Development of thinking in preschool children

Development of thinking in preschool children. How a person will grow up, what character qualities he will have, how active his thought process will be - is laid down in childhood. The preschool period is especially important. At this time, the body is undergoing intensive development, physical and mental, and the foundation of the individual is being laid.

Features of the development of thinking in a preschool child

Development of thinking in preschool children. During the preschool period, different types of thinking arise, and one becomes the basis for the emergence of another. The peculiarities of thinking depend on the acquired experience and knowledge that the child acquires on the path of growing up.

Thus, the prerequisites for thinking and understanding are laid from the very first months of life. The first rattle in a child’s life, the first actions with objects surrounding the baby - everything matters in establishing connections between a person and an object. Random actions can generate interest and attempts to repeat these actions again. For example, after hearing a rattle make sounds, your baby will shake it again to repeat the process.

In a small child, thinking cannot be conscious; it simply occurs as a consequence of the perception of reality. And only when the child begins to walk, gains motor activity, and thinking also actively develops. This stage begins when the child turns two years old. Moreover, initially thinking becomes a consequence of practical action. Without conscious brain function. Intelligence begins to develop when a child gets the opportunity to create something through games and educational, cognitive activities. As the child gains more and more knowledge, he learns to perform mental operations, and by the age of five he can analyze, compare, and generalize.

Development of thinking in young children from visual-effective to visual-figurative.

Early age is the period from one year to 3 years. At this time, the most important changes occur in the mental development of children - thinking is formed, the motor sphere is actively developing, and the first stable personality traits appear. Thinking during this period is associated with perception - establishing connections between objects and acting with them. Behavior and consciousness are entirely determined by what the child sees here and now.

The first thought processes arise in a child as a result of learning the properties and relationships of the objects around him in the process of perceiving them and acting with them. In objective activity, during the transition from manual operations to instrumental ones in the process of mastering social ways of using things, the emergence of intellectual activity—visual and effective thinking—occurs. The initial stage of the development of thinking - its visual and effective form - is manifested in the fact that the child practically manipulates things and grasps the connections between them.

How does a child’s thinking develop? The first manifestations of visual-effective thinking can be observed at the end of the first - beginning of the second year of life. As the child masters walking, his encounters with new objects expand significantly. Moving around the room, touching objects, moving them and manipulating them, the child constantly encounters obstacles, difficulties, looks for a way out, making extensive use of trials, attempts, etc. in these cases. In actions with objects, the child moves away from simple manipulation and moves on to object-play actions that correspond to the properties of the objects with which they are acting: for example, he does not knock the stroller, but rolls it; he places the doll on the crib; puts the cup on the table; stirs in a saucepan with a spoon, etc. By performing various actions with objects (feeling, stroking, throwing, examining, etc.), he practically learns both the external and hidden properties of objects, discovers some connections that exist between objects. So, when one object hits another, noise arises, one object can be inserted into another, two objects, having collided, can move away in different directions, etc. As a result, the object becomes, as it were, a conductor of the child’s influence on another object, i.e. Effective actions can be performed not only by directly influencing an object with the hand, but also with the help of another object - indirectly. As a result of the accumulation of some experience in its use, an object is assigned the role of a means by which the desired result can be obtained. A qualitatively new form of activity is being formed - instrumental, when the child uses auxiliary means to achieve a goal.

Children become familiar with auxiliary objects primarily in everyday life. Children are fed, and then they themselves eat with a spoon, drink from a cup, etc., and begin to use auxiliary aids when they need to get something, secure it, move it, etc. The child’s experience gained in solving practical problems is consolidated in methods of action. Gradually, the child generalizes his experience and begins to use it in various conditions. For example, if a child has learned to use a stick to bring a toy closer to him, then he gets out the toy that has rolled under the closet with the help of another one that is suitable in shape and length: a toy-shovel, a net, a stick, etc. Generalization of the experience of activity with objects prepares the generalization of experience in words, i.e. prepares the child for the formation of visual and effective thinking.

The development of objective activity and its “verbalization” in a child occurs with the active participation of the people around him. Adults set certain tasks for the child, show ways to solve them, and name actions. The inclusion of a word denoting the action being performed qualitatively changes the thought process of a child, even if he does not yet speak spoken language. The action designated by the word acquires the character of a generalized method of solving a group of homogeneous practical problems and is easily transferred to other similar situations. By being involved in the child’s practical activities, speech, even if only audible at first, as if from the inside, rebuilds the process of his thinking. Changing the content of thinking requires its more advanced forms, and already in the process of visual-effective thinking, the prerequisites for visual-figurative thinking are formed.

