In this article:

In preschool children, imaginative thinking is dominant among other types of thinking. The child’s readiness to study at school and master the school curriculum will depend on the level of development at which imaginative thinking is located.

What is imaginative thinking?

An image, according to Ozhegov, is the appearance, as well as the type and result of displaying phenomena and objects of the real world in a person’s mind, that is, how he visually represents it.

Creative thinking- this is a certain process of displaying reality in images that can be of a different nature, ranging from visual to tactile and sound. If we compare figurative thinking with logical thinking, during which reality is displayed in the form of some concepts, or with visual-effective thinking, when some practical actions are carried out with objects, then it has significant differences.

The fact is that in the process of “playing” with images of objects, the child gets the opportunity to understand the problem due to its visual representation and find the correct solution for it in an optimally short time.

In preschool children, imaginative thinking allows them to develop a responsive attitude towards everything good and beautiful that is in life. Without imaginative thinking, high-class creative specialists, such as designers, constructors, writers, and simply creative, proactive, self-confident and comprehensively developed individuals, would not exist.

In the process of imagining an image in consciousness, previously experienced perceptions are reproduced. When we talk about spatial representation, we mean the ability
a person, in this case a preschooler, to see the world in a three-dimensional image, colorful, capable of changing in space.

The child can draw an image of a real object or phenomenon, or something that does not really exist, as, for example, this happens in the imagination of artists or sculptors. Before their works are born, images appear in the minds of the creators.

Why is it important to develop imaginative thinking?

The development of imaginative thinking in childhood is an important process that cannot be neglected for several reasons:

1. To find solutions to any problems, it is important for a preschooler to learn to operate with images and be able to visualize situations.
2. Developed imaginative thinking allows preschool children, and then adults, to learn to react emotionally to aesthetic images of the real world, developing a craving for beauty.

That is why children in preschool age need to be introduced to processes that influence the development of visualization in learning.

Options for developing imaginative thinking

There are several ways to develop imaginative thinking in preschool children. The most effective and affordable of them:

It is necessary to work with preschool children by following a certain sequence of actions:

1. demonstrate;
2. Tell;
3. Practice joint activities;
4. Offer to work independently using the sample;
5. Offer to create something yourself without an example.

It is recommended to work with a preschooler in a favorable environment, motivating him for a positive result, always encouraging and approving. When the baby masters the technique of working with different types of materials, you need to try not to praise, teaching you to evaluate your own capabilities and skills adequately, without overestimating your self-esteem.

Experts recommend that parents not be afraid to work with their children on seemingly very difficult tasks. It is important to teach them to believe in themselves, convincing them that any task can be completed if they think hard, both independently and collectively.

Origami as an effective method for developing imaginative thinking

The ability to identify the most appropriate answer options for solving tasks is developed as a result of repeated training and exercises aimed at developing imaginative thinking. Many of them are built on the design of a modeling nature - the origami technique.

Children, especially preschool age, are not very interested
in construction from paper until they see the results of the manipulations - toys and figures created with their own hands.

Working with paper, children, independently and together with adults, invent and create miniature models of objects and phenomena, people and animals, trying to exclude minor details and highlight the brightest elements. As a result, they get a completely new image, placed in a special angular shape.

Naturally, this is due to the peculiarities of the technique of working with paper, which requires bending. And even though the resulting crafts visually resemble the original very vaguely, the child receives great pleasure from the result and calmly imagines the missing elements in his mind.

Understanding the images of objects that preschool children convey while making figures from paper occurs in the process of using various methods and techniques, the purpose of which is to convey the beauty and uniqueness of the object in a new form.

Difficulties and solutions

Designing using paper is very difficult for children in preschool age, because paper is a flat material that is really difficult to shape into a three-dimensional figure.

That is why, in order for children to remain interested in the process, you need to start by teaching them the simplest techniques for folding paper, demonstrating the techniques by personal example. Watching the process, the child will think, analyze, try to fold the paper carefully, adhering to the rules -
“adjusting” the corners to each other. All this will require considerable willpower and patience from the baby.

To make your crafts especially bright and beautiful, you need to experiment with the size of the squares and their color. At the same time, it is necessary to convey to the child that the result, namely the quality of the craft, largely depends not on the choice of workpieces, but on how carefully the bending and smoothing of the folds will be carried out. That is why you initially need to show the baby how to fold paper correctly - before he begins the process of creating a figure.

Most of the figures obtained as a result of using the origami technique must be folded up to a certain point similarly to each other. A preschooler’s ability to make such blanks will help him master folding more complex shapes in the future.

How does imaginative thinking develop in preschoolers with mental retardation?

Imaginative thinking has a direct connection with speech, the degree of development of which determines the consolidation of images and ideas.

Preschool children with mental retardation have one peculiarity: they are lagging behind in the development of all forms of thinking. Such children have reduced motivation, which negatively affects cognitive activity and results in
into a reluctance to succumb to intellectual stress, even to the point of categorically refusing to complete the task.

