(unpreparedness) of the child for schooling. Psychological diagnostics of readiness for schooling
(materials for teachers)
Evstegneeva A.A., educational psychologist, Municipal Budgetary Educational Institution “Secondary School No. 29”
Kostroma – 2012
Content
Introduction
Problem psychological readiness to school in Lately has become very popular among researchers of various specialties. Psychologists, teachers, physiologists study and justify the criteria for readiness for schooling, argue about the age at which it is most advisable to start teaching children at school. Interest in this problem is explained by the fact that figuratively psychological readiness for schooling can be compared to the foundation of a building: a good strong foundation is the key to the reliability and quality of future construction.
Psychological readiness for schooling is understood as the necessary and sufficient level of psychological development of a child to master the school curriculum under certain learning conditions. A child’s psychological readiness for school is one of the most important results of psychological development during preschool childhood.
Currently, very high demands are placed on the process of organizing education and training. By the beginning of the new millennium, the Russian school was faced with the task of finding ways for further development. Introduction to practice educational institutions federal state standards of the new generation guide teachers towards achieving a complex goal: the formation of a highly moral, creative, competent citizen of Russia, who accepts the fate of the Fatherland as his personal, aware of responsibility for the present and future of his country, rooted in spiritual and cultural traditions Russian people. The needs for changes associated with education are determined, on the one hand, by the order of the state to form a person with the following set of qualities: activity, initiative, the ability to take responsibility for himself and his loved ones, readiness to act in non-standard situations, teaching methods and readiness for continuous education, competencies, both key and in various fields of knowledge, the ability to identify oneself as a member of a particular ethnic group, a bearer of national culture, as a citizen and patriot multinational country; on the other hand, the request of parents and students related to the quality of education, the implementation of an individual, person-oriented approach in the practice of schools. Modern pedagogical science is looking for new, more effective psychological and pedagogical approaches aimed at bringing teaching methods into line with the requirements of life. In this sense, the problem of preschoolers’ readiness to study at school takes on special significance.
The solution to this problem is related to the determination of the goals and principles of organizing training and education in preschool institutions. At the same time, the success of children’s subsequent education at school depends on its solution. One of the main tasks of determining psychological readiness for schooling is the prevention of school maladjustment.
To successfully implement this goal, various classes have recently been created, the task of which is to implement an individual approach to education in relation to children, both ready and not ready for school, in order to avoid school maladjustment.
At different times, psychologists have dealt with the problem of school readiness; many methods and programs have been developed (Gudkina N.N., Ovcharova R.V., Bezrukikh M.I., etc.) for diagnosing school readiness of children and psychological assistance in the formation of components of school maturity.
But in practice, it is difficult for a psychologist to choose from this set the one that will (fully) help to comprehensively determine the child’s readiness for learning and help prepare the child for school.
The relevance of this problem determined the topic of our work, “The problem of a child’s psychological readiness (unpreparedness) for schooling. Psychological diagnostics of readiness for schooling.”
Goal of the work: reveal the features of psychological readiness and the reasons for the child’s unpreparedness for schooling.
Object of study: the child's readiness for school.
Subject of study: Features of a child’s psychological readiness for school.
Job task:
1. Analyze the psychological and pedagogical literature on the research topic. Determine the content of the concept of “school maturity”.
2. Reveal the main reasons for children’s unpreparedness for school.
3. Identify the main methods of psychological and pedagogical diagnosis of a child’s readiness for school.
The test consists of an introduction, three paragraphs, a conclusion, a bibliography, and appendices.
§1. The concept of school readiness. Key aspects of school maturity
Preparing children for school is a complex task, covering all areas of a child’s life. Psychological readiness for school is only one aspect of this task.
Readiness for school in modern conditions is considered, first of all, as readiness for schooling or educational activities. This approach is justified by looking at the problem from the perspective of the periodization of the child’s mental development and the change of leading types of activity. According to E.E. Kravtsova, the problem of psychological readiness for schooling is specified as a problem of changing the leading types of activity, i.e. This is a transition from role-playing games of educational activities. This approach is relevant, but readiness for educational activities does not fully cover the phenomenon of readiness for school.
L. I Bozhovich pointed out back in the 60s that readiness for learning at school consists of a certain level of development of mental activity, cognitive interests, readiness for voluntary regulation, their cognitive activity to the social position of the student. Similar views were developed by A.V. Zaporozhets, noting that readiness for school is a holistic system of interconnected qualities of a child’s personality, including the characteristics of its motivation, the level of development of cognitive, analytical and synthetic activity, the degree of formation of volitional regulation mechanisms.
Today, it is almost universally accepted that readiness for schooling is a multicomponent education. Traditionally, there are three aspects of school maturity: intellectual, emotional and social.
Intellectual maturity refers to differentiated perception (perceptual maturity), including the identification of a figure from the background; concentration; analytical thinking, expressed in the ability to comprehend the basic connections between phenomena; possibility of logical memorization; the ability to reproduce a pattern, as well as the development of fine hand movements and sensorimotor coordination. We can say that intellectual maturity understood in this way largely reflects the functional maturation of brain structures.
Emotional maturity is generally understood as a reduction in impulsive reactions and the ability to perform a not very attractive task for a long time.
Social maturity includes the child’s need to communicate with peers and the ability to subordinate his behavior to the laws of children’s groups, as well as the ability to play the role of a student in a school learning situation.
L.I. Bozhovich (1968) identifies several parameters of a child’s psychological development that most significantly influence the success of schooling. Among them is a certain level of motivational development of the child, including cognitive and social motives teachings, sufficient development of voluntary behavior and intellectuality of the sphere. She considered the motivational plan to be the most important in a child’s psychological readiness for school. Two groups of teaching motives were identified:
1. Broad social motives for learning, or motives associated “with the child’s needs for communication with other people, for their evaluation and approval, with the student’s desires to occupy a certain place in the system of social relations available to him”;
2. Motives directly related to educational activities, or “the cognitive interests of children, the need for intellectual activity and the acquisition of new skills, abilities and knowledge” (L.I. Bozhovich, 1972, pp. 23-24). A child who is ready for school wants to study because he wants to know a certain position in human society that opens access to the world of adults and because he has a cognitive need that cannot be satisfied at home. The fusion of these two needs contributes to the emergence of a new attitude of the child towards environment, named L.I. Bozovic “the inner position of a schoolchild” (1968). This neoplasm L.I. Bozhovich attached great importance, believing that the “inner position of the student” and the broad social motives of learning are purely historical phenomena.
The new formation “internal position of the schoolchild,” which arises at the turn of preschool and primary school age and represents a fusion of two needs – cognitive and the need to communicate with adults at a new level, allows the child to be involved in the educational process as a subject of activity, which is expressed in social formation and fulfillment of intentions and goals, or, in other words, voluntary behavior of the student.
Almost all authors studying psychological readiness for school give voluntariness a special place in the problem being studied. There is a point of view that the weak development of voluntariness - main stone stumbling blocks of psychological readiness for school. But to what extent voluntariness should be developed by the beginning of school is a question that has been very poorly studied in the literature. The difficulty lies in the fact that, on the one hand, voluntary behavior is considered a new formation of primary school age, developing within the educational (leading) activity of this age, and on the other hand, the weak development of voluntary behavior interferes with the beginning of schooling.
D.B. Elkonin (1978) believed that voluntary behavior is born in role-playing game in a group of children, allowing the child to rise to a higher level of development than he can do in the game alone because The team in this case corrects the violation in imitation of the expected image, while it is still very difficult for the child to independently exercise such control.
In the works of E.E. Kravtsova, when characterizing the psychological readiness of children for school, focuses on the role of communication in the development of the child. Three areas are distinguished - attitude towards an adult, towards a peer and towards oneself, the level of development of which determines the degree of readiness for school and in a certain way correlates with the main structural components educational activities.
N.G. Sallina also highlighted the child’s intellectual development as indicators of psychological readiness.
It must be emphasized that in domestic psychology, when studying the intellectual component of psychological readiness for school, the emphasis is not on the amount of acquired knowledge, although this is also not an unimportant factor, but on the level of development intellectual processes. “... a child must be able to identify the essential in the phenomena of the surrounding reality, be able to compare them, see similar and different; he must learn to reason, find the causes of phenomena, and draw conclusions” (L.I. Bozhovich, 1968, p. 210). For successful learning, a child must be able to identify the subject of his knowledge.
In addition to the indicated components of psychological readiness for school, another one is often highlighted - speech development. Speech is closely related to intelligence and reflects both the general development of the child and the level of his logical thinking. It is necessary for the child to be able to find in words individual sounds, i.e. he must have developed phonemic hearing.
Thus, based on the analysis scientific literature It is possible to distinguish psychological spheres, based on the level of development of which psychological readiness for school is judged: affect-need, voluntary, intellectual and speech. For successful learning, a child must meet the requirements set for him.
§2. The main reasons for children’s unpreparedness for schooling
Psychological readiness for schooling is a complex phenomenon. When children enter school, insufficient development of any one component of psychological readiness is often revealed. This leads to difficulty or disruption of the child’s adaptation to school. Conventionally, psychological readiness can be divided into educational readiness and socio-psychological readiness.
Students with socio-psychological unpreparedness for learning, displaying childlike spontaneity, answer simultaneously in class, without raising their hands and interrupting each other, sharing their thoughts and feelings with the teacher. They usually get involved in work only when the teacher directly addresses them, and the rest of the time they are distracted, do not follow what is happening in the class, and violate discipline. Having high self-esteem, they are offended by comments when the teacher or parents express dissatisfaction with their behavior, they complain that the lessons are uninteresting, the school is bad and the teacher is evil.
There are various options for the development of children 6-7 years old with personal characteristics that affect success in school.
1. Anxiety. High anxiety becomes stable with constant dissatisfaction with the child’s academic work on the part of the teacher and parents, with an abundance of comments and reproaches. Anxiety arises from the fear of doing something badly or incorrectly. The same result is achieved in a situation where the child studies well, but the parents expect more from him and make excessive demands, sometimes unrealistic.
Due to the increase in anxiety and associated low self-esteem, educational achievements decrease and failure is consolidated. Uncertainty leads to a number of other features - the desire to madly follow the instructions of an adult, to act only according to samples and templates, the fear of taking the initiative to formally assimilate knowledge and methods of action.
