middle preschool age, children often identify an entire sentence with the concept of “word,” which indicates that for them a word is a whole thought. For many children of early and preschool age, one word really often expresses what an adult with developed speech usually
Kuraev G.A., Pozharskaya E.N. Age-related psychology. Lecture 6
conveys in the whole sentence.
The next step in children’s awareness and dissection of the speech flow is associated with the identification of the subject and predicate in the sentence with all the words related to them. For example, to the question: “How many words are in the sentence “A little girl eats candy”?” — a preschool child can answer: “Two.” When asked to name the first word, he says: “Little girl.” When asked to name the second word, he answers: “He eats sweet candy.”
Next, children begin to gradually identify the remaining members of the sentence and parts of speech, except for conjunctions and prepositions, and, finally, by the end of preschool childhood, many of them are able to identify and name all parts of speech and parts of the sentence.
A 3-5 year old child correctly understands the meanings of “adult” words, although he sometimes uses them in an original way, and feels the connection between changing a word and changing its meaning. Words created by the child himself according to the laws of the grammar of his native language are always recognizable, sometimes very successful and original. This children's ability to form words independently is often called word creation .
K.I. Chukovsky, in his wonderful book “From Two to Five,” collected many examples of children's word creation; Let's remember some of them.
“Mints make your mouth feel drafty.” "The bald man's head is barefoot." "Grandmother! you are my best lover! “Let’s go into this forest to get lost.” “Why are you still taking care of me?” “Look how it’s raining!” “I’m already getting drunk.” “Mom is angry, but she quickly gets better.”
The girl saw a worm in the garden: “Mom, mom, what a creeper!” A sick child demands: “Put cold mocress on my head!” The girl notices that cufflinks are the exclusive property of her dad: “Daddy, show me your daddies!”
The fact that the child masters the grammatical forms of the language and acquires a large active vocabulary allows him to move on to contextual speech at the end of preschool age. He can retell a story or fairy tale he has read, describe a picture, and clearly convey his impressions of what he saw to others.
Written speech.
Of particular interest is the question of the prerequisites and conditions for the formation of the most complex type of speech in preschool children - written speech.
The formation of this ability begins in early preschool childhood and is associated with the emergence of graphic symbolism. If a 3-4 year old child is given the task of writing down and remembering a phrase (children at this age, naturally, do not yet know how to read or write), then at first the child seems to “write it down,” leaving meaningless lines and scribbles on the paper. However, when a child is asked to “read” what has been written down, it seems that he is reading his own
Kuraev G.A., Pozharskaya E.N. Age-related psychology. Lecture 6
images, pointing to very specific features, as if for him they mean something specific. For a child of this age, the drawn lines have apparently turned into mnemonic signs - primitive indicators for semantic memory. This mnemonic stage is the beginning of future writing. Children's drawing is a symbolic-graphic prerequisite for the child's written speech.
It has been established that initially, in the written reproduction of words, a preschool child copies the rhythm of the spoken phrase in the rhythm of the written characters and in the length of the “record.” The child writes short words with strokes of appropriate length, and long words with a large number of scribbles.
A child who finds it difficult to depict any word or phrase using a pictogram proceeds as follows. He draws an object that is easily depicted, but connected in meaning to a memorable word. Sometimes an object is replaced by an image of only one part of it or a diagram. At the next stage, he draws some conventional sign instead of the object. This path leads to the transition from pictographic to symbolic or to the symbolic writing familiar to us. The development of writing follows the path of transforming an undifferentiated record into a real sign.
DEVELOPMENT OF COGNITIVE PROCESSES
Perception
Perception in preschool age loses its initially affective character: perceptual and emotional processes are differentiated. Perception becomes meaningful
purposeful, analytical.
It highlights voluntary actions -
observation, examination, search.
The process of development of children's perception in preschool age was studied in detail by L.A. Wenger. According to Wenger, the basis of perception is perceptual actions.
Their quality depends on the child’s assimilation of systems of perceptual standards. Such standards for the perception of, for example, shapes are geometric figures, for the perception of color - the spectral range, for the perception of sizes - the physical quantities adopted for their assessment.
Stages of formation of perceptual actions. Perceptual actions are formed in learning, and their development goes through a number of stages. The process of their formation ( first stage)
begins with practical, tangible actions performed with unfamiliar objects. This stage poses new perceptual tasks for the child. At this stage, the necessary corrections necessary to form an adequate image are made directly into material actions. The best perception results are obtained when the child
Kuraev G.A., Pozharskaya E.N. Age-related psychology. Lecture 6
comparisons are offered by so-called sensory standards, which also appear in external, material form. With them, the child has the opportunity to compare the perceived object in the process of working with it.
