A characteristic feature of the thinking of preschoolers. Age-related features of thinking

Thinking is a socially conditioned, speech-related mental process of searching and discovering an essentially new, indirect and generalized reflection of reality in the course of its analysis and synthesis. It is based on sensory knowledge and goes far beyond its boundaries.

Thinking is the process of indirect and generalized human cognition of objects and phenomena of objective reality in their essential properties, connections and relationships

The foundations of thinking are formed in early childhood. Over time, on the basis of visual-effective thinking, visual-figurative thinking develops, the first generalizations are formed, based on the experience of practical objective action and enshrined in words.

General characteristics of the thinking of preschoolers

At preschool age, the child acquires the basics of knowledge about the world around him, relationships between people, external and internal qualities, and essential connections between objects. Older preschoolers are already able to do mental and mental exercises in general; their thinking is characterized by curiosity, activity, etc.

The main directions of development of a preschooler’s thinking are the improvement of visual-effective thinking, the intensive development of visual-figurative and the beginning of the active formation of verbal-logical thinking through the use of language as a means of setting and solving intellectual problems, and the assimilation of scientific concepts.

C. AT the age of approximately 2 years, a child is already able to name the same object in several words, which indicates the formation of such a mental operation as comparison. Based on comparison, induction and deduction develop, which reach a significant level of development by the age of 3-3.5 years. Until the age of 4, thinking acquires a visual and effective character, which, despite the fact that this is an elementary level, persists throughout life. Gradually there is a transition to visual-figurative thinking, which at 4-5 years of age becomes smut.

An essential feature of the thinking of a preschool child is connection with action first generalizations (the child thinks “by acting”). For example, when a 4-5 year old child is asked to determine the similarities and differences between a ball and a cube, it is faster and easier for him to do this by holding them in his hands, but it is very difficult for him to do this mentally. A tall person can figure out which picture is depicted on the cubes without composing them, but by analyzing the fragments depicted on each cube. A child cannot understand this; she needs to make a cube, stacking cubes.

An equally characteristic feature of children's thinking is its visibility . The child thinks based on available facts from experience or observations. For example, to the question: “Why can’t you play on the road?” reihav carhav car."

Over time, the child solves all the complex and varied problems that require the identification and use of connections, relationships between objects, phenomena, and actions. In playing, drawing, modeling, constructing and when performing educational and work tasks, she not only uses memorized actions, but also modifies them, obtaining new results. Thanks to this, it finds and uses the relationship between, for example, the humidity and pliability of clay when sculpting, between the shape and stability of the structure, between the force of hitting the ball and the height of its bounce, etc. The development of thinking helps to anticipate the results of actions and plan them; the child’s curiosity is activated , cognitive interests of thinking in understanding the world around us. These interests are much broader than the tasks of the child’s practical activities. She constantly ponders cognitive tasks for herself, looking for an explanation for the phenomena that she has to observe, sometimes resorting to experiments. Increasingly, children talk about phenomena that are not related to their experience, which they know about from the stories of adults, TV shows, books, etc. Their thoughts are not always error-free, since they lack the knowledge and experience to do this.

From clarifying simple connections and relationships, preschoolers gradually move on to learning and understanding much more complex, hidden dependencies. One of the most important types of such dependencies is the relationship between cause and effect. 3-year-old children can only find causes that manifest themselves in an external influence on an object (a chair was pushed - it fell), 4-year-olds begin to understand that properties could also be the cause of phenomena. objects (the chair fell because it has only one leg) 5-year-olds - take into account the features of objects that are noticeable at first glance and their permanent properties (the chair fell because it has one leg, it has many edges, it is heavy and not propped up etc.).

Observation of the course of phenomena, analysis of their own experience of actions with objects allows older preschoolers to clarify their ideas about the causes of phenomena, and thereby come closer to their correct understanding.

The development of an understanding of cause-and-effect relationships occurs due to the child’s transition from reflecting external causes to highlighting hidden, internal ones; by transforming an undifferentiated, global understanding of causes into a differentiated and precise explanation; as a result of reflecting not the individual causes of the phenomenon, but its general patterns.

A child’s understanding of new tasks is determined by the assimilation of new knowledge and is a prerequisite for the development of thinking. The baby receives some knowledge directly from adults, others from his own observations and activities, controlled and directed by adults. However, the enrichment of knowledge is not the main prerequisite for the development of thinking, because its assimilation through the resolution of mental tasks occurs as a result of reflection. The acquired new knowledge is included in the further development of thinking and is used in mental actions to solve new problems.