Adults who are not satisfied with the low productivity of their child’s educational work focus more and more on these issues when communicating with him, which increases emotional discomfort.
2. Negativistic demonstrativeness. Demonstrativeness is a personality trait associated with an increased need for success and attention from others. A child with this property behaves in a mannered manner. His exaggerated emotional reactions serve as a means of achieving the main goal - to attract attention and gain approval. If for a child with high anxiety the main problem is the constant disapproval of adults, then for a demonstrative child it is a lack of praise. Negativism extends not only to the norms of school discipline, but also to the teaching requirements of the teacher. Without accepting educational tasks, periodically “falling out” of the educational process, the child cannot master the necessary knowledge and methods of action, and learn successfully.
The source of demonstrativeness, which clearly manifests itself already in preschool age, is usually the lack of attention of adults to children who feel “abandoned” and “unloved” in the family. It happens that a child receives sufficient attention, but it does not satisfy him due to an exaggerated need for emotional contacts.
Excessive demands are usually made by spoiled children.
Children with negativistic demonstrativeness, violating the rules of behavior, achieve the attention they need. It is desirable for such children. The task of adults is to do without lectures and edifications, not to pay attention, to make comments and punish as less emotionally as possible.
3. “Departure of reality” is another option for unfavorable development. It manifests itself when children's demonstrativeness is combined with anxiety. These children also have a strong need for attention to themselves, but they cannot realize it in a sharp theatrical form because of their anxiety. They are inconspicuous, afraid of causing disapproval, and strive to fulfill the demands of adults.
An unsatisfied need for attention leads to an increase in anxiety and even greater passivity and invisibility, which are usually combined with immaturity and lack of self-control.
Without achieving significant progress in learning, such children, just like purely demonstrative ones, “drop out” from the learning process in the classroom. But it looks different; did not violate discipline, did not interfere with work
Such children love to fantasize. In dreams and various fantasies, the child gets the opportunity to become the main actor, to achieve the recognition he lacks. When adults encourage children to be active, pay attention to the results of their educational activities and search for ways of creative self-realization, a relatively easy correction of their development is achieved.
Another pressing problem of a child’s socio-psychological readiness is the problem of developing qualities in children, thanks to which they could communicate with other children and the teacher. A child comes to school, a class in which children are engaged in a common task and he needs to have fairly flexible ways of establishing relationships with other children, he needs the ability to enter the children's society, act together with others, the ability to retreat and defend himself.
Thus, socio-psychological readiness for learning presupposes the development in children of the need to communicate with others, the ability to obey the interests and customs of the children's group, and the developing ability to cope with the role of a schoolchild in a school learning situation.
Psychological readiness for school – holistic education. A lag in the development of one component sooner or later entails a lag or distortion in the development of others. Complex deviations are observed in cases where the initial psychological readiness for schooling may be quite high, but due to some personal characteristics children experience significant difficulties in learning. The prevailing intellectual unpreparedness for learning leads to unsuccessful learning activities, the inability to understand and fulfill the teacher’s requirements and, consequently, low grades.
Academic readiness also includes a certain level of development of the motivational sphere. A child who is ready for school is one who is attracted to school not by its external aspects (the attributes of school life - a briefcase, textbooks, notebooks), but by the opportunity to acquire new knowledge, which involves the development of preparatory processes. The future schoolchild needs to voluntarily control his behavior and cognitive activity, which becomes possible with the formation of a hierarchical system of motives. Thus, the child must have developed learning motivation.
Motivational immaturity often leads to problems in knowledge and low productivity of educational activities.
A child’s admission to school is associated with the emergence of the most important personal new formation – an internal position. This is the motivational center that ensures that the child is focused on learning, has an emotionally positive attitude towards school, and strives to live up to the example of a good student.
In cases where the student’s internal position is not satisfied, he may experience persistent emotional distress: expectation of success at school, bad attitude to oneself, fear of school, reluctance to attend it.
Thus, the child develops a feeling of anxiety, this is the beginning of the appearance of fear and anxiety.
First-graders, who for various reasons cannot cope with the academic load, eventually fall into the ranks of underachievers, which, in turn, leads to both neuroses and fear of school. Children who have not acquired the necessary experience of communicating with adults and peers before school are not confident in themselves, are afraid of not meeting adults’ expectations, experience difficulties in adapting to the school community and fear of the teacher.
Thus, the immaturity of one component of school readiness leads the child to psychological difficulties and problems in adapting to school. This makes it necessary psychological assistance at the stage of preparing the child for school, in order to eliminate possible deviations.
§3. Psychological diagnostics of readiness for schooling
An important stage in the process of organizing the preparation of children for school is the diagnostic stage. Based on the identified parameters of a child’s psychological readiness for school, tests are created to determine school maturity.
In preschool institutions and schools, to determine the degree of readiness of a child for learning and to prevent possible school difficulties associated with unpreparedness in one or another school aspect, early diagnosis of school maturity is carried out.
When determining psychological readiness for schooling, a child practical psychologist must clearly understand the diagnostic tasks. The following goals can be identified that are important to follow when organizing the process of diagnosing readiness for school:
1. Understanding the characteristics of the psychological development of children in order to determine individual educational routes.
2. Identification of children who are not ready for schooling, in order to carry out activities with them aimed at preventing school failure.
3. Distribution of future first-graders into classes in accordance with their “zone of proximal development,” which allows each child to develop in an optimal mode for him.
4. Delay for 1 year the start of education for children who are not ready for school, which is only possible for children of six years of age.
One of the most common methods for determining psychological readiness for schooling is the Kern-Jirasek Orientation Test of School Maturity (Appendix 1).
The school maturity orientation test consists of three tasks:
The first task is to draw a male figure from memory, the second is to draw written letters, the third is to draw a group of dots. To do this, each child is given sheets of paper with examples of completing tasks. All three tasks are aimed at determining the development of fine motor skills of the hand and coordination of vision and hand movements; these skills are necessary in school for mastering writing. The test also allows you to identify (in general terms) the development of the child’s intelligence. The tasks of drawing written letters and drawing a group of dots reveal the children’s ability to reproduce a pattern. They also allow you to determine whether the child can work for some time with concentration without distractions.
The result of each task is assessed on a five-point system (1 - the highest score; 5 - the lowest score), and then the summed total for the three tasks is calculated. The development of children who received a total of 3 to 6 points on three tasks is considered above average, from 7 to 11 - as average, from 12 to 15 - below average. Children who received between 12 and 15 points must be further examined.
Another technique that is often used by psychologists to determine readiness for schooling is aimed at studying the voluntary activities of a preschooler. This is the “House” technique (N.I. Gutkina) (Appendix 2).
The technique is a task of drawing a picture depicting a house, the individual details of which are made up of capital letters. The task allows us to identify the child’s ability to focus his work on a model, the ability to accurately copy it, reveals the features of the development of voluntary attention, spatial perception, sensorimotor coordination and fine motor skills of the hand. The technique is designed for children 5.5 – 10 years old.
Focusing on changes occurring in the system primary education(introduction of the Federal State Educational Standards of the new generation), a methodological association of psychologists from the City Center for Quality Assurance in Education (Kostroma) created a set of diagnostic materials to determine the degree of readiness of a child to study at school (Appendix 3).
This kit includes the following diagnostic techniques:
MEDIS – method of express diagnostics of intellectual abilities;
Methodology for studying learning motivation before starting school;
Graphic dictation is a technique for studying a child’s orientation on a sheet of paper.
the child’s general awareness and vocabulary;
understanding of quantitative and qualitative relationships;
logical thinking;
mathematical abilities;
motivation;
the ability to listen and clearly follow the instructions of an adult;
child’s independence in educational work;
performance.
Conclusion
The problem of psychological readiness for schooling is extremely relevant.
Psychological readiness for schooling is understood as the need and sufficient level of psychological development of a child to master the school curriculum in the conditions of learning in a group of peers.
Determining its essence, indicators of readiness, and ways of its formation determine, on the one hand, the determination of the goals and content of education and upbringing in preschool institutions, and, on the other hand, the success of the subsequent development and education of children at school. Many teachers and psychologists (Gutkina N.N., Bityanova M.R., Kravtsova E.E., Bezrukikh M.I., etc.) associate the successful adaptation of a child in the 1st grade with readiness for schooling.
Adaptation in 1st grade is a special and difficult period of adaptation in a child’s life: he learns new social role student, a new type of activity - educational, the social environment changes - classmates, teachers and the school appear as a big social group, in which the child is included, his way of life changes. A child who is psychologically unprepared for learning in one or another aspect of school maturity experiences difficulties in adapting to school and may be maladjusted.
School maladaptation is understood as “a certain set of signs indicating a discrepancy between the socio-psychological and psychophysical status of the child and the requirements of the school learning situation, the mastery of which for a number of reasons becomes difficult or, in extreme cases, impossible.” Mental development disorders lead to certain disruptions in school adaptation.
In the concept of “readiness for school” it is possible to distinguish two substructures: readiness for educational activities (as a prevention of educational maladjustment) and socio-psychological readiness for school (as a line of prevention of socio-psychological maladaptation to school).
The lack of development of one of the components of school readiness is an unfavorable development option and leads to difficulties in adapting to school: in the educational and socio-psychological sphere.
To prepare a child for successful schooling, there are various approaches: special classes in kindergarten at the stage of adaptation to school, diagnostics of school readiness and preparation before school.
One of the stages in the process of organizing the preparation of children for school is the diagnostic stage. Based on the identified parameters of a child’s psychological readiness for school, tests are created to determine school maturity. The main diagnostic methods at the moment are the “Orientation Test of School Maturity” by Kern-Jirasek, the “House” method by N.I. Gutkina.
In the schools of the city of Kostroma, since the 2011-2012 school year, in order to diagnose the level of readiness of children to study at school, a set of diagnostic materials has been compiled by the methodological association of psychologists of the City Center for Quality Assurance in Education (Kostroma). The set was formed focusing on the changes taking place in the primary education system (introduction of the Federal State Educational Standards of the new generation).
APPLICATIONS
Annex 1.