At the second stage
sensory processes themselves, restructured under the influence of practical activity, become perceptual actions. Perceptual actions are now carried out with the help of receptor apparatus and anticipate the implementation of practical actions with perceived objects. At this stage, children become familiar with the spatial properties of objects with the help of extensive orienting and exploratory movements of the hand and eye.
At the third stage
perceptual actions become even more hidden, collapsed, reduced, their external effector links disappear, and perception from the outside begins to seem like a passive process. In fact, this process is still active, but it occurs internally, mainly only in the consciousness and on a subconscious level in the child.
The role of visual components in perception. The development of the perception process in preschool age allows children to quickly recognize the properties of objects that interest them, distinguish some objects from others, and clarify the connections and relationships that exist between them. At the same time, the figurative principle, very strong in this period, often prevents the child from drawing correct conclusions regarding what he observes. In J. Bruner's experiments, many preschoolers correctly judge the conservation of the amount of water in glasses when water is poured from one glass to another behind a screen. But when the screen is removed and the children see a change in the water level in the glasses (achieved due to the different base areas of the glasses), direct perception leads to an error: the children say that there is less water in the glass where the water level is lower. In general, in preschoolers, perception and thinking are so closely connected that they talk about visual-figurative thinking,
most typical for this age.
Attention
The attention of a child of early preschool age is involuntary
. It is evoked by visually attractive objects, events and people and remains focused as long as the child retains a direct interest in the perceived objects.
At the stage of transition from involuntary to voluntary attention, the means that control the child’s attention are important. Reasoning out loud helps a child develop voluntary attention. If a preschooler of 4-5 years of age is asked to constantly name out loud what he should keep in the sphere of his attention, then the child will be quite able to voluntarily and for a sufficiently long time maintain his attention on those or
Kuraev G.A., Pozharskaya E.N. Age-related psychology. Lecture 6
other objects or their details.
From younger to older preschool age, children's attention progresses simultaneously along many different characteristics. Younger preschoolers usually look at pictures that are attractive to them for no more than 6-8 s, while older preschoolers are able to focus their attention on the same image for 12 to 20 s. The same applies to the time spent doing the same activity for children of different ages. In preschool childhood, significant individual differences are already observed in the degree of stability of attention in different children, which probably depends on the type of their nervous activity, physical condition and living conditions. Nervous and sick children are more often distracted than calm and healthy children, and the difference in the stability of their attention can reach one and a half to two times.
Memory
Preschool childhood is the age most favorable for memory development. Memory at this age acquires a dominant function among other cognitive processes. Neither before nor after this period does the child remember the most varied material with such ease.
Types of memory. The memory of a preschooler has a number of specific features. In younger preschoolers, memory is involuntary .
The child does not set a goal to remember or remember something and does not have special methods of memorization. Events, actions, and images that are interesting to him are easily imprinted, and verbal material is also involuntarily remembered if it evokes an emotional response. The child quickly remembers poems, especially those that are perfect in form: sonority, rhythm and adjacent rhymes are important in them. Fairy tales, short stories, and dialogues from films are remembered when the child empathizes with their characters.
During preschool age, the efficiency of involuntary memorization increases. visual-emotional memory dominates
.
In some cases, linguistically or musically gifted children also have well-developed
auditory memory.
Children of primary and middle preschool age have well-developed mechanical memory. Children easily remember and reproduce without much effort what they saw or heard, but only if it aroused their interest and the children themselves were interested in remembering or remembering something. Thanks to such memory, preschoolers quickly improve their speech and learn to use household items.
The more meaningful the material a child remembers, the better the memorization. Semantic memory develops along with mechanical memory, so it cannot be assumed that preschoolers who repeat someone else’s text with great accuracy
Kuraev G.A., Pozharskaya E.N. Age-related psychology. Lecture 6
mechanical memory predominates. With active mental work, children remember material better than without such work.
The first recollection of impressions received in early childhood usually occurs around the age of three years (meaning adult memories associated with childhood). It has been found that almost 75% of children's first recalls occur between the ages of three and four years. This means that by this age, i.e., by the beginning of early preschool childhood, the child has developed long-term memory and its basic mechanisms.