Even before a child enters school, his primary picture of the world and the beginnings of his worldview are formed. However, a preschooler’s cognition of reality occurs not in a conceptual, but in a visual-figurative form. The assimilation of forms in figurative cognition contributes to the child’s understanding of the objective laws of logic, promotes the development of conceptual thinking, the basis of which is the formation and improvement of mental actions, on which the child’s ability to assimilate and use knowledge depends. Mastery of these actions in preschool age occurs according to the law of assimilation and internalization of external indicative actions, depending on the nature of external influences and their internalization, the child’s mental actions occur in the same way as actions with images or actions with signs, words, numbers, etc.

Acting with images mentally, the child imagines a real action with objects and its result, thus solving problems that are relevant to her. This kind of thinking is called visual-figurative. Performing actions using signs requires abstraction from real objects and the use of words and numbers as their substitutes. Thinking, which is carried out with the help of such actions, is abstract, subject to the rules of logic, and therefore is called logical.

. Abstraction (lat. abstractio - withdrawal) - mental separation of signs and properties from objects and phenomena to which they belong

Visual-figurative and logical thinking allow the identification of properties for various situations and the correct solution of various problems. Imaginative thinking is effective in solving problems that require imagination and the ability to see through the prism of the inner world. So, the child imagines the transformation of snow into water. Often the properties of objects and phenomena are hidden, they cannot be imagined, but the words we can be indicated by other signs. In this case, the problem can be solved on the basis of abstract logical thinking, which allows, for example, to find out the reason for the floating of bodies. It is not difficult to imagine the floating of a ball or a wooden field, but the ratio of the specific gravity of the floating body and the liquid can only be indicated in words or an appropriate formula. Using an image in such a situation is unproductive.

To use the word as an independent means of thinking, which provides solutions to mental problems without the use of images, the child must master the concepts developed by humanity

. Concept - knowledge about general, essential and fixed in words signs of objects and phenomena of objective reality

Concepts combined into a coherent system help to derive another from one knowledge, i.e. solve mental problems without using objects or images. So, knowing that all mammals breathe through the lungs, and having found out that a whale is a mammal, it is easy to conclude that it has this organ.

By the time the child’s thinking is visual and figurative, words for it express ideas about objects, properties, relationships that they denote. The child's word-concepts and the adult's words-concepts are significant but different. The idea reflects reality more vividly and more vividly than the concept, but is not as clear, definite and systematized as they are; they cannot spontaneously turn into concepts, but they can be used in the formation of concepts that children acquire in the process of studying the fundamentals of science.

Systematic mastery of concepts begins in the process of schooling. However, with appropriately organized training, some concepts can be learned by older preschoolers. To do this, it is necessary first to organize special external orienting actions of children with the material they are studying. In this case, children, as a rule, must, with the help of their own actions, identify in objects or their relationship the essential features that should be included in the content of the concept. Further, the formation of concepts occurs during the transition from external orienting actions to actions in the mind. To do this, external means are replaced with verbal ones according to their meaning.

In the formation of abstract concepts, both external indicative actions and the process of internalization are nothing" than in the mastery of visual-figurative thinking. After all, abstraction is associated with the replacement of the "real action of the rod with a horned verbal reasoning, which over time occurs not out loud, but silently, is reduced and transformed into the action of abstract logical thinking, which occurs with the help of inner speech. At preschool age, it is not yet possible to fully perform such actions; the child mainly applies them, reasoning in his head and out loud.

In order to understand how a little person perceives the reality around him, you need to have an idea of ​​how a child comprehends and systematizes information received from the outside world.

Therefore, understanding the patterns of development of thought processes in preschool children will make communication between parents and a small child more productive and enjoyable.

Thinking of preschoolers: stages and features

Visual-effective thinking

In the earliest period of his life, at the age of one and a half to two years, the baby “thinks” with his hands - disassembles, explores, sometimes breaks, thus trying to explore in an accessible form and form his own idea of ​​​​what surrounds him.

Therefore, we can talk about a visually effective way of thinking. That is, the child’s thinking is completely determined by his active actions aimed at researching and changing the objects around him.

Ways to develop visually effective thinking

At this stage, the main task of parents is not to interfere with the desire of the little explorer to try everything with his own hands.

Despite the fact that, undoubtedly, in the process of his actions, the baby can break something, break something, damage it, and even injure himself. Therefore, it is important to encourage his desire to learn, while not forgetting about safety measures.

This type of thinking is well trained by toys, the elements of which somehow reflect the result of the child’s actions - sorters, sets for applied activities, activities with different materials - loose sand, cereals, water, snow.

Try to ensure that your child forms a clear connection during the game - “action-result of action”, this will be useful for future lessons in logic and mathematics.