Kern-Jirasek test
The orientation test of school maturity by J. Jirasek, which is a modification of the test by A. Kern, consists of 3 tasks: imitation of written letters, drawing a group of dots, drawing a male figure from an idea. The result is assessed using a five-point system, and then the total result for all three tasks is calculated. This technique allows you to determine the level of development fine motor skills, predisposition to master writing skills, level of development of hand coordination and spatial orientation.
Reveals the general level of mental development, the level of development of thinking, the ability to listen, perform tasks according to a model, and the arbitrariness of mental activity.
1. Draw an uncle (man).
Children are asked to draw a man so that they can see the legs of the human figure and evaluate how the child maintains proportions when drawing a man. It is important to pay attention to how the child draws details, face, elements of clothing. While drawing, it is unacceptable to correct the child (“you forgot to draw ears”), the adult silently observes.
Assessment is carried out as follows according to the five-point system
1 point: a male figure is drawn (elements of men’s clothing), there is a head, torso, limbs; the head and body are connected by the neck, it should not be larger than the body; the head is smaller than the body; on the head – hair, possibly a headdress, ears; on the face - eyes, nose, mouth; the hands have hands with five fingers; legs are bent (there is a foot or shoe); the figure is drawn in a synthetic way (the outline is solid, the legs and arms seem to grow from the body, and are not attached to it.
2 points: fulfillment of all requirements, except for the synthetic method of drawing, or if there is a synthetic method, but 3 details are not drawn: neck, hair, fingers; the face is completely drawn.
3 points: the figure has a head, torso, limbs (arms and legs are drawn with two lines); may be missing: neck, ears, hair, clothing, fingers, feet.
4 points: a primitive drawing with a head and torso, arms and legs are not drawn, can be in the form of one line.
5 points: lack of a clear image of the torso, no limbs; scribble.
2. Copy the sample.
The test is aimed at identifying the ability to copy, maintain proportions, see the line, and highlight individual words. A sample is given, you must write exactly the same. For example: I am sitting, she has been given tea, I am sitting.
Grade.
1 point: the sample is well and completely copied; letters may be slightly larger than the sample, but not 2 times; the first letter is capital; the phrase consists of three words, their location on the sheet is horizontal (a slight deviation from horizontal is possible).
2 points: the sample is copied legibly; the size of the letters and horizontal position are not taken into account (the letter may be larger, the line may go up or down).
3 points: the inscription is divided into three parts, you can understand at least 4 letters.
4 points: at least 2 letters match the sample, the line is visible.
5 points: illegible scribbles, scribbling.
The test shows how ready the child is to learn to write, whether he sees a line or individual words.
3. Draw points from the sample.
Accurate reproduction is necessary; one point may be out of place. (The dots can be in any order, they can form a pattern, and are often drawn in cells.)
In the sample, 10 points are located at an even distance from each other vertically and horizontally.
Assessment
1 point: exact copying of the sample, small deviations from the line or column are allowed, reduction of the picture, enlargement is unacceptable.
2 points: the number and location of points correspond to the sample, deviation of up to three points by half the distance between them is allowed; dots can be replaced by circles.
3 points: the drawing as a whole corresponds to the sample, and does not exceed it in height or width by more than 2 times; the number of points may not correspond to the sample, but there should not be more than 20 and less than 7; We can rotate the drawing even 180 degrees.
4 points: the drawing consists of dots, but does not correspond to the sample.
5 points: scribbles, scribbles.
After evaluating each task, all points are summed up. If the child scores in total on all three tasks:
3-6 points - he has high level readiness for school;
7-12 points – average level;
13-15 points – low level of readiness, the child needs additional examination of intelligence and mental development.
Questionnaire of the indicative test of school maturity by J. Jirasek
Which animal is bigger - a horse or a dog?
In the morning you have breakfast, and in the afternoon...We have lunch.
It's light during the day, but at night...
The sky is blue and the grass...
Cherries, pears, plums, apples - is this...?
Why does the barrier go down before the train passes along the track?
What are Moscow, Rostov, Kyiv?
What time does the clock show (show on the clock)?
A little cow is a calf, a little dog is..., a little sheep is ...?
Is a dog more like a chicken or a cat? How are they similar, what do they have the same?
Why do all cars have brakes?
How are a hammer and an ax similar to each other?
How are squirrels and cats similar to each other?
14. What is the difference between a nail and a screw? How would you recognize them if they were lying here in front of you?
They have different signs: the screw has a thread (thread, such a twisted line around the notch) and 3 points. The screw is screwed in and the nail is driven in, or the screw has a nut = 2 points. Incorrect answer = 0 points.
15. Football, high jump, tennis, swimming - is this...?
Sports, physical education = 3 points. Games (exercises), gymnastics, competitions = 2 points. Incorrect answer = 0 points.
16. What vehicles do you know?
Three land vehicles, aircraft or ship = 4 points. Only three ground vehicles or full list, with an airplane or with a ship, but only after explaining that vehicles are something on which you can move somewhere = 2 points. Incorrect answer = 0 points.
17. How is it different? an old man from a young man? What's the difference between them?
Three signs (gray hair, lack of hair, wrinkles, can no longer work like that, sees poorly, hears poorly, is sick more often, is more likely to die than young) = 4 points. 1 or 2 differences = 2 points. Incorrect answer (he has a stick, he smokes, etc.) = 0 points.
18. Why do people play sports?
Two reasons (to be healthy, fit, strong, to be more mobile, to stand straight, not to be fat, they want to achieve a record, etc.) = 4 points. One reason = 2 points. Incorrect answer (to be able to do something) = 0 points.
19. Why is it bad when someone avoids work?
The rest must work for him (or another expression for the fact that someone else suffers as a result of this). He is lazy. Earns little and cannot buy anything = 2 points. Incorrect answer = 0 points.
20. Why do you need to put a stamp on the envelope?
This is how they pay for sending, transporting a letter = 5 points. The other one would have to pay a fine = 2 points. Incorrect answer = 0 points.
After the survey is completed, the results are calculated based on the number of points achieved on individual questions. Quantitative results of this assignment are divided into five groups:
1 group - plus 24 or more;
Group 2 - plus 14 to 23;
Group 3 - from 0 to 13;
Group 4 - from minus 1 to minus 10;
Group 5 - less than minus 11.
According to the classification, the first three groups are considered positive. Children who score from plus 24 to plus 13 are considered ready for school.
Appendix 2.
“House”, N.I. Gutkina’s methodology (readiness for school)
The “House” technique (N.I. Gutkina) is a task of drawing a picture depicting a house, the individual details of which are made up of elements of capital letters. The methodology is designed for children 5-10 years old and can be used to determine the readiness of children for school.
Purpose of the study: to determine the child’s ability to copy a complex pattern.
The task allows you to identify the child’s ability to focus on a model, copy it accurately, and determine the features of the development of voluntary attention, spatial perception, sensorimotor coordination and fine motor skills of the hand.
Materials and equipment: sample drawing, sheet of paper, simple pencil.
Examination procedure
Before completing the task, the child is given the following instructions: “In front of you lie a sheet of paper and a pencil. I ask you to draw on this sheet exactly the same picture as on this piece of paper (a piece of paper with a picture of a house is placed in front of the subject). Take your time, be careful, try to ensure that your drawing is exactly the same as on this sample. If you draw something wrong, do not erase it with an eraser or your finger (you must make sure that the child does not have an eraser). You need to draw the correct one on top of the incorrect one or next to it. Do you understand the task? Then get to work."
As you complete the task, you must record:
which hand the child draws with (right or left);
how he works with the sample: does he often look at it, does he draw air lines over the sample drawing, repeating the contours of the picture, does he compare what he has done with the sample, or, after briefly glancing at it, draws from memory;
draws lines quickly or slowly;
Are you distracted while working?
statements and questions while drawing;
Does he check his drawing with the sample after finishing his work?
When the child reports finishing the work, he is asked to check if everything is correct. If he sees inaccuracies in his drawing, he can correct them, but this must be recorded by the experimenter.
The “House” technique can be considered as an analogue of tasks II and III of the Kern-Jirasek test, namely: copying written letters (II task) and drawing a group of dots (III task). A comparison of the results using these methods allowed us to conclude that the “House” method reveals the same psychological characteristics in child development, as II and III tasks Kern-Jirasek test.
The “House” technique can be carried out both individually and in small groups.
The result of the method is calculated in points not so much to compare one child with another, but to track changes in the sensorimotor development of the same child at different ages.
Sensorimotor. Attention //Diagnostic tools for a child psychologist/Ed. I.V.Dubrovina.- Issue 1. - N. Novgorod, 1996. - pp. 23-26.
Appendix 3.
Diagnostic kit for determining school readiness
Various approaches to the concept of psychological readiness of children for schooling in the works of modern psychologists.
Psychological readiness for school is a necessary and sufficient level of mental development of a child to master the school curriculum in a peer group environment.
Psychological readiness for systematic learning at school is the result of the child’s entire previous development in preschool childhood. It is formed gradually and depends on the conditions in which the organism develops. Readiness for schooling presupposes a certain level of mental development, as well as the formation of the necessary personality qualities. In this regard, scientists highlight the child’s intellectual and personal readiness for school. The latter requires a certain level of development of social motives of behavior and moral and volitional qualities of the individual.
Thus, psychological readiness for schooling is manifested in the formation of the child’s main mental spheres: motivational, moral, volitional, mental, which generally ensure successful mastery of educational material.
IN foreign research psychological maturity is identical to the concept of school maturity.
Research (G. Getzer, A. Kern, J. Jirasek, etc.) traditionally distinguishes three aspects of school maturity: intellectual, emotional and social.
Intellectual maturity is understood as differentiated perception, including: identifying figures from the background; concentration; analytical thinking, expressed in the ability to comprehend the basic connections between phenomena; possibility of logical memorization; the ability to reproduce a pattern, as well as the development of fine hand movements and sensorimotor coordination. Intellectual maturity understood in this way reflects the functional maturation of brain structures.
Emotional maturity is generally understood as a reduction in impulsive reactions and the ability to perform unattractive tasks for a long time.
Social maturity includes the child’s need to communicate with peers and the ability to subordinate his behavior to the laws of children’s groups, as well as the ability to play the role of a student in a school learning situation.