At a young age, profound changes occur both in the content and in the forms of visual and effective thinking. Changing the content of children's visual-effective thinking leads to a change in its structure. Using his generalized experience, the child can mentally prepare and foresee the nature of subsequent events.

Of particular importance for the formation of visual and effective thinking are actions that in psychology are called correlative. We are talking about actions with two or more objects, when it is necessary to take into account and correlate the properties of different objects - shape, size, hardness, location, etc. Already at the end of the infancy period, the child begins to perform actions with two objects - strings, places one on top of the other, folds, etc. However, in these actions he does not yet take into account the property - does not select and select the desired object in accordance with the shape, size, does not try arrange objects in a certain order. It is characteristic that the “content” of most toys, pyramids, cubes, inserts, and nesting dolls is aimed at developing correlative actions—selecting and connecting objects or their parts in accordance with shape and size. Of course, actions with them should be regulated and directed by the result that should be obtained (for example, a finished pyramid or nesting doll). For this, a one-year-old child needs the help of an adult, a kind of training. Correlating actions are performed in different ways depending on how to teach. If a child simply imitates an adult, i.e. performs the same actions with the same objects, he can get the result only in his presence and with direct demonstration. Therefore, it is important that the child learns to identify the necessary properties of objects, so that he himself selects and connects the parts in the required order. It is important to first interest him in the toy, to stimulate the desire to act. Initially, these actions are performed only through practical tests, because the child is not yet able to visually compare the size and shape of an object. Only some repeated action with a toy can convince him of the failure of his attempts. Only in this way will he understand that it is necessary, for example, not to squeeze in a part, but to try on until the necessary one is found. Toys - pyramids, cubes, nesting dolls - seem to themselves suggest which part is suitable. That's why they are called auto-didactic (or self-learning). With the help of external indicative actions, the child will sooner or later get the result.

At 2-2.5 years, a new type of perception is formed - visually correlated. It is called so because the property of one object now turns into a model, into a standard for measuring the properties of another. Thus, the size of one ring of the pyramid becomes the measure for the remaining rings; the necessary details are selected by eye, the correct action at the request of an adult is carried out immediately, without preliminary practical tests. Of course, visual selection based on a model is a much more complex task than simple recognition or trying on, because first you need to find objects that are the same in shape, size, and only then in color. This means that new actions are formed initially for those properties of the object that are directly involved, and only then are transferred to other, less significant ones.

In the third year of life, the child is already able to compare well-known objects that have a clearly defined shape with constant patterns that are not only actually perceived, but also imagined. So, if an object is triangular in shape, the child defines it as “like a house”, and if it is round as “like a ball”. This means: the child has ideas about the properties of things, and these ideas are assigned to specific objects. But these ideas do not form on their own. The properties of objects must be introduced to the child through specific practical actions. Repetition and reproduction of correlative actions lead to the formation of internal mental actions on their basis. Already in early childhood, a child can perform actions in his mind and is able to select the necessary parts, for example, for a pyramid or nesting doll, without external tests. The basis of a guess is an elementary form of internal action, but not with real objects, but with their images, ideas and methods of use. This kind of thinking is called visual-figurative.

List of used literature:

1. Practical child psychology: textbook / ed. T. D. Martsinkovskaya. - M., 2000.

2. Development of thinking at an early age / S. P. Novoselova. - M. - 1978.

3. Formation of thinking in children with developmental disabilities / Stebeleva E.A. - M. - 2021.

4. Child psychology / Smirnova E.O. - M. - 2006.

Types of thinking: stages of child development

Development of thinking in preschool children. The following types of thinking dominate in a preschooler:

objective-active, which develops spurred by the child’s imagination; typical for children aged 1 to 2 years.
visual-figurative, which develops on the basis of the child’s existing knowledge; typical for children aged 3 to 4 years.
verbal-logical, since speech begins to play an important role in achieving any goal of the child; typical for children of older preschool age - 5-7 years.