Visual-figurative type of thinking

At the next stage, from three to four years old to first grade, the child actively develops a visual-figurative type of thinking. This does not mean that the previous, visually effective one is being supplanted, no. It’s just that, in addition to the already existing skills of mastering surrounding objects by actively perceiving them with “hands,” the baby begins to think using a system of images. This type of thinking is reflected especially clearly in the child’s emerging ability to draw.

When drawing any object, for example, a house, children rely on their idea of ​​it, on those of its characteristic features (roof, walls, window) that are imprinted in their memory. In this case, the resulting image is not individualized - it is only an image formed in the baby’s mind at a given moment in time.

It is very important that the child enjoys visualizing and embodying in reality the images that arise in his mind.

This is well facilitated by drawing, modeling, design, and appliqué classes.

Verbal - logical thinking

At the age of 5-7 years, preschoolers begin to actively develop the following type of thinking - verbal-logical. The ability not only to report facts, but also to subject them to detailed analysis in verbal form speaks of well-developed verbal and logical thinking.

For example, if you ask a child of three or four years old, “What is a cat?”, he will say: “The cat is Fluff, and he lives in his grandmother’s yard.” A five- to six-year-old child will most likely answer this question like this: “A cat is an animal that catches mice and loves milk.” This answer demonstrates the child’s visual ability to analyze - one of the most important mental operations, which is a kind of “engine” for the development of thinking in preschool children.

This type of thinking characterizes the ability to be creative – that is, to create new, non-standard solutions. The successful development of a child’s creative abilities will largely depend on the parents’ desire to develop creativity in him.

Unlike previous types of thinking, the creative type is not determined by the factors of growth and formation of the child’s intellectual abilities.

Such forms of mental activity as fantasies and imagination are characteristic of any child and are an essential condition for the emergence of the creative process. It is only important to create an environment in which a little person can develop his creative impulses. Absolutely all types of creativity will help with this: literary, visual, choreographic, musical.

There are no children incapable of creativity; parents of preschoolers should remember this. Even children who are lagging behind in development are able to find original creative solutions to the proposed problems if classes with parents and teachers contribute to this.

Mental operations and their role in the development of thinking in preschoolers

Universal mental operations inherent in human thinking are analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization and classification. It is the ability to use these operations that determines the development of thinking in preschool children.

Comparison

In order for a child to fully be able to use this category, it is necessary to teach him the skill of seeing the same in different, and different in the same. Starting from the age of two, teach your child to compare and analyze objects by comparing homogeneous features, for example: shape, color, taste, consistency, set of functions, etc.

It is necessary that the child understands the importance of analysis based on homogeneous features and is able to identify and name them.

Expand the horizons of the concepts being compared - let it be not only objects, but also natural phenomena, seasons, sounds, properties of materials.

Generalization

This mental operation becomes available to a preschooler at the age of 6-7 years. A child aged three to four years old can use the words “cup”, “spoon”, “plate”, “glass” very well, but if you ask him to name this entire group of objects in one word, he will not be able to do it.

However, as the vocabulary and coherent speech are filled, the use of generalizing concepts will become accessible to preschoolers, and they will be able to operate with them, expanding their thinking abilities.

This way of thinking makes it possible to “dismember” the analyzed object or phenomenon into its constituent components or to identify a number of individual signs and traits characteristic of it.

Ask your child to describe the plant. At the age of 3-4 years, he will most likely point out and name its parts without difficulty: stem, leaves, flower, thus demonstrating his ability to analyze. Analysis can be aimed not only at “dismembering” a concept, but also at identifying exceptional features unique to it.

Synthesis

A mental operation that is the opposite of analysis. If, while analyzing, a child “dismembers” an object, a concept, a phenomenon, then synthesis, as a result of the analysis, will allow him to combine the characteristics obtained separately. This operation is illustrated very well by a preschooler’s mastery of coherent reading skills. From individual elements (letters and sounds) he learns to form syllables, from syllables - words, words form sentences and text.

Classification

Mastering this method of mental action will allow the child to identify the similarities or differences of certain objects, concepts and phenomena. By highlighting one, but, as a rule, essential feature, the baby can classify a group of objects under consideration.

For example, toys can be classified according to the material from which they are made - these are toys made of wood, plastic, soft toys, natural materials, etc.

Exercises to develop analysis, synthesis and classification skills

“What’s extra?”

Place in front of your child several pictures depicting objects that he understands. You can use children's lotto cards, or you can make pictures yourself.

For example, the pictures show the following objects: an apple, candy and a book. The child must analyze and correctly classify these objects. An apple and a candy can be eaten, but a book cannot. This means that the picture with the book in this row will be superfluous.