In Russian psychology and pedagogy, the problem of a child’s readiness to begin systematic schooling has been studied in various aspects (L.S. Vygotsky, L.I. Bozhovich, D.B. Elkonin, N.G. Salmina, L.A. Venger, V. V. Kholmovskaya and others). Here the general and special readiness of children for school is highlighted. General readiness includes personal, intellectual, physical and socio-psychological. Special readiness includes preparing children to master course subjects primary school(These include initial reading, counting skills, etc.).
Now we will sequentially consider different approaches to the concept of a child’s psychological readiness for school.
Thus, A. Kern in his concept proceeds from the following assumptions:
There is a close connection between physical and mental development.
The moment when a child has grown up to school requirements depends primarily on internal processes maturation.
An important indicator of this maturation is the degree of maturation of visual differentiation of perception, the ability to isolate an image.
Poor performance at school depends not so much on insufficient intellectual development as on insufficient readiness for school.
But further research showed that the relationship between the level of physical and mental readiness for school was not so close that one indicator could be used to judge the other. The child's development turned out to be strongly dependent on his environment, and the so-called ability to isolate an image could be trained. However, if Kern’s proposed solution to the problem no longer stood up to criticism, then the following point of his concept was unshakable: “The child’s insufficient readiness for school or, as is often said, the ability to learn leads later to excessive loads and thus to possible serious consequences. Children who have not yet grown up to school requirements should not be enrolled in school, but prepare for it.”
Thus, further development Research in this direction consisted of expanding the set of characteristics to be measured.
A. Anastasi interprets the concept of school maturity as “mastery of skills, knowledge, abilities, motivation and other behavioral characteristics necessary for the optimal level of mastering the school curriculum.”
I. Shvantsara more succinctly defines school maturity as the achievement of such a degree in development when the child becomes able to take part in school education. I. Shvantsara identifies mental, social and emotional components as components of readiness to learn at school.
Domestic psychologist L.I. Back in the 60s, Bozhovich pointed out that readiness for learning at school consists of a certain level of development of mental activity, cognitive interests, readiness for voluntary regulation of one’s cognitive activity and the social position of the student. Similar views were developed by A.I. Zaporozhets, noting that readiness to study at school “represents an integral system of interconnected qualities of a child’s personality, including the characteristics of its motivation, the level of development of cognitive, analytical and synthetic activity, the degree of formation of the mechanisms of volitional regulation of actions, etc.” .
G.G. Kravtsov and E.E. Kravtsova, speaking about readiness for schooling, emphasize its complex nature. However, the structuring of this readiness does not follow the path of differentiating the child’s general mental development into intellectual, emotional and other spheres, but types of readiness. These authors consider the system of relationships between the child and the outside world and highlight indicators of psychological readiness for school related to the development of various types the child's relationship with the outside world. In this case, the main aspects of children’s psychological readiness for school are three areas: attitude towards an adult, attitude towards a peer, attitude towards oneself.
Almost all authors studying psychological readiness for school give voluntariness a special place in the problem being studied. D. B. Elkonin believed that voluntary behavior is born in collective role-playing play, which allows the child to rise to a higher level of development than playing alone. The team corrects violations in imitation of the expected model, while it is still very difficult for a child to independently exercise such control. “The control function is still very weak,” writes D.B. Elkonin, - and often still requires support from the situation, from the participants in the game. This is the weakness of this nascent function, but the significance of the game is that this function is born here. That is why the game can be considered a school of voluntary behavior."
According to E.G. Rechitskaya in the psychological and pedagogical literature there are two basic concepts for determining the state of children during the transition from the preschool period to the school period: "school maturity" And .
These concepts adequately reflect the child’s state, on the one hand, as a result of the previous preschool development, i.e. a certain level of maturity compared to previous stages of child development, and on the other hand, readiness to move to the next age stage associated with systematic schooling.
Term "school maturity" used, as a rule, to characterize the psychophysiological characteristics of a child. Concept "school maturity" , in the opinion of E.G. Rechitskaya, is not comprehensive, but affects to a greater extent physiological readiness and several aspects of psychological readiness. In this work, preference is given to the term "readiness for schooling" as the most frequently used and reflecting the significance of a given age period for further development.
The problem of school readiness has been deeply studied in modern psychological and pedagogical literature. For a long time, it was believed that the main indicator of a child’s readiness for schooling was the level of his mental development. Currently, the concept of preparing children for school considers readiness for schooling as a complex holistic phenomenon, as a complex of qualities that form the ability to learn. A child’s psychological readiness for school is a necessary and sufficient level of psychophysiological development of a child for mastering the school curriculum; it is a certain level of intellectual and personal development child.
Recently, the task of preparing children for school education has occupied one of the important places in the development of ideas in psychological and pedagogical science. The successful solution of the problems of developing a child’s personality and increasing the effectiveness of teaching are largely determined by how accurately the level of readiness of children for schooling is taken into account. In Russian psychology, the theoretical study of the problem of psychological readiness for schooling is based on the works of L.S. Vygotsky. It was studied by the classics of child psychology L.I. Bozovic, D.B. Elkonin and well-known modern specialists L.A. continue to study. Wenger, N.I. Gutkina, I.V. Dubrovina, E.E. Kravtsova, V.S. Mukhina and others
The problem of psychological readiness for school has recently become very popular among researchers in various specialties. In many psychological and pedagogical studies, despite the difference in approaches, the fact is recognized that school education will be effective only if the first grader has the necessary and sufficient initial stage teaching qualities, which are then developed and improved in the educational process.
Psychological readiness for systematic learning at school is considered by N. N. Poddyakov as the result of the entire previous development of the child in preschool childhood. It is formed gradually and depends on the conditions in which the organism develops. Readiness for schooling presupposes a certain level of mental development, as well as the formation of the necessary personality qualities. In this regard, scientists highlight the child’s intellectual and personal readiness for school. The latter requires a certain level of development of social motives of behavior and moral and volitional qualities of the individual.
1) Idea of children’s readiness for schooling
The readiness of a preschooler for school education is one of the important results of his development in the preschool period of childhood. A turning point comes when the child’s living and activity conditions change dramatically, new relationships with adults and children develop, and responsibility for mastering knowledge appears, which is presented to children not in an entertaining way, but in the form of educational material. These features of the new conditions of life and activity make new demands on various aspects of the child’s development, his mental qualities, and personality characteristics. Entering school is associated with a transition from preschool age to primary school age, in psychologically characterized by a change in leading activities: role-playing games are replaced by teaching. The fullness of the transition to a new stage of mental development is associated not with the physical age of the child, which marks the beginning of schooling, but with how fully the preschool period of childhood is lived, its potential possibilities have been exhausted (A.V. Zaporozhets, 1972).
Readiness for schooling presupposes a certain level of mental development, as well as the formation of the necessary personality qualities. In this regard, scientists highlight the child’s intellectual and personal readiness for school. The latter requires a certain level of development of social motives of behavior and moral and volitional qualities of the individual.
Readiness for school in the field of mental development includes a number of interrelated aspects. Many teachers and psychologists emphasize that the decisive factor in readiness to master the school curriculum is not the knowledge and skills themselves, but the level of development of the child’s cognitive interests and cognitive activity. Intellectual passivity, lack of interest in new things, reluctance to get involved in solving problems that are not directly related to practical needs or gaming interests do not contribute to successful learning at school, even despite a certain amount of knowledge and the development of some skills.
A child must approach school with a certain level of development of cognitive processes. The formation of differentiated perception is important, which provides the ability to analyze, compare objects and phenomena, and highlight properties and features. It is also important to have temporal and spatial representations and knowledge of their verbal designations. Ideas about time, the timing and pace of completing tasks are one of the conditions for organizing children's activities in the classroom. Particularly high demands are placed on the level of thinking of a child preparing for school. He must have a fairly high level of visual-figurative thinking and elements of logical thinking, as well as figurative and semantic memory, and voluntary attention. The child must understand the relationship between various natural and social phenomena, establish their causes and consequences, see similarities and differences, explain the causes of phenomena, draw conclusions. It is necessary to form cognitive processes in unity with the development of speech in preschool children. The solution to various mental problems is provided at the level of visual-figurative and logical thinking, subject to mastery of speech means.
Assessing readiness for school based on the level of intellectual development is the most common mistake made by teachers and parents. Many believe that the main condition for readiness for school is the amount of knowledge that a child should have. At the same time, the efforts of parents are not measured, and the capabilities of children are not taken into account.
Determining the level of readiness for school should be the basis not only for choosing the optimal, most suitable learning option for the child and organizing the educational process, but also for predicting possible school problems, determining the forms and methods of individualizing education.
At the same time, it is necessary to know the reasons for the child’s retardation in each specific case.
Thus, psychological readiness for schooling is manifested in the formation of the child’s main mental spheres: motivational, moral, volitional, mental, which generally ensure successful mastery of educational material.
2) Basic criteria for school readiness
IN different periods development of domestic psychology, various criteria were put forward to determine a child’s readiness for school. Of these, the main criteria can be identified:
- Formation of certain skills and abilities necessary for studying at school.
- personal readiness
- motivational readiness
- emotional-volitional readiness
- intellectual readiness
For the general characteristics of a child’s readiness for school, the totality of formed qualities is important.
IN real life It is rare to find children who have all the qualities of psychological readiness for school. But if some qualities ensure a painless transition to learning, then others play a role minor role in the process of adaptation. What should be considered in psychological diagnostics.
One of the indicators of a child’s mental development is his learning ability. The basis of this concept is the highlighted L.S. Vygotsky’s two levels of mental activity: actual (cash level) and promising (zone of proximal development). The necessary and sufficient level of actual development must be such that the training program falls within "zone of proximal development" child.
If the current level of mental development of a child is such that his zone of proximal development is lower than that required for mastering the curriculum at school, then the child is considered psychologically unprepared for school education, because As a result of the discrepancy between his zone of proximal development and the required one, he cannot master the program material and falls into the category of lagging students.