Subject-effective thinking

The youngest preschoolers love to break toys. They are not aggressors releasing negative energy, they are explorers. The objects that surround the child are interesting to him, he wants to touch them and take them apart. One action follows another. Speech is not important here, and the little ones do not yet have the ability to speak and explain their actions. The child thinks with his hands, exploring the properties of each object.

Visual-figurative type of thinking

When a child turns three or four years old, he already owns certain images that he actively uses in play. At the same time, objective-active thinking occurs; visual-figurative thinking simply becomes its continuation.

Verbal and logical thinking

At the age of five, preschoolers are already actively chatting, can analyze information, and give a detailed answer. They use speech in play and in everyday life; children remember that with the help of speech it is easier to achieve the desired result.

Abstract-symbolic

With this thinking, the child can separate the essential properties, signs of an object from the unimportant. The baby understands that a specific object can be replaced by another if it has the same characteristic features.

Creative thinking (creativity)

Creativity knows no boundaries or age differences. Whether at two or six years old, a child can enthusiastically build castles with blocks, knead plasticine, or move a brush with paint over a sheet of paper. At the same time, the child makes or draws what he wants, showing imagination. The child also sings, plays music, and dances with his soul.

Development of visual and effective thinking of modern preschoolers

The article examines modern conditions for the development of visual and effective thinking in preschoolers. The research of A. A. Kataeva, T. I. Obukhova, E. A. Strebeleva in the field of visual-effective thinking is analyzed.

Key words : visual-effective thinking, visual-figurative thinking, verbal-logical thinking, genesis of thinking, transductive thinking.

Forms of development of thinking in different psychological systems are considered from different points of view. According to the concept of J. Piaget, the thinking pattern of a child up to 7–8 years old is constructed in such a way that he draws conclusions regarding individual cases, without noticing the presence or absence of a contradiction between them, that is, the initial forms of thinking are transductive [3]. In Soviet psychology, in accordance with the concept of L. S. Vygotsky, the genesis of thinking passes from visual-effective to visual-figurative and then to logical [1].

Basic research on the origin and development of the visual-effective form of thinking characterizes it as the first and initial [2]; [4].

This form of thinking requires the child to be able to cope with a practical problem using trial and error.

The problem of studying visual-effective thinking is still relevant. In modern conditions of development of preschool children, there is a displacement of toys by computer games, there is practically no manual labor, all this can lead to a lower level of development of visual and effective thinking. Therefore, today there is a need for additional study of children’s thinking, taking into account modern development conditions.

K. D. Ushinsky, A. S. Makarenko, and other outstanding teachers attached great importance to work activity as a developmental function.

K. D. Ushinsky wrote: “Without personal labor, a person cannot move forward, cannot remain in one place, but must go back. ...The body, heart and mind of a person require work, and this demand is so urgent that if, for some reason, a person does not have his own personal work in life, then he loses his real path. But education should not only instill in the pupil respect and love for work: it should also give him the habit of work.”

If the level of development of visual-effective thinking is insufficient, the child may subsequently encounter difficulties when studying at school, where he is faced with the task of planning his activities and predicting their results.

Modern research in the field of visual-effective thinking was carried out by: A. A. Kataeva, T. I. Obukhova, E. A. Strebeleva. As a result, it was revealed that many practical tasks are difficult not only for children aged three to five years, and sometimes older [5].

According to the authors, difficulties in completing tasks occur because the child must correctly perceive the goal, analyze and

all obstacles on the way to the goal are assessed. And these processes must occur not only at the level of perception, but also comprehension.

Many children were unable to analyze the conditions of the task either mentally or effectively, did not use targeted tests, and repeatedly repeated erroneous options for action.

In this regard, the authors of the study concluded that visual-effective thinking, which appears in children quite early, cannot be called the original, primitive form of thinking.

To develop visually effective thinking, a child must have developed perception, the ability to analyze perceptual data, an idea of the purpose of an object, in other words, imaginative and logical thinking.

Moreover, to successfully solve problems of visual-effective thinking, a child must have the skill of mixing an object in order to use it in an unfamiliar situation.

According to E. A. Strebeleva, it is necessary to provide conditions for creating in children the prerequisites for the development of visual and effective thinking. Promote the development of purposeful actions with objects; show object-game actions; introduce children to the practical use of objects - tools, substitute objects; analyze practical problem situations and tasks with the child; develop the fixation function of speech.