“Pig in a poke” (we train analysis and synthesis skills)

One of the players (if the child is still small and does not speak very well, let it be an adult) takes a picture from the children's lotto and describes what is depicted on it, without showing it to the other player. However, the object itself cannot be named! The other player must guess, based on the description, what is shown in the picture. Over time, when the child grows up (starting from 4-5 years), you can change roles - let the child describe what is shown in the picture, and the adult player guesses. In this case, not only thinking abilities are trained, but also coherent speech skills.

“Pick a pair” (training analysis, comparison)

You need two sets of children's lotto with the same cards. One child (player) takes a card and, without showing it, explains to the other players what is written on it. Other players, analyzing, offer their own version of the card, which, in their opinion, depicts what the first child described. If the description and the answer match, two identical cards are removed from the game, and the game continues further with the remaining cards.

"What is this?" (analysis, comparison, generalization)

Invite your child to characterize the following vocabulary lines using a generalizing word.

• glass, plate, fork, knife; /dishes/;
• plum, apple, orange, banana; /fruits/;
• sparrow, stork, goose, dove; /birds/;
• cat, pig, rabbit, sheep; /animals, pets/;
• rose, tulip, lily of the valley, poppy; /flowers/.

Come up with vocabulary lines on your own, complicate the tasks over time, move from simple objects to concepts and phenomena (seasons, human feelings, natural phenomena, etc.).

The development of thinking in preschool children is a task, the solution of which directly depends on how successfully the child has mastered and can use the above mental operations.

Activities and games aimed at training them will ensure not only the intellectual development of the preschooler, but the harmonious formation of the personality of the growing child as a whole, because it is developed thinking that distinguishes a person from other living beings.

Teacher, child development center specialist
Druzhinina Elena

Useful video about the development of creative thinking in children:

A special process of cognition of the surrounding world in humans is thinking. Preschool children quickly go through developmental stages, which is reflected in the development of types of thinking.

Characteristics of thinking

Thinking is one of the basic psychological processes. Its formation has been well studied. It has been proven that it is closely related to speech. And it is characterized by the following features:

As the child grows and socializes, the nervous system and thinking improve. For their development, they will need the help of adults who surround the baby. Therefore, as early as one year of age, you can begin classes aimed at developing children’s cognitive activity.

Important! It is necessary to consider what objects and how the child is ready to work. Educational materials and assignments are selected taking into account the individual characteristics of children.

The thinking characteristics of this age group are determined by the following:

• generalization – the child is able to compare and draw conclusions about similar objects;
• visibility – the child needs to see facts, observe various situations in order to form his own idea;
• abstraction – the ability to separate signs and properties from the objects to which they belong;
• concept - an idea or knowledge about a subject related to a specific term or word.

Systematic mastery of concepts occurs already at school. But groups of concepts are laid down earlier. Along with the development of abstraction, children gradually master inner speech.

Types of mental activity in preschoolers

At preschool age, children are able to acquire knowledge about the world around them. The more they know the synonyms and characteristics of objects, the more developed they are. For children at the preschool stage of development, the ability to generalize and establish connections between objects is the norm. At 5–7 years old, they are more inquisitive, which leads to numerous questions, as well as independent actions to discover new knowledge.

Types of thinking characteristic of children before school:

• visually effective – predominates at the age of 3–4 years;
• figurative – becomes active in children over 4 years old;
• logical – mastered by children aged 5–6 years.

Visual-effective thinking assumes that the child visually observes different situations. Based on this experience, he chooses the desired action. At 2 years old, the baby’s actions happen almost immediately; he goes by trial and error. At 4 years old, he thinks first and then acts. The situation with opening doors can be used as an example. A two-year-old baby will knock on the door and try to find the mechanism for opening it. Usually he manages to carry out an action by accident. At 4 years old, the baby will carefully examine the door, remember what they are like, try to find the handle and open it. These are different levels of mastering visual-effective thinking.

It is important in preschool age to especially actively develop thinking based on images. In this case, children acquire the ability to perform tasks assigned to them without having an object in front of their eyes. They compare the situation with those models and schemes that they have encountered before. In this case, children:

• highlight the main features and characteristics that characterize the subject;
• remember the correlation of an object with others;
• are able to draw a diagram of an object or describe it in words.

Subsequently, the ability to identify only those features of an object that are needed in a specific situation develops. You can verify this by offering your little one tasks like “remove the unnecessary things.”

Before school, a child can, using only concepts, reason, draw conclusions, and characterize subjects and objects. This age period is characterized by:

• start of experiments;
• the desire to transfer the acquired experience to other objects;
• searching for relationships between phenomena;
• active generalization of one’s own experience.