The favorable period is called sensitive, the most promising for the development of the child. Learning ability is viewed in different ways: as a general "receptivity to knowledge" (B. G. Ananyev), How “susceptibility to the assimilation of knowledge and methods of mental activity” (N. A. Menchinskaya), How “general rate of student progress” (Z.I. Kalmykova). L. S. Vygotsky included in the characteristics of learning ability such a component as the child’s ability to transfer the learned method and actions to independently perform a similar task.
In modern domestic diagnostics, according to E.G. Rechitskaya, providing assistance to a child becomes the leading principle in determining the level of intellectual development.
One of the main features of the mental development of older preschoolers is that disparate ideas about individual objects and their properties, characteristic of children of the previous age level, begin to be united and transformed into not yet perfect, but holistic knowledge about the surrounding reality, provided by the processes of sensation and perception .
The development of perception is closely related to the formation of speech, since the accumulation of sensory experience creates the basis for assimilating the meanings of words and generalizing visually perceived signs, which contributes to the emergence of ideas and knowledge about the surrounding life.
In six-year-old children, cognitive needs and motives undergo significant changes. The initial need, which largely determines both the mental and general mental development of the child, is the need for new impressions. With age, this need becomes more complex quantitatively and qualitatively, and by the age of six it appears in the form of a need for new, more and more meaningful knowledge about objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality. This need is satisfied and developed by an adult who, in the process of communicating with the child, transfers new knowledge to him, communicates new information, and develops new cognitive skills. (ability to compare objects with each other, etc.).
It is important to correctly understand the sequence of formation of preschool knowledge, since material, ordered in a certain way into a clear system with a simple principle of construction, is easier to assimilate than scattered, random material.
Initially, in the process of learning to imitate the actions of an adult, instructions are used "Do this" , orienting the child to perform similar actions and select objects or images that are identical in certain properties (shape, size, etc.). Completion of the task is supported by the approval of the teacher ("Right. Here's a circle and here's a circle" ) . As a property or characteristic is isolated and visual images are accumulated, a word is introduced that summarizes these properties, for example, the names of colors, shapes, sizes, etc. In the process of subsequent work, the meaning of the word expands. It is important to carry out this work in two directions: on the one hand, to generalize the visual signs and properties in a word, on the other hand, to teach to see visually perceived properties behind a word, that is, the transition from knowledge of individual external properties of phenomena to knowledge of their internal, essential connections, perhaps carried out only in the process of sequential assimilation by children of the corresponding system of knowledge, when each subsequent, formed idea or concept follows from the previous one, and the entire system is based on initial provisions that act as its central core.
Another way to satisfy and develop this need is through one’s own activity, which transforms the child’s activity with objects and phenomena. The fact is that children, having seen a new object, strive to get to know it practically - touch it, turn it in their hands, disassemble it and, if possible, assemble it, etc. In the course of real transformations of objects, they learn their hidden properties and connections. Here, the activities of preschoolers take the form of a kind of experimentation. This is an independent activity for children, in which their initiative and creativity are clearly demonstrated. This process is extremely important, since in it the cognitive needs of preschool children are clearly manifested and formed, and new motives of behavior are formed.
Let us consider in general terms the features of this activity. First of all, in its main points it is similar to the experimentation of an adult. We can say that an experiment is a way of a person’s material or mental influence on a real or conceivable object with the aim of studying this object, knowing its properties, connections, etc. In the process of carrying out an experiment, a person acquires the ability to control this or that phenomenon: to cause or stop change it in one direction or another.
These basic features of the experiment, although still in their rudimentary form, can also be found in children’s activities with objects and phenomena. Experimentation for children is characterized by a general focus on acquiring new information about a particular subject. The attitude towards receiving something unexpected is clearly expressed. This feature acts as the main motive for the activity of a preschooler.
The process of activity is not given to the child in advance by an adult in the form of one scheme or another, but is built by the preschooler himself as he acquires new information about the object. In the process of experimentation, a child can receive information that is completely unexpected for him, which leads to a change in the direction of activity, to the setting and implementation of increasingly complex goals. This is the basis for the extreme flexibility of children's experimentation, the ability of a preschooler to rearrange his activities depending on the results obtained.
The features of this activity listed above allow us to say that the moment of self-movement and self-development is quite clearly represented in it: the transformations of the object carried out by the child reveal new properties to him. And new knowledge about the object, in turn, allows you to set new goals and make more complex transformations.
In the process of experimenting with objects and phenomena, children develop an inquisitive mind, curiosity, independence and initiative. By older preschool age, this activity reaches a high level of development. Unfortunately, adults often do not pay enough attention to its development.
One of the important problems of preparing children for school is the formation of educational activity in the broadest sense of the word. It has been established that in a number of cases, it is the lack of development of the educational activities of six-year-old children that leads to a significant decrease in their academic performance: they often experience difficulties in following the instructions of an adult or in regulating behavior based on a system of rules. Ultimately, children poorly assimilate the teacher’s explanations, which then negatively affects their independent activities. (they often lose the main goal and do not complete educational tasks). The formation of components of educational activity in kindergartens for children of senior preschool age is a process of systematic learning in the classroom, requiring the child to be able to listen, understand the teacher’s instructions and follow his instructions, and control his activity when completing a task. The development of such skills occurs during properly organized general education classes and requires a long time. These skills can also be considered as elements of educational activity.
An important point in the formation of educational activity is the reorientation of the consciousness of a six-year-old child from the final result that must be obtained during a particular educational task to the ways of its implementation. This phenomenon plays a decisive role in the child’s understanding of his actions and their results, in the development of arbitrary control of activity. Thus, when working with older preschoolers with hearing impairments, special importance should be given to organizing collective activities in which the child masters partnerships, the ability to collectively discuss a plan of action, distribute responsibilities, etc. The child performs part of the overall work, planning his actions at least in the most elementary form, outlines their sequence, creating arbitrariness and control over one’s work. In the process of performing such tasks, intellectual readiness is formed, which involves the development of basic cognitive processes and intellectual skills.
The child develops the ability to learn, and the initial forms of educational activity develop. The cognitive motive causes significant changes in the mental processes of the body. Children acquire the ability to follow the requirements of an adult, practically master the means of acquiring knowledge and skills, learn elementary forms of analysis of phenomena, acquire the ability to make simple conclusions, etc. All this has an impact positive influence for general mental development five to six year old children.
In the process of educational activity, such an important ability as self-control is formed, which makes it possible to increase the level of children's work and eliminate mechanical imitation of each other.
The consistent formation of educational activities leads to the development of the ability to control one’s mental processes, which is the foundation for the emergence of more complex structures of the child’s mental activity and the formation of concepts.
We can conclude that appropriate intellectual preparation of a child for school helps him achieve a sufficient level of organization in the educational process and successfully master new knowledge and skills.
Currently, the child’s personal readiness to study at school is of particular relevance. The formation of personality in preschool age is inseparable from the general patterns of mental development - this complex movement with qualitative leaps, where the transition to a new higher level is associated with a return to previous periods of development. The general progress of mental development is often accompanied by partial regression, and gains and achievements can reveal themselves as losses. These development paradoxes manifest themselves most clearly in moments of crisis.
Crises may not have bright negative manifestations and proceed outwardly calmly and unnoticed. However, a qualitative leap in development associated with the restructuring of mental processes necessarily remains. Therefore, transitional periods in any case are considered critical moments in the development of the child’s psyche and personality.
In preschool age role-playing (or role-playing) play underlies the central line of a child’s mental development. In all basic activities there is a relationship with another person. Mastering the meaning of basic human relationships is the main thing that happens in role-playing. Preschoolers love to play. They strive in games to reflect the impressions that they receive through observing the life around them and participating in it. For example, a children's game "mothers and daughters" : a girl rocks a doll in her arms, occasionally she performs certain play actions with it (changes swaddling clothes, speaks kind words to her) and again carries the doll in her arms. That's the whole game. From the outside, the game looks quite primitive, but still it is only apparent primitivism. After all, in fact, it is not so much the play actions that are important, but the fact that the girl plays out the mother’s feelings for her child, while external actions with the doll remain symbols and means of organizing internal experience. Therefore, a role-playing game does not and cannot have a material result. Its result is an emotional experience and the child’s ability to maintain a specific attitude towards reality, defined by a particular role. All this is very important in terms of mental development. The very ability of a child to learn at a school level is impossible without a sufficiently developed ability to perform special role and steadily maintain the student’s internal position. This quality is formed in role-playing games. However, the role of the student in the game and the role of the student that the school student takes on are not the same thing. Role play in "school" obeys different laws and occurs in a different form than the implementation of role relationships in real educational activities. The latter, as a new leading activity that replaces role-playing play, indicates that the child has moved to the next age level. Educational activity appears to be responsible for the mental development of children at primary school age.
Personal readiness for school includes social motives for a preschooler’s learning, associated with the child’s need to take a new social position. Children develop qualities that will help them communicate with classmates and with the teacher. Every child needs the ability to enter into children's society, to act together with others, to yield in some circumstances and not to yield in others. These qualities ensure adaptation to new social conditions. A delay in speech development negatively affects the awareness of one's own and others' emotional states and causes simplification of interpersonal relationships.
Readiness for a new way of life presupposes knowledge of norms of behavior and relationships (V. G. Nechaeva, T. I. Ponimanskaya). New look life will require certain personal qualities. By the age of six, the basic elements of volitional action are formed: the child is able to set a goal, make a decision, outline a plan of action, carry it out, show a certain effort in overcoming an obstacle, and evaluate the result of his action. But all these components of volitional action are not yet sufficiently developed. The identified goals are not always stable and conscious; goal retention depends on the difficulty of the task and the duration of its completion.
One of the most important components psychological readiness for school is the formation of school motivation, i.e. the desire to learn, become a schoolchild, and carry out educational activities. Properties such as curiosity, the desire to know the world around us, and intellectual activity are also important indicators of a child’s psychological readiness for school. A preschooler should have formed “the internal position of the student” , the presence of which presupposes the formation of a system of motives and their subordination.
A motivational plan for school readiness is formed in preschool institution in the process of all work: in classes in all sections of work, in different types children's activities, in communication with children and adults. To form a motivational plan for school readiness, it is important to expand ideas about the world around us, get acquainted with and develop interest in the activities and relationships of people in different spheres of life.