In middle preschool age (between 4 and 5 years), voluntary memory begins to form. Improving voluntary memory in
preschoolers is closely connected with the setting of special tasks for them to memorize, preserve and reproduce material. Many such tasks arise in gaming activities, so games provide the child with rich opportunities for memory development. Children as young as 3-4 years old can voluntarily memorize, remember and recall material in games.
Stages of formation of arbitrary memory. 3. M. Istomina analyzed how the process of developing voluntary memorization occurs in preschoolers. In primary and middle preschool age, memorization and reproduction are involuntary. In older preschool age, there is a gradual transition from involuntary to voluntary memorization and reproduction of material.
The transition from involuntary to voluntary memory includes two stages. At the first stage, the necessary motivation is formed, i.e. the desire to remember or remember something. At the second stage, the mnemonic actions and operations necessary for this arise and are improved.
In the initial stages, conscious, purposeful memorization and recollection appear only sporadically. Usually they are included in other types of activities, since they are needed both in play, and when running errands for adults, and during classes - preparing children for school.
Children's memory productivity in play is much higher than outside of it. By playing, it is easier for a child to reproduce difficult-to-memorize material. Let's say, having taken on the role of a seller, he is able to remember and recall at the right time a long list of products and other goods. If you give him a similar list of words outside of a game situation, he will not be able to cope with this task.
In order for the transition to voluntary memorization to become possible, special perceptual actions must appear aimed at better remembering, more fully and more accurately reproducing the material retained in memory. The first special perceptual actions are distinguished in the activities of a 5-6 year old child,
Kuraev G.A., Pozharskaya E.N. Age-related psychology. Lecture 6
and most often they use simple repetition to memorize. By the age of 6-7 years, the process of voluntary memorization can be considered formed. Its psychological sign is the child’s desire to discover and use logical connections in the material for memorization.
Features of mnemonic processes. It is believed that with age, the rate at which information is retrieved from long-term memory
memory and is translated into
RAM,
as well as the amount and duration of RAM. It has been established that a three-year-old child can operate with only one unit of information currently located in RAM, and a fifteen-year-old child can operate with seven such units.
With age, the child’s ability to evaluate the capabilities of his own memory develops, and the older the children, the better they can do this. Over time, the strategies for memorizing and reproducing material that the child uses become more diverse and flexible. Of 12 pictures presented, a 4-year-old child, for example, recognizes all 12, but is able to reproduce only two or three, while a 10-year-old child, having recognized all the pictures, is able to reproduce 8 of them.
Imagination
The beginning of the development of children's imagination is associated with the end of early childhood, when the child first demonstrates the ability to replace some objects with others and use some objects in the role of others (symbolic function). Imagination is further developed in games, where symbolic substitutions are made quite often and using a variety of means and techniques.
Types of imagination. reproductive imagination predominates ,
mechanically reproducing received impressions in the form of images. These can be impressions received by the child as a result of direct perception of reality, listening to stories, fairy tales, or watching films. Imaginative images of this type restore reality not on an intellectual, but on an emotional basis. The images usually reproduce something that made an emotional impression on the child, caused him to have very specific emotional reactions, and turned out to be especially interesting. In general, the imagination of preschool children is still quite weak.
The younger preschooler is not yet able to completely restore the picture from memory, dismember and then creatively use the individual parts of what he perceived as fragments from which something new can be put together. Younger preschoolers are characterized by the inability to imagine things from a point of view different from their own, from a different angle. If you ask a six-year-old child to arrange objects on one part of the plane in the same way as they are located on another part of it, turned to the first at an angle of 90°, this usually causes
Kuraev G.A., Pozharskaya E.N. Age-related psychology. Lecture 6
great difficulties for children of this age. It is difficult for them to mentally transform not only spatial, but also simple planar images.
In older preschool age, when voluntary memorization appears, the imagination transforms from reproductive, mechanically reproducing reality into creative imagination .
The main type of activity where children's creative imagination is manifested is role-playing games.
Cognitive imagination is formed by separating the image from the object and designating the image using a word. Affective imagination develops as a result of the child’s awareness of his “I”, psychological separation of himself from other people and from the actions he performs.
Functions of the imagination. Thanks to the cognitive-intellectual function of imagination, the child learns better about the world around him and solves the problems that arise before him more easily and successfully. Imagination in children also plays an affective and protective role. It protects the child’s easily vulnerable and weakly protected soul from excessively difficult experiences and traumas. The emotional-protective role of imagination is that through an imaginary situation, tension can be discharged and a unique, symbolic resolution of conflicts can occur, which is difficult to achieve with the help of real practical actions.
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