Basic mental operations and their development

The first thing a baby masters in the cognitive sphere is the operations of comparison and generalization. Parents identify a large number of objects with the concept of “toys”, “balls”, “spoons”, etc.

From the age of two, the comparison operation is mastered. Often it is built on opposition, so that it is easier for children to form judgments. The main comparison parameters are:

• color;
• size;
• form;
• temperature.

The generalization comes later. For its development, a richer vocabulary of the child and accumulated mental skills are required.

Three-year-old children are quite capable of dividing objects into groups. But to the question: “What is this?” they may not answer.

Classification is a complex mental operation. It uses both generalization and correlation. The level of surgery depends on various factors. Mainly based on age and gender. At first, the baby is only able to classify objects according to generic concepts and functional characteristics (“what is this?”, “what is he like?”). By the age of 5, a differentiated classification appears (dad’s car is a service truck or a personal passenger car). The choice of basis for determining the types of an object in preschoolers is random. Depends on the social environment.

Questions as an element of improving mental activity

Little “whys” are a gift and a test for parents. The appearance of a large number of questions in children indicates a change in the stages of preschool development. Children's questions are divided into three main categories:

• auxiliary - a preschool child asks older people for help in his activities;
• cognitive - their goal is to obtain new information that interests the child;
• emotional – their purpose is to receive support or certain emotions in order to feel more confident.

Under the age of three, a child rarely uses all types of questions. It is characterized by chaotic and unsystematic questions. But even in them a cognitive character can be traced.

A large number of emotional issues is a signal that the baby lacks attention and self-confidence. In order to compensate for this, it is enough to communicate face-to-face for 10 minutes during the day. Children 2–5 years old will perceive that their parents take a lot of interest in their personal affairs.

The absence of cognitive questions at the age of 5 years should alert parents. More thinking tasks should be given.

Questions from children of junior and senior preschool age require answers of varying quality. If at three years old a child may not even listen to the answer, then at 6 years old they may have new questions in the process.

Parents and teachers of the preschool development system should know how much detail and in what terms they need to communicate with their child. This is the peculiarity of thinking and raising children.

The prerequisites for asking cognitive questions appear in children at about 5 years of age.

Auxiliary questions are typical for a period of up to 4 years. With their help, you can develop the skills necessary for further development and life in everyday life.

How to develop thinking processes in preschoolers?

To develop and improve thought processes in the preschool period, it is necessary to gradually increase the conceptual apparatus and characteristics of objects. You can focus on the following data:

• improvement based on imagination;
• activation of voluntary and indirect memory;
• the use of speech as a tool for setting and solving mental problems.

Attentive attitude towards the child is a kind of guarantee of the normal development of cognitive activity. For those who want to save money, it is important to know that games can be purchased “to grow.” At the same time, show a younger child some actions and explain the basic characteristics. Over time, complicate actions and concepts.

The following can help in the development of thinking in preschool age:

• various types of board games (lotto, dominoes, inserts, etc.);
• active dialogues with the child during walks or at home, which are not in the nature of separate lessons;
• explanations of the actions carried out by surrounding people or animals;
• modeling, applications, drawing;
• learning poetry, reading books.

Important! Sometimes poor nutrition and lack of vitamins lead to inhibited functioning of the nervous system and rapid fatigue of the child, which also affects the development of thinking.

In order for mental activity to be normal, you need to monitor the sufficient amount of B vitamins, iron, zinc, and magnesium in children’s food.

Thus, the psychology of a child involves a gradual immersion into the complex world of objects and phenomena of the external environment. Stringing together concepts, knowledge, and actions develops the thinking of preschoolers. Only joint activities can successfully acquire the skills needed for later life.

Reading strengthens neural connections:

Thinking is a socially conditioned, speech-related mental process of searching and discovering an essentially new, indirect and generalized reflection of reality in the course of its analysis and synthesis. It arises on the basis of sensory knowledge and goes far beyond its limits.

Thinking is the process of indirect and generalized human cognition of objects and phenomena of objective reality in their essential properties, connections and relationships.

The foundations of thinking are formed in early childhood. Over time, on the basis of visual-effective thinking, visual-figurative thinking develops, the first generalizations are formed, based on the experience of practical objective activity and enshrined in words.

General characteristics of the thinking of preschoolers

At preschool age, the child learns the basics of knowledge about the world around him, relationships between people, external and internal qualities, and essential connections between objects. Older preschoolers are already able to make mental statements and generalizations; their thinking is characterized by curiosity, activity, and the like.

The main directions of development of a preschooler’s thinking are the improvement of visual-effective thinking, the intensive development of visual-figurative and the beginning of the active formation of verbal-logical thinking through the use of language as a means of setting and solving intellectual problems, and the assimilation of scientific concepts.