Of primary importance in the formation of will is the cultivation of motives for achieving goals. Forming in children the acceptance of difficulties, the desire not to give in to them, but to resolve them, not to give up on the intended goal when faced with obstacles, will help the child independently or with little help to overcome the difficulties that will arise in the 1st grade.
In all types of children's activities, attention is paid to the formation of skills joint activities when performing various tasks. Junior preschoolers it is necessary to teach one-by-one participation in a task, to organize simple games, in which children perform their own actions, alternating them with the actions of others. Particular importance in working with older preschoolers should be given to the organization of collective activities in which each child performs part of the overall work: for example, when preparing an application, one child cuts out drawn trees, another - at home, a third - pastes, a fourth - prepares signatures, etc. The conditions for collective types of visual, constructive, and labor activities presuppose the formation of a number of skills that will subsequently ensure the emergence of prerequisites for educational activities. This includes the ability to collectively discuss a plan of action, for example, how to clean up in a group and decorate the room before the New Year, how to distribute responsibilities, which do not always coincide with the children’s desires, which requires them to overcome immediate desires. The child is required to complete the assigned task in accordance with the general pace of work, control his actions, and adequately respond to the teacher’s assessment of the work, including comments or indications of errors. In the process of collective activity, children develop a number of personal qualities: activity, independence, responsibility for the assigned task. The ability to report on one’s activities becomes important for the formation of arbitrariness and control over one’s work. Participation in collectively divided labor gradually leads pupils of preparatory groups to the ability to plan their actions, at least in the most elementary form, to outline their sequence. In the process of performing such tasks, not only moral-volitional readiness and voluntary behavior are formed, but also intellectual readiness is formed, which involves the development of basic cognitive processes and intellectual skills.
To develop cooperation between children, partnerships, the ability to participate in common work, and the formation of the pace of activity in preparatory groups, such forms of organization can take place as completing tasks in subgroups, groups of two or three children, working with a small teacher, organizing shifts.
It is known that the success of school education is determined, on the one hand, by the patterns and individual characteristics of a student’s mastery of educational activities and, on the other hand, by the specifics of the educational material.
Thus, the main content of the concept of psychological readiness for learning at school is readiness for educational activities.
And in conclusion, I would like to recommend 10 commandments for mothers and fathers of future first-graders:
- Start to forget that your child is small. Give him feasible work in the house, define the range of responsibilities. Try to do this as gently as possible: “How big you are already with us, we can already trust you to wash the dishes (take out the trash, wash the floor, etc.)
- Identify common interests. It can be educational (favorite cartoons, fairy tales), and vital interests (discussion of family problems). Participate in your children's favorite activities, spend free time with them, not next to them. Do not deny children communication: lack of communication is one of the main defects of family pedagogy.
- Involve your child in the economic problems of the family. Gradually teach your child to compare prices and navigate the family budget (for example, give him money for ice cream, while comparing the price of it and another item). inform them about the lack of money in the family, invite them to go shopping at the store.
- Do not scold, and especially do not insult the child, especially in the presence of strangers. Respect your child's feelings and opinions. To complaints from others, even a teacher or educator, answer: “Thank you, we will definitely talk about this at home” . Remember the pedagogical law of optimistic education: trust, do not consider bad, believe in success and abilities.
- Teach your child to share their problems. Discuss with him conflict situations that arise in the child’s communication with peers or adults. Be sincerely interested in his opinion, this is the only way you can form the right position in life.
- Talk to your child often. Speech development is the key to good study. Were at the theater (cinema, circus)- Let him tell you what he liked the most. Listen carefully, ask questions: let the child feel that you are really interested in what he is talking about.
- Answer every child's question. Only in this case will his cognitive interest never dry up. At the same time, consult reference books more often (“Let’s look it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia together.” ) .
- Try to at least sometimes look at the world through your child's eyes. Seeing the world through the eyes of another is the basis of mutual understanding. And this means taking into account the child’s individuality, knowing that all people are different and have the right to be so.
- Praise and admire your child more often. To complaints that something is not working, respond: “It will definitely work, you just need to try a few more times.” . Create a high level of aspirations. Praise with a word, a smile, affection and tenderness.
- Do not build your relationship with your child on prohibitions. Agree that they are not always reasonable. Always explain the reasons and validity of your demands. If possible, offer an alternative option. Respect for your child now is the foundation for a respectful attitude towards you in the future.
The problem of school readiness includes pedagogical and psychological aspects. In this regard, pedagogical and psychological readiness for school are distinguished.
Pedagogical readiness for school determined by the level of possession of special knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for studying at school. These are the skills of forward and backward counting, performing basic mathematical operations, recognizing printed letters or reading, copying letters, retelling the content of texts, reading poetry, etc.
1 See: Peculiarities of mental development of children aged 6-7 years / Ed. D.B. Elkonina, A.L. Wenger. - M., 1988.
2 See: Psychological and pedagogical problems. Training and education of six-year-old children // Issues of psychology. - M., 1984. - No. 4-5. Of course, mastery of all these skills and abilities can facilitate the child’s first stage of schooling, mastering the school curriculum. However, a high level of pedagogical readiness in itself cannot ensure a sufficiently successful inclusion of a child in school life. It often happens that children who have demonstrated a good level of pedagogical readiness upon admission to school are not immediately able to get involved in the educational process, do not yet feel like real schoolchildren: they are not ready to fulfill the simplest disciplinary requirements of the teacher, do not know how to work according to a given model, and are out of the ordinary. the general pace of work in the classroom, do not know how to establish relationships with classmates, etc. At the same time, children who have not shown such high preliminary training, but have the necessary level of psychological maturity, can easily cope with the demands of school and successfully master the curriculum.
The problem of psychological readiness for schooling is widely developed in the works of domestic and foreign psychologists (L.I. Bozhovich, D.B. Elkonin, A.L. Wenger, N.I. Gutkina, E.E. Kravtsova, N.G. Salmina , J. Jirasek, G. Witzlak, etc.).
Psychological readiness for school- this is a complex formation, which represents an integral system of interconnected qualities: characteristics of motivation, formed mechanisms of voluntary regulation of actions, a sufficient level of cognitive, intellectual and speech development, a certain type of relationship with adults and peers, etc. The development of all these qualities in their unity to a certain extent level capable of ensuring the development of the school curriculum, and constitutes the content of psychological readiness for school.
The main components of psychological readiness for schooling are: personal readiness, development of the voluntary sphere (volitional readiness) and intellectual readiness.
Personal readiness for schooling. The success of schooling is largely determined by how much a child wants to learn, become a student, and go to school. As already noted, this new system of needs, associated with the child’s desire to become a schoolchild, to perform new, socially significant activities, forms student's internal position 1 , which is the most important component of personal readiness for school.
Initially, this position is not always associated with the child’s full-fledged desire to learn and gain knowledge. Many children are attracted primarily by the external attributes of school life: new surroundings, bright briefcases, notebooks, pens, etc., the desire to get grades. And only later may the desire to study and learn something new at school appear.
The teacher helps the child highlight not the formal, but the meaningful aspects of school life. However, in order for the teacher to fulfill this function, the child must be ready to enter into a new type of relationship with the teacher. This form of relationship between a child and an adult is called extra-situational personal communication 2 . A child who masters this form of communication perceives an adult as an unquestioned authority and a role model. His demands are fulfilled accurately and unquestioningly, they are not offended by his comments, on the contrary, they treat the critical words of an adult with increased attention, they react to the indicated errors in a businesslike manner, they try to correct them as quickly as possible, making the necessary changes to the work.
With this attitude towards the teacher, children are able to behave in class in accordance with school requirements: not to be distracted, not to start conversations with the teacher on extraneous topics, not to splash out their emotional experiences, etc.
An equally important aspect of personal readiness is the child’s ability to establish cooperative relationships with other children. The ability to successfully interact with peers and perform joint learning activities is of great importance for mastering full-fledged educational activities, which are essentially collective.
Personal readiness also presupposes a certain attitude towards yourself. To master educational activities, it is important that the child is able to adequately relate to the result of his work and evaluate his behavior. If the child’s self-esteem is inflated and undifferentiated,
1 See: Bozhovich L.I. Personality and its formation in childhood. -M, 1968.
2 See: Lisina M.I. Communication, personality and psyche of the child. - M.; Voronezh, 1997., which is typical for a preschooler (he is sure that he is “the best”, that his drawings, crafts, etc. are “the best”), it is wrong to talk about personal readiness for school.
Development of an arbitrary sphere. School life requires the child to follow a large number of rules. They control the behavior of students in the classroom (you can’t make noise, talk to a neighbor, do other things, you need to raise your hand if you want to ask something, etc.), they serve to organize students’ educational work (keep notebooks and textbooks in order , make notes in a certain way, etc.), regulate the relationships of students among themselves and with the teacher.
The ability to obey the rules and requirements of an adult, the ability to work according to a model are the main indicators of the formation of voluntary behavior. Its development by D.B. Elkonin considered the most important component of readiness for school.
Under the leadership of D.B. Elkonin conducted the following well-known experiment. The adult asked the child to sort out a bunch of matches, moving them one by one to another place. Then the experimenter left, leaving the child alone in the room. Children aged 5, 6 and 7 years old participated in the experiment. It turned out that older children, ready for schooling, scrupulously carried out this completely unattractive and generally meaningless work (after all, they agreed on this with an adult). Younger children, not ready for school, continued this activity for some time after the experimenter left, but then began to play with matches, build something with them, or simply refused to work. For such children, a doll was introduced into the same experimental situation, which had to be present and observe how the child performed the task (leaving the child in the room, the experimenter said: “I’ll leave now, but Pinocchio will stay”). At the same time, the children’s behavior changed: they looked at the doll and diligently completed the task given by the adults. The introduction of the doll replaced the presence of a controlling adult for the children and gave new meaning to the situation.
This experiment shows that behind the fulfillment of the rule lies a system of relations between the child and the adult. First, the rules are fulfilled in the presence and under the direct control of an adult, then with stupor on an object that replaces the adult, and finally, the rule becomes an internal regulator of the child’s actions and he acquires the ability to independently follow the rule. Such “rotation” of a social rule is evidence of readiness for schooling.