For the successful development of visual and effective thinking, it is necessary to use construction, modeling, all kinds of didactic games and exercises, and involve the child in manual labor in practical life.

Literature:

Vygotsky L. S. Psychology of human development.-M.: Eksmo, 2005
Zaporzhets A. V. Psychology.-M.: Uchpedgiz, 1953
Piaget J. Speech and thinking of a child.-Pedagogy-Press, 1994
Poddyakov N. N. Thinking of a preschooler.-M.: Pedagogy, 1997
On the genesis of the development of thinking in preschool age - article by A. A. Kataeva, T. I. Obukhova, E. A. Strebeleva https://www.voppy.ru/issues/1991/913/913017.htm

Exercises and games to develop thinking in preschool children

In order for thinking to actively develop, you need to constantly work with your child. To help parents and educators there will be didactic, educational and entertainment classes, excursions, meetings with specialists, as well as regular games with children.

Development of imaginative thinking in a preschooler

To develop imaginative thinking, games that involve “gray cells” are suitable. For example, an adult invites a child to look at a picture that shows various objects, but they can all be called in one word. These can be dishes, various animals, items of clothing, furniture, and transport.

Another good option is puzzles. To assemble a picture from many elements, you need to present it as a whole, pay attention to individual details, look for common features in the illustration in order to obtain the integrity of the image.

You can offer to play the game “Everything on the shelves”. In this game, from a bunch of completely different objects, you need to find only those that correspond to specific characteristics.

Development of logical thinking in preschool children

Both oral games and the use of visual materials will help to develop logical thinking.

Good oral games such as:

"Let's make up a fairy tale"

In this game, the adult starts the story, and the child’s task is to finish it.

"Yes and no"

A game with leading questions to which the second player answers: “Yes” or “No.” The task is to eventually guess the item conceived by the first player.

"Association"

In this exercise you are asked to select words by association: Dress - summer, fur coat... (winter);

squirrel - hollow, bear... (den), etc.

Using visual materials:

Make shapes from counting sticks.
Play the “labyrinth” in the picture, helping the character along the path.
Use the illustrations to create a story.

Development of creative thinking

Creative thinking is impossible without the child’s imagination and ability to operate with images. You can offer your child the following games and exercises:

find familiar images in the blot,
create an object from several different parts,
find the same signs in different pictures,
guess what an object is based on an oral description.
draw using unconventional drawing.

Development of spatial thinking

In order for a child to navigate the world around him, he needs to develop spatial skills. Games suitable for this:

with matches, when you need to build new ones from created figures,
with drawings, when the child is invited, for example, to play a pirate and find a treasure, following the plan,
exercise “Farther - Closer”, when the child is asked to move objects to close and far distances at the request of a parent or teacher,
With your eyes closed, following the teacher’s instructions, you need to draw a line on a piece of paper.

Basic forms of thinking of preschoolers

The famous researcher of child intelligence, Jean Piaget, defined the entire preschool age as a stage of specific operations. However, this stage does not end with the child entering school, but continues until the age of 11.

While living through this stage, children first gain the ability to build mental representations of objects and phenomena through actions. Then they discover the ability to imagine images and act with them internally. And almost on the threshold of school, they discover the ability to think logically.

Accordingly, from an early age until entering school, one can observe how the types of thinking in preschoolers consistently develop with the dominance of the most characteristic of their age:

Visually effective
Visual-figurative
Verbal-logical

Each subsequent form of thinking does not displace the previous one. At each age level, the child thinks both in the way he is accustomed to and adds new approaches.

Visual-effective thinking

Once again, we emphasize that the development of a child’s thinking is triggered by action. “I do - I observe what I do - I begin to understand something” - this is how the mechanism of the simplest thought processes works. Therefore, it is called visual-effective thinking.

The baby’s mental attempts are tied to visual situations and reflect direct relationships between objects. For example, when scooping porridge with a spoon, almost every child intentionally or accidentally turns the spoon over so that the contents fall onto the table. This simple experiment allows him to understand how to use such cutlery.

The next discovery will be the shape of the spoon. It turns out that you can’t do without the concavity of this tool if you want to eat soup.

Thinking for a 3-4 year old child means performing certain actions and observing what is happening, and not remembering and reflecting.