AT the age of approximately 2 years, a child is already able to name the same object in several words, which indicates the formation of such a mental operation as comparison. Based on comparison, induction and deduction develop, which reach a significant level of development by the age of 3-3.5 years. Until the age of 4, thinking acquires a visual and effective character, which, despite the fact that this is an elementary level, persists for life. Gradually there is a transition to visual-figurative thinking, which becomes the main one at 4-5 years old.

The most important feature of the thinking of a preschool child is connection with the action of the first generalizations (the child thinks “by acting”). For example, when a 4-5 year old child is asked to determine the similarities and differences between a ball and a cube, it is faster and easier for him to do this by holding them in his hands, but it is very difficult for him to do this mentally. An adult can find out which picture is depicted on the cubes without adding them, but by analyzing the fragments depicted on each cube. A child cannot understand this; she needs to add the cubes.

An equally characteristic feature of children's thinking is its visibility. The child thinks based on available facts from experience or observations. For example, to the question: “Why can’t you play on the road?” answers, citing a specific fact: “One boy was playing, and he was run over by a car.”

Over time, the child solves all the complex and varied problems that require the identification and use of connections, relationships between objects, phenomena, and actions. In playing, drawing, modeling, constructing, and when performing educational and work tasks, he not only uses memorized actions, but also modifies them, obtaining new results. Thanks to this, he finds and uses the relationship between, for example, the humidity and pliability of clay when sculpting, between the shape and stability of the structure, between the force of hitting the ball and the height of its bounce, etc. The development of thinking helps to anticipate the results of actions and plan them. The child's curiosity and cognitive interests in thinking in understanding the world around him are activated. These interests are much broader than the tasks of the child’s practical activities. She constantly sets herself cognitive tasks, seeks explanations for the phenomena that she has to observe, sometimes resorting to experiments. Increasingly, children talk about phenomena that are not related to their experience, which they know about from the stories of adults, TV shows, books, etc. Their thoughts are not always error-free, since they lack the knowledge and experience for this.

From clarifying simple connections and relationships, preschoolers gradually move on to learning and understanding much more complex, hidden dependencies. One of the most important types of such dependencies is the relationship of cause and effect. 3-year-old children can only find a reason that manifests itself in an external influence on an object (a chair was pushed - it fell) 4-year-olds begin to understand that the cause of phenomena can be the properties of objects (the chair fell because it only has one leg) 5-year-olds - take into account and are noticeable at first glance, the features of objects and their permanent properties (the chair fell because it has one leg, it has many edges, it is heavy and not supported, etc.).

Observing the course of phenomena and analyzing their own experience of actions with objects allows older preschoolers to clarify their ideas about the causes of phenomena, and thereby come closer to a more correct understanding of them.

The development of an understanding of cause-and-effect relationships occurs due to the child’s transition from reflecting external causes to highlighting hidden, internal ones; by transforming an undifferentiated, global understanding of causes into a differentiated and precise explanation; as a result of reflecting not the individual causes of the phenomenon, but its general patterns.

A child’s understanding of new tasks is determined by the assimilation of new knowledge and is a prerequisite for the development of thinking. The baby receives some knowledge directly from adults, the rest - from his own observations and activities, controlled and directed by adults. However, the enrichment of knowledge is not the main prerequisite for the development of thinking, because its assimilation through the resolution of mental tasks occurs as a result of reflection. The acquired new knowledge is included in the further development of thinking and is used in mental actions to solve new problems.

Even before a child enters school, his primary picture of the world and the beginnings of his worldview are formed. However, a preschooler’s knowledge of reality occurs not in a conceptual, but in a visual-figurative form. The assimilation of forms of figurative cognition contributes to the child’s understanding of the objective laws of logic, promotes the development of conceptual thinking, the basis of which is the formation and improvement of mental actions, on which the child’s ability to assimilate and use knowledge depends. Mastery of these actions in preschool age occurs according to the law of assimilation and internalization of external orienting actions. Depending on the nature of external influences and their internalization, the child’s mental actions occur in the same way as actions with images or actions with signs—words, numbers, and the like.

Acting with images mentally, the child imagines a real action with objects and its result, thus solving problems that are relevant to her. This kind of thinking is called visual-figurative. Performing actions with signs requires abstracting from real objects and using words and numbers as their substitutes. The thinking that is carried out with the help of such actions is abstract, subject to the rules of logic, and is called logical.

Abstraction (lat. Abstractio - withdrawal) - mental separation of signs and properties from objects and phenomena to which they belong.