Intellectual readiness for school learning. Upon entering school, the child begins the systematic study of science. This requires a certain level of cognitive development. A child must be able to take a point of view different from his own in order to assimilate objective knowledge about the world that does not coincide with his immediate everyday ideas. He must be able to distinguish its individual aspects in a subject, which is an indispensable condition for the transition to subject teaching.
For this, the child needs possess certain means of cognitive activity(sensory standards, system of measures), carry out basic mental operations(be able to compare, generalize, classify objects, highlight their essential features, draw conclusions, etc.).
Intellectual readiness also presupposes the presence mental activity child, fairly broad cognitive interests, the desire to learn something new.
Psychological readiness for school is a complex, comprehensive education that is the result of a fully lived preschool childhood. An insufficient level of development of any one or more parameters of psychological readiness indicates deficiencies in the child’s development in the previous age period.
The level of pedagogical readiness is determined by the teacher. A child’s psychological readiness for school is determined by a psychologist who has special diagnostic programs at his disposal 1 .
All children who have reached the age of 6.5-7 years and have no contraindications for health reasons come to school and begin to study there, regardless of what level of readiness for learning they demonstrated when registering for school. Therefore, diagnostics of readiness for learning should be focused on identifying individual
1 See: Readiness of children for school. - M., 1992; Gutkina N.I. Psychological readiness for school. - M., 1996. visual psychological characteristics of the child, taking into account their future development.
It should be borne in mind that a child enters school with only the prerequisites (sufficient or insufficient) to begin mastering a new educational activity. According to L.S. Vygotsky, the actual readiness for schooling is formed during the training itself, in the course of working with the child according to a specific curriculum. It is believed that it is legitimate to judge the level of readiness for school only at the end of the first half of the first year of study.
The levels of pedagogical and psychological readiness shown by the child upon admission to school are analyzed by the teacher and psychologist so that they can jointly develop tactics for working with each child, taking into account his individual characteristics.
Questions and tasks
1. IN What is the psychological meaning of the 7 year crisis?
2. What are the main external manifestations of this crisis?
3. What are the main parameters of a child’s psychological readiness for school?
4. What are the specifics of pedagogical and psychological readiness for schooling?
Topic 3
LEARNING ACTIVITIES OF JUNIOR SCHOOL STUDENTS
Specifics of educational activities in junior
school age.
Motives for teaching. Ability to identify a learning task.
Learning activities. Control action.
Grade. Evaluation and marking.
Formation of a student’s position in a child.
3.1. Specifics of educational activities Vjunior school age
So, let us recall that at primary school age the leader becomes educational activities, in progress co- The second child becomes familiar with the achievements of human culture, assimilates the knowledge and skills accumulated by previous generations. The child’s assimilation of human experience also occurs in other types of activities: in play, communication with adults and peers, and involvement in work. But only in educational activities does it acquire a special character and content. In the process of carrying out educational activities, “the child, under the guidance of the teacher, masters the content of developed forms of social consciousness (science, art, morality, law) and the ability to act in accordance with their requirements. The content of these forms of social consciousness is theoretical in nature” 1 .
During the transition to school education, the subject of assimilation becomes scientific concepts and theoretical knowledge, which primarily determines developmental nature of educational activities. L.S. Vygotsky pointed out that the main changes of school age - awareness and mastery of mental processes - owe their origin precisely to learning: “awareness comes through the gates of scientific concepts” 2.
Educational activity is specific not only in content (mastery of a system of scientific concepts), but also in its result. This most important feature was specially emphasized by D.B. Elkonin 3.
The difference between the result of educational activity and other activities is most clearly revealed when it is compared with productive or labor activity. The result of productive, or labor, activity is always some material product, which is obtained in the course of changes made by man to the source materials: the result of drawing is a specific image, drawing; the result of modeling is a craft made from plasticine or clay; the result of design is a structure made from cubes or construction kit parts, etc. The receipt of a specific product appears even more clearly in labor.
Educational activities are structured differently. In it, the child, under the guidance of a teacher, learns scientific concepts.
1 Mental development of junior schoolchildren / Ed. V.V. Davydova. - M., 1990.-S. 11-12.
2 Vygotsky L. S. Thinking and speech // Collection. Op. - M., 1982. - T.2. -WITH. 220.
3 See: Elkonin D.B. Selected psychological works. - M., 1989. However, the child does not make any changes to the system of scientific concepts itself: nothing in science and its conceptual apparatus will change depending on whether the student acts with scientific concepts or not and how successful his actions are.
What, then, is the result of educational activity?
“The result of educational activity, in which the assimilation of scientific concepts occurs, first of all, changes in the student himself, his development... This change is the child’s acquisition of new abilities, i.e. new ways of dealing with scientific concepts" 1 . Thus, educational activity is an activity of self-change, self-improvement, and its product is the changes that occurred during its implementation in the subject himself, i.e. student.
Educational activity, of course, also has external results: a solution to a mathematical problem, an essay or dictation written by a student, etc. But these results are important for the teacher and the students themselves not in themselves, but as indicators of changes that have occurred in the students. From this position they receive a certain assessment: the student has already learned this and can do it well, but has not yet mastered this.
The formation of a full-fledged educational activity, the formation of the ability to learn in schoolchildren are independent tasks of school education, no less important and responsible than the acquisition of specific knowledge and skills by children. Mastery of educational activities occurs especially intensively in the first years of school life. It is during this period that the foundations of the ability to learn are laid. Essentially, during primary school age, a person learns how to acquire knowledge. And this skill remains with him for the rest of his life.
Educational activities, being complex in content, structure, and form of implementation, do not develop immediately for a child. It takes a lot of time and effort so that, through systematic work under the guidance of a teacher, a small schoolchild gradually acquires the ability to learn.
The complexity of this process is evidenced by the fact that even in the conditions of purposeful, specially organized formation of educational activities, it
1 Elkonin D.B. Psychology of junior schoolchildren // Selected psychological works. - M., 1989. - P. 245. Not all children develop 1. Moreover, special studies show that by the end of primary school age, individual educational activity itself is usually not yet formed; its full implementation is possible for a child only together with other children 2 .
Educational activities have a certain structure: 1) motives for learning; 2) learning objectives; 3) educational activities; 4) control; 5) assessment.
For the full formation of educational activity, mastery of all its components is required equally. Their insufficient development can be a source of school difficulties. Therefore, when diagnosing possible reasons for school failure or other difficulties in learning, it is necessary to analyze the level of development of various components of educational activity.
Before our society modern stage Its development faces the task of further improving educational work with preschool children, preparing them for school. Psychological readiness for school is a necessary and sufficient level of mental development of a child to master the school curriculum in a peer group environment. It is formed gradually and depends on the conditions in which the organism develops.
In Russian psychology and pedagogy, the problem of a child’s readiness to begin systematic schooling has been studied in various aspects (L.S. Vygotsky, L.I. Bozhovich, D.B. Elkonin, N.G. Salmina, L.A. Venger, V. V. Kholmovskaya and others). Here the general and special readiness of children for school is highlighted. General readiness includes personal, intellectual, physical and socio-psychological.
The problem of children's readiness for schooling is primarily considered from the point of view of compliance of the child's development level with the requirements of educational activities.
K.D. was one of the first to address this problem. Ushinsky. Studying the psychological and logical foundations of learning, he examined the processes of attention, memory, imagination, thinking and established that successful learning is achieved with certain indicators of the development of these mental functions. As a contraindication to starting training K.D. Ushinsky called weakness of attention, abruptness and incoherence of speech, poor “pronunciation of words.”
In the studies of L.I. Bozhovich, devoted to psychological readiness for school, proposed a new formation, which she called “the internal position of the student,” as the lowest actual level of mental development, necessary and sufficient for starting school. This psychological new formation occurs at the border of preschool and primary school age, or during the crisis of 7 years, and represents a fusion of two needs - cognitive and the need to communicate with adults at a new level. The combination of these two needs allows the child to be involved in the educational process as a subject of activity, which is expressed in the conscious formation and execution of intentions and goals, or the voluntary behavior of the student. The second approach is to determine the requirements for the child, on the one hand, to study the formations and changes in the child’s psyche that are observed in the child’s psyche by the end of preschool age. L. I. Bozhovich notes: “: the carefree pastime of a preschooler is replaced by a life full of worries and responsibility:.”
According to the researchers of this approach, the complex of psychological properties and qualities that determine psychological readiness for schooling should include a certain level of development of cognitive interests, readiness to change social position, indirect school motivation (desire to learn), internal ethical authorities, and self-esteem. This direction, even with all its positive aspects, when considering readiness for school, does not take into account the presence of prerequisites and sources for the presence of educational activities in preschool age.
G.G. Kravtsov and E.E. Kravtsova, speaking about readiness for schooling, highlight its complex nature. The structuring of this readiness does not follow the path of differentiating the child’s general mental development into intellectual, emotional and other spheres, but types of readiness. The authors consider the system of relationships between the child and the outside world and highlight indicators of psychological readiness for school associated with the development of various types of relationships between the child and the outside world. In this case, the main aspects of children’s psychological readiness for school are three areas: attitude towards an adult, attitude towards a peer, attitude towards oneself.
Discussing the problem of readiness for school, D.B. Elkonin put in the first place the formation of the necessary prerequisites for educational activities. Analyzing these prerequisites, he and his collaborators identified the following parameters:
- the ability of children to consciously subordinate their actions to rules that generally determine the method of action;
- ability to navigate a given system of requirements;
- the ability to listen carefully to the speaker and accurately complete tasks proposed orally;
- the ability to independently perform the required task according to a visually perceived pattern.
All these prerequisites arise from the characteristics of the mental development of children in the transition period from preschool to primary school age, namely: loss of spontaneity in social relationships, generalization of experiences associated with assessment, and characteristics of self-control. D.B. Elkonin emphasized that during the transition from preschool to school age, “the diagnostic scheme should include the diagnosis of both neoplasms of preschool age and the initial forms of activity of the next period”; voluntary behavior is born in collective role-playing play, which allows the child to rise to a higher level of development than playing alone. The team corrects violations in imitation of the expected model, while it is still very difficult for a child to independently exercise such control. “The control function is still very weak,” writes D.B. Elkonin, “and often still requires support from the situation, from the participants in the game. This is the weakness of this emerging function, but the significance of the game is that this function is born here. therefore, the game can be considered a school of voluntary behavior."