Thus, gradually, visually effective thinking is formed as the discovery of subject connections - between the components and characteristics of one object, between different objects, etc. Thanks to the accumulated experience, the child’s type of thinking acquires important characteristics:

abstraction
generality

Distraction is manifested in the fact that the child identifies an important feature and begins to use objects variably. For example, a plastic disk has just served as the steering wheel of an imaginary car, and now a preschooler is using it as a plate from which he feeds a doll. In this case, the shape of the object tells the child how to use it.

Generalization of thinking lies in the use of the same object for different purposes. For example, a younger preschooler can put small toys in a bucket, and then shake everything out and try it on as a headdress or use it as a chair.

Visual-figurative form

Experience in practical actions is an indispensable step for the development of the next type - visually imaginative thinking.

Productive activities are especially useful for developing creative thinking. When intending to build, sculpt or draw something, a child at least vaguely imagines the result. This already contains an intellectual task: “I want to do it... But how can I implement it?”

What features should you focus on to draw an apple? Probably on its round shape. And to make it even more similar to the original, you should add a ponytail with a leaf.

The preschooler draws models of the objects he sees around him. And this is only possible if he notices important characteristics of objects, analyzes, establishes differences and similarities with other objects.

An important feature of visual figurative thinking is that a child can imagine a certain object and come up with its image using memories and using imagination.

This implies the main properties of the figurative form of thinking:

mobility
structural organization

Thanks to the mobility of thinking, a preschooler is able to supplement his ideas. It is enough to show the baby the long ears of the toy, and he will immediately recognize the hare. This property extends to the child’s recognition of any objects familiar to him by visible elements.

The structural organization of mental activity is clearly manifested in design. To build a model from structural parts, the child thinks about the relative position of the parts and determines the sequence of connections. Thinking, he looks for ways to create an image that would correspond to the plan.

Role-playing games effectively develop children's imaginative thinking. It is in such games that preschoolers try to create typical images, analyze and mentally imagine situations that truthfully reflect real life or correspond to fantastic plots.

Visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking are closely intertwined. The child is driven by cognitive activity. He experiments, and thanks to actions and images, he discovers relationships, signs, characteristics, features in the world around him. These types of thinking bring the preschooler closer to understanding objective logical laws.

Verbal and logical thinking

Only by the end of preschool age is thinking formed, based on the active work of mental operations with subordination to the laws of logic. Since this form of mental activity is accompanied by constant verbal reasoning in the child, the type of thinking is called verbal-logical.

The development of mental operations in preschoolers begins at the stage of visual-effective thinking. But at 3-4 years old, a child spontaneously identifies only bright “conspicuous” signs of objects, which rarely turn out to be significant.

The older preschooler tries to detect the most significant and constant signs in surrounding objects, actively using intellectual operations for this:

analysis
synthesis
comparison
generalization
classification

Of course, children's logical thinking uses visual material. And in older preschool age, abstract concepts are difficult for a child to understand. As for specific images or relationships, the older preschooler is able to reason, highlighting causes and consequences, analogies, and characteristic features.

Increasingly, the preschooler conducts analysis, comparison, and generalization internally and produces a ready-made judgment. Everyone is familiar with the situation of a boy with the air of an expert examining a broken machine or robot and summarizing what is wrong.

This indicates that the child is undergoing a restructuring between practical and mental actions. And although the leading type of thinking in children of senior preschool age is still visual and figurative, the logical thought process can be traced in many children’s conclusions and questions.

The child’s expectations become different when he wants to get an answer to a question that worries him. Therefore, he turns to adults who, in his opinion, have expert knowledge and will explain everything rationally. Often questions are presented in the form of a hypothesis, thanks to which inquisitive preschoolers try to clarify cause-and-effect relationships. For example, children are interested in: “If the sun “sets” on this side, then why does it “rise” on the other in the morning?”, “Who came up with the idea of calling a penguin a bird?” and so on.

See recommendations for the development of verbal and logical thinking in preschool age.

Thus, the thinking of a preschooler is associated with specific operations. At the first stage, the ability to think based on actions with specific objects is formed, then the child learns to imagine images and associate his thoughts with them. In this case, mental ideas move to the internal plane, which provides the basis for logical reasoning and conclusions. But abstract concepts are still not accessible to preschoolers. They can be absorbed by the child’s mind after 10 years.

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.

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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.