Visual-figurative and logical thinking allow the identification of properties for various situations and the correct solution of various problems. Imaginative thinking is effective in solving problems that require imagination and the ability to see through the prism of the inner world. So, the child imagines the transformation of snow into water. Often the properties of objects and phenomena are hidden, they cannot be imagined, but can be indicated in words and other signs. In this case, the problem can be solved on the basis of abstract logical thinking, which allows, for example, to find out the reason for the floating of bodies. It is not difficult to imagine the floating of a ball or a wooden log, but the ratio of the specific gravity of the body, floating and liquid can only be indicated in words or an appropriate formula. Using an image in such a situation is unproductive.

To use the word as an independent means of thinking, which provides the solution of mental problems without the use of images, the child must master the concepts developed by mankind.

Concept - knowledge about general, essential and fixed in words signs of objects and phenomena of objective reality.

Concepts combined into a coherent system help to derive another from one knowledge, that is, to solve mental problems without using objects or images. So, knowing that all mammals breathe with lungs, and having found out that a whale is a mammal, it is easy to conclude that it has this organ.

By the time the child’s thinking is visual and figurative, words for her express the idea of ​​objects, properties, relationships that they denote. The child's concept words and the adult's concept words are significantly different. Representation reflects reality faster and more clearly than a concept, but is not as clear, definite and systematized as they cannot spontaneously turn into concepts, but they can be used in the formation of concepts that children learn in the process of studying the fundamentals of science.

Systematic mastery of concepts begins in the process of schooling. However, if the organized training is consistent, some concepts can be mastered by older preschoolers. To do this, it is necessary, first of all, to organize special external orienting actions of children with the material they are studying. In this case, children, as a rule, must, with the help of their own actions, identify essential features in objects or their relationships that should be included in the content of the concept. Further, the formation of concepts occurs during the transition from external indicative actions to actions in the mind. To do this, external means are replaced by verbal designation.

In the formation of abstract concepts, both external indicative actions and the process of internalization are different “than when mastering visual-figurative thinking. After all, abstraction is associated with the replacement” of real action with detailed verbal reasoning, which over time occurs not out loud, but silently, is reduced and turns into the action of abstract logical thinking occurs with the help of inner speech. At preschool age, it is not yet possible to fully perform such actions; the child mainly applies them by reasoning out loud.

At preschool age, further development of visual-effective thinking and the formation of elements of verbal-logical thinking occur. The main form of mental activity of preschool children is visual-figurative thinking.

Preschoolers continue to use visual-effective thinking when solving problems, which is in close connection with practical actions that transform the cognizable object. Throughout preschool age, under the influence of the child’s expanding practice, increasing needs that encourage him to formulate and solve more diverse and complex mental problems, speech development, visual and effective thinking improves, moving to a higher level, characterized by the following features:

• in older preschoolers, the visual and effective solution of a problem is preceded by its mental solution in verbal form;
• the essence of the actions performed by the child changes (testing actions are curtailed, lose their problematic nature, and are increasingly replaced by executive actions).

The visually effective form of thinking does not disappear; when solving new mental problems, the child again resorts to an effective method of solving them. Speech is included in the process of solving such problems in one way or another. The child’s formation of an active and passive vocabulary and grammatical structure of speech contributes to the comprehension of the task itself and the awareness of ways to solve it. Speech, when included in a child’s practical activity, transforms his thought process, contributing to the transformation of practical action into mental action, complex in its structure.

The dominant form of mental activity of preschoolers is visual-figurative thinking, in which the child acts not with specific objects, but with their images and ideas. This type of thinking is formed on the basis of the ability to differentiate the plan of real objects and the plan of models that display these objects. Actions with models that correlate with the original make it possible to further “detach” the action from specific objects and lead to their implementation in terms of representations. The most important prerequisite for imaginative thinking is imitation of an adult, during which the child reproduces, models the actions of an adult and builds an image of them. Play can also be considered a form of imitation, since in play activities the child acquires the ability to imagine one thing through another.

The most characteristic feature of the imagery of a child’s mental activity is syncretism - this is the quality of thinking characteristic of a preschooler, in which he thinks in schemes, fused, undifferentiated situations in accordance with the image that he retains on the basis of perception, without its differentiation and consistent analysis, by arbitrarily connecting the most striking parts. Not being able to isolate the essential properties of an object in a preserved image, the child identifies any features that are most accentuated for him. Based on these random signs, the preschooler recognizes this or that object. Syncretism is clearly manifested in the way children perceive unfamiliar content. In a small child, a word evokes a specific image of a single object associated with this word. This image is fused, it has not yet been analyzed, and therefore is used as a whole. The first disintegration of the image is carried out by highlighting not an essential feature of the object, but a feature that has received the most powerful and “businesslike” reinforcement in the child’s experience.