Research carried out under the guidance of L.S. Vygotsky showed that children who successfully study at school, at the time of entering school, did not show the slightest signs of maturity of those psychological prerequisites that should have preceded the beginning of education according to the theory that learning is possible only on the basis of the maturation of the corresponding mental functions.
Having studied the learning process of children in elementary school, L.S. Vygotsky comes to the conclusion: “By the beginning of learning writing all the basic mental functions that underlie it have not completed and have not even yet begun the real process of their development; learning is based on immature mental processes just beginning the first and main cycles of development.”
This fact is confirmed by other studies: teaching arithmetic, grammar, science, etc. does not begin at the moment when the corresponding functions are already mature. On the contrary, the immaturity of functions at the beginning of education is “a general and fundamental law to which research in all areas of school teaching unanimously leads” .
Revealing the mechanism underlying such learning, L.S. Vygotsky puts forward the concept of the “zone of proximal development,” which is determined by what a child can achieve in cooperation with an adult. In this case, cooperation is defined as the child’s broad understanding from a leading question to a direct demonstration of the solution to a problem. Based on research on imitation, L.S. Vygotsky writes that “a child can only imitate what lies within the zone of his own intellectual capabilities,” and therefore there is no reason to believe that imitation does not relate to the intellectual achievements of children.
The “zone of proximal development” determines a child’s capabilities much more significantly than the level of his actual development. In this regard, L.S. Vygotsky pointed out the inadequacy of determining the level of actual development of children in order to determine the degree of their development; believed that the state of development is never determined only by its matured part; it is necessary to take into account the maturing functions, not only the current level, but also the “zone of proximal development,” and the latter plays a leading role in the learning process. According to Vygotsky, it is possible and necessary to teach only what lies in the “zone of proximal development.” This is what the child is able to perceive and this is what will have a developmental effect on his psyche.
L.S. Vygotsky unequivocally answered the question about mature functions by the time of schooling, but still he had a remark about the lowest threshold of learning, that is, the completed development cycles necessary for further learning. It is this remark that allows us to understand the contradictions that exist between experimental works confirming the principle of developmental education and theories of psychological readiness for school.
Learning that corresponds to the “zone of proximal development” is based on a certain level of actual development, which for the new stage of learning will be the lowest threshold of learning, and then the highest threshold of learning, or the “zone of proximal development,” can be determined. Between these thresholds, learning will be fruitful.
In the studies of L.A. Wenger and L.I. The workshop measure and indicator of readiness to learn at school was the child’s ability to consciously subordinate his actions to a given rule while consistently following the verbal instructions of an adult. This skill was associated with the ability to master the general method of action in a task situation. Under the concept of “readiness for school” L.A. Wenger understood a certain set of knowledge and skills, in which all other elements must be present, although the level of their development may be different. The components of this set, first of all, are motivation, personal readiness, which includes the “internal position of the student,” volitional and intellectual readiness.
N.G. Salmina identifies as indicators of psychological readiness for school: 1) voluntariness as one of the prerequisites for educational activity; 2) level of formation of the semiotic function; 3) personal characteristics, including communication features (the ability to act together to solve assigned problems), the development of the emotional sphere, etc. Distinctive feature This approach is to consider the semiotic function as an indicator of children’s readiness for school, and the stage of development of this function characterizes the child’s intellectual development.
Prerequisites for educational activities, according to A.P. Usova, arise only with specially organized training, otherwise children experience a kind of “learning disability” when they cannot follow an adult’s instructions, monitor and evaluate their activities.
V.S. Mukhina argues that readiness for schooling is the desire and awareness of the need to learn, arising as a result of the social maturation of the child, the appearance of internal contradictions in him, which set the motivation for educational activities.
Research by E.O. Smirnova, dedicated to the communicative readiness of six-year-old children for schooling, provides an explanation of why it is towards the end of preschool age that children develop a need to communicate with adults at a new level. Communicative readiness for school is considered as a result of a certain level of development of communication with adults.
In the work of M.I. Lisina identifies four forms of communication between a child and an adult: situational-personal, situational-business, extra-situational-cognitive and extra-situational-personal. The first of them, situational and personal, is characterized by direct emotional communication between a child and an adult and is typical for the first half of a baby’s life. The second, situational-business, is characterized by cooperation with an adult in the game when mastering actions with various objects, etc. The non-situational-cognitive form of communication is marked by the child’s first cognitive questions addressed to an adult. As older preschoolers grow up, they begin to become more and more attracted to events taking place in the world of people, rather than things. Human relationships and norms of behavior become an important point in the content of communication between a child and an adult. This is how the most complex non-situational-personal form of communication in preschool age is born, which usually takes shape only towards the end of preschool age. “An adult is still a source of new knowledge for children, and children still need his recognition and respect. However, it becomes very important for a child that his attitude to certain events coincides with the attitude of an adult. The need for mutual understanding and empathy of an adult is a distinctive feature of this form of communication. The commonality of views and emotional assessments with an adult is for the child a criterion of their correctness. Such communication is motivated by personal motives, that is, the focus of the child’s attention is the adult himself: Within the framework of this form of communication, children develop different attitudes. to people, depending on what role they play in communicating with them: children begin to differentiate the roles of doctor, educator, seller, and accordingly build their behavior in communication with them."
A. Kern in his concept proceeds from the following assumptions: there is a close connection between physical and mental development. The moment when a child has grown to meet school requirements depends primarily on internal maturation processes.
An important indicator of this maturation is the degree of maturation of visual differentiation of perception, the ability to isolate an image. Poor performance at school depends not so much on insufficient intellectual development as on insufficient readiness for school.
Further research showed that the relationship between the level of physical and mental readiness for school was not so close that one indicator could be used to judge the other. The child's development turned out to be strongly dependent on his environment, and the so-called ability to isolate an image could be trained. If Kern's proposed solution to the problem no longer stood up to criticism, then the following point of his concept was unshakable: “The child’s insufficient readiness for school or, as is often said, the ability to learn leads later to excessive loads and thereby to possible serious consequences. Children who have not yet have grown up to school requirements, they should not be assigned to school, but prepare for it.”
Thus, further development of research in this direction consisted of expanding the set of characteristics to be measured.
I. Shvantsara defines school maturity as the achievement of such a degree in development when the child becomes able to take part in school education. I. Shvantsara identifies mental, social and emotional components as components of readiness to learn at school.
In all studies, despite the difference in approaches, the fact is recognized that schooling will be effective only if the first-grader has the necessary and sufficient qualities for the initial stage of learning, which are then developed and improved in the educational process.
In addition to the development of cognitive processes: perception, attention, imagination, memory, thinking and speech, psychological readiness for school includes developed personal characteristics. Before entering school, a child must have developed self-control, work skills, the ability to communicate with people, and role behavior. In order for a child to be ready to learn and acquire knowledge, it is necessary that each of these characteristics be sufficiently developed, including the level of speech development.
Speech is the ability to consistently describe objects, pictures, events; convey a train of thought, explain this or that phenomenon, rule. The development of speech is closely related to the development of intelligence and reflects both the general development of the child and the level of his logical thinking. In addition, the method of teaching reading used today is based on the sound analysis of words, which presupposes developed phonemic hearing.
In recent years, increasing attention to the problem of school readiness has been paid abroad. This problem was solved not only by teachers and psychologists, but also by doctors and anthropologists. Many foreign authors dealing with the problem of children's maturity (A. Getzen, A. Kern, S. Strebel) point to the absence of impulsive reactions as the most important criterion for the psychological readiness of children for school.
The largest number of studies are devoted to establishing relationships between various mental and physical indicators, their influence and relationship with school performance (S. Strebel, J. Jirasek).
According to these authors, a child entering school must have certain characteristics of a schoolchild: be mature mentally, emotionally and socially. By mental maturity, the authors understand the child’s ability to differentiated perception, voluntary attention, and analytical thinking; under emotional maturity - emotional stability and almost complete absence of impulsive reactions of the child; social maturity is associated with the child’s need to communicate with children, with the ability to obey the interests and accepted conventions of children’s groups, as well as with the ability to take on the role of a schoolchild in the social situation of schooling.
For Russian psychology, the initial unit of analysis of psychological readiness for schooling is the specifics of preschool childhood, taken in the general context of personality ontogenesis, determining the main lines of mental development at this age and, thereby, creating the possibility of transition to a new, more high form life activity.
When solving this issue, as J. Jirasek notes, theoretical constructs are combined, on the one hand, and practical experience, on the other. The peculiarity of the research is that the intellectual capabilities of children are at the center of this problem. This is reflected in tests showing the child’s development in the areas of thinking, memory, perception and other mental processes.
F.L. Ilg, L.B. Ames conducted a study to identify parameters of school readiness. As a result, a special system of tasks arose that made it possible to examine children from 5 to 10 years old. The tests developed in the study are of practical importance and have predictive ability. In addition to test tasks, the authors suggest that if a child is unprepared for school, take him away from there and, through numerous training sessions, bring him to the required level of readiness. However, this point of view is not the only one. So, D.P. Ozubel suggests, if the child is unprepared, to change the curriculum at school and thereby gradually equalize the development of all children.
Despite the diversity of positions, all of the listed authors have a lot in common. Many of them, when studying readiness for schooling, use the concept of “school maturity”, based on the false concept that the emergence of this maturity is due mainly to the individual characteristics of the process of spontaneous maturation of the child’s innate inclinations and which are essentially independent of the social conditions of life and upbringing. In the spirit of this concept, the main focus is on the development of tests that serve to diagnose the level of school maturity of children. Only a small number of foreign authors criticize the provisions of the concept of “school maturity” and emphasize the role of social factors, as well as the characteristics of public and family education in its emergence.
We can conclude that the main attention of foreign psychologists is aimed at creating tests and is much less focused on the theory of the issue.
Thus, the high demands of life on the organization of education and training intensify the search for new, more effective psychological and pedagogical approaches aimed at bringing teaching methods in accordance with the psychological characteristics of the child. Therefore, the problem of children’s psychological readiness to study at school is of particular importance, since the success of children’s subsequent education at school depends on its solution.
Literature.
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