Another form of child’s mental activity is verbal-logical thinking that develops towards the end of preschool age. Logical thinking is distinguished by operating with abstract categories and establishing various relationships that are not presented in visual or figurative form. Children early learn words denoting objects, their properties and actions with them, however, the concepts that are denoted by these words, as a generalized reflection of a collection of homogeneous objects with common essential features, are formed in preschoolers only gradually.

Only by older preschool age does the ability to identify those essential details in an object arise, but by which a particular object can be classified into a certain category. However, when encountering unfamiliar objects, even an older preschooler again switches to a random listing of their external signs or points to the purpose of the object. Children can group objects correctly if they know the corresponding generalizing word-term. Of great importance for grouping objects are those properties and connections that a preschooler identifies in his practical experience.

The level of development of generalization in preschool age is directly dependent on:

• the degree of familiarity of preschoolers with the variety of subjects included in this group;
• knowledge of a word that generalizes all subjects of a given group;
• requirements imposed by adults on the child (among them, it is especially difficult to define a concept, i.e., answer the question “what is it?”; combining homogeneous objects into a group is easier for children).

The specific imagery of a preschooler’s thinking does not exclude some primitive forms of reasoning and inference. The logical thinking of a preschooler in any form is distinguished by some common characteristic features: easy formulation in a problem and its solution in place of unfamiliar conditions that are more familiar on the basis of a “feeling of familiarity”, the establishment of simple connections not only between the essential properties of objects, but also between random, external, secondary ones parties. This determines the originality of the thought process of preschoolers (Fig. 9.4).

J. Piaget discovered certain psychological phenomena associated with the development of intelligence in children of middle preschool age, which later became known as Piaget's phenomena. They manifest themselves in children’s erroneous judgments about the abstract properties of objects, which are related to their measurable characteristics (quantity, size, volume, etc.) and are caused by the inability of preschool children to realize the reversibility of operations, misunderstanding of the principles of conservation of the amount of matter and the number of objects when their shape changes or mutual position. The thinking of preschool children is characterized by animism (non-distinction between the mental and objective world), artificialism (consideration of natural phenomena as the result of conscious human activity) and cognitive egocentrism (a special intellectual position of the child, in which the whole world is viewed from its own point of view, the only and absolute, inaccessibility of understanding the relativity of knowledge of the world and coordination of different positions).

Rice. 9.4.

Case Study

Tanya V., 6 years old, was asked: “Is the sun alive or not?” - "Yes". - "Why do you think so?" - “The sun is moving.”

Complex and contradictory connections develop between visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal forms of thinking. On the one hand, external actions with objects, being internalized, turn into internal ones, i.e. practical actions underlie all types of mental activity.

But the practical action itself requires taking into account changes in the object in the process of acting with objects using representations of the previous states of the object and comparing them with the existing ones. In addition, the structure of an external objective action includes its goal, the future result, which exists only in terms of ideas or concepts. The effectiveness of external action is directly dependent on the preschooler’s understanding of the general semantic context and on his own accumulated life experience. Consequently, the implementation of practical actions always implies the presence of a figurative plan and is based on it. Data on the relationship between various forms of thinking throughout preschool age are presented in Table. 9.3.

Table 9.3

The effectiveness of children solving problems based on the type of thinking in preschool age

N. N. Poddyakov identified a special type of child thinking - children's experimentation, which represents the unity of visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking and is aimed at identifying the properties and connections of objects hidden from observation. Children's experimentation is not set by adults, but is carried out by the child himself. In the process of experimentation, the preschooler receives new, often unexpected information, which helps to change the child’s actions and ideas about the object. Transformations of an object lead to the child discovering its new properties, which, in turn, allow new transformations of a more complex level to be carried out. The thinking process involves not only the use of already developed ready-made methods of action, but also the creation of new ones (within the capabilities of the child himself). Experimentation activates the search for new actions and develops the courage and flexibility of children's thinking. Independent experimentation gives the preschooler the opportunity to try different options for action, to overcome the constraint of children's thinking with ready-made schemes. Mental activity develops not only from ignorance to knowledge (from unclear knowledge to clearer and more definite), but also in the opposite direction - from understandable to incomprehensible, from definite to indefinite. The role of the adult in the process is reduced to the creation of special objects or situations that stimulate the child’s cognitive activity and promote children’s experimentation.

Thus, the mental activity of a preschooler is a complex interaction and interconnection of visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical thinking, in which a gradual transition of external actions to solve a mental problem into the internal plane takes place.