In addition, such children in most cases are unable to set a goal for themselves, as well as draw up a plan for achieving it through experience. They are incapable of analysis, generalization, synthesis and comparison due to the immaturity of the operational component.

Diagnosis of the level of development of imaginative thinking in children with mental retardation is ambiguous. Some children easily cope with the assigned tasks, but the vast majority need repeated repetition of the task and help in solving it. Every tenth child with mental retardation cannot cope with the task, despite repetitions and help.

Taking into account the characteristics of such children, it can be noted that for the development of imaginative thinking it is necessary to stimulate cognitive activity, as well as other types of thinking.

Features of figurative thinking in hearing-impaired children

Children with poor hearing are initially forced to grow up in conditions unfavorable for their development, associated with disturbances in spatial orientation and sound perception. Such preschoolers
later they begin to interact with objects, so they are characterized by a lag in the development of perception.

Children of preschool age with such disorders begin to show interest in actions with objects no earlier than the third year of life, and these actions come down mostly to manipulation. This is why there is a delay in practical activities with objects, which leads to a lack of practical experience and delays in the development of imaginative thinking.

Experts in the field of studying the development of thinking of all types in preschool children with hearing impairments argue that success in solving problems of an imaginative-actional nature is largely related to the activities of the preschooler. Usually, he does not have any difficulties with tasks in which he does not need to think about connections that lie on the surface.

Several answer options can lead the child to certain difficulties in making a decision. But it will be even more difficult for hard-of-hearing children with hearing impairments to identify less obvious connections that require assessment and construction of a diagram of several actions.

If we compare hearing-impaired preschool children with healthy children, the options they use to solve problems will be noticeably different from the options used by normally hearing children.

A healthy child, who accidentally discovers an important component in the process, will without hesitation connect it with the solution of the problem, while in children with hearing impairments such attempts often do not lead to an assessment of the situation and are nothing more than a search of the most primitive connections and components. This is due to the fact that the attention of preschoolers with hearing impairments is not directed to the means of achieving the goal, but directly to the goal itself.

As a result, such children are unable to analyze their own mistakes and may repeat irrational attempts at solutions several times. In addition, a positive experience for hearing impaired
preschoolers also do not connect with other similar situations, which prevents the formation of the ability to generalize.

Over time, children will make progress in solving problems of a visual-effective nature, although, of course, compared to the rate of development of thinking in healthy children, this will not happen so quickly.

Nevertheless, over time, such children will be able to use the identified patterns, properties and relationships of recorded images of objects, which will confirm the development of planning speech. All this will be possible only if we establish correctional work with hearing-impaired children, developing their imaginative thinking from early childhood.

Principles of development of thinking in preschool children with hearing impairment

A normally functioning speech apparatus in preschoolers with hearing impairments opens up opportunities for the development of thinking. It is possible and necessary to promote the process of its development by using an integrated approach to the development of the personality of such children.

The influence process must be built taking into account the existing level of development and compensatory capabilities. It is very important that when working with a child
It was possible, despite the defect, to correct the process of personality formation with the comprehensive development of the psyche.

During work, special attention is paid to recreating or correcting the most important mental functions. Attention is paid to the formation of speech and memory, and they try to create suitable conditions for expanding capabilities that can become compensators for the defect.

Of great importance for the development of imaginative thinking in hearing-impaired children is the use of visual aids, which should not only act as an illustration of works, but also help children better understand their content.

Particularly important are visually effective methods and means with the help of which it will be possible to form ideas and concepts at a visual-figurative level of generalizations. We are talking about staging, pantomime or dramatization.

Features of figurative thinking in children with speech defects

The connection between speech defects and certain aspects of mental development in preschool children is the main reason for some of the features of their imaginative thinking. Children with speech impairments can be divided into three groups according to the type of nonverbal intelligence:

In the process of studying the characteristics of figurative thinking, it was concluded that preschool children differ somewhat in their performance on tasks. All children with speech impairments can be divided into those who show a low level of solving visual problems, and those who cope with the task at the same level as healthy children.

The most obvious factor inhibiting the development of imaginative thinking in preschool children with speech underdevelopment is considered to be a limited amount of knowledge about the world, as well as about the functions and properties of objects. This is due to obvious violations of self-organization, which in turn are easily explained by shortcomings in the motivational sphere and lack of constant interest in tasks.

Children with speech impairments cannot always quickly enter into the situation proposed to them, provoked to solve the problem, or, on the contrary, they try to start completing the task too quickly, assessing it superficially and without delving into the specifics. Another category of such preschoolers are children
who begin to do a task, but quickly lose interest in it, even if they cope with the task.

It is important to note that with all this, the possibility of consistent implementation of thought processes in such children is preserved if you help them achieve a high level of self-organization and expand their stock of knowledge.

The lack of special training aimed at developing the ability to analyze, compare and group will lead to a significant lag in the process of forming visual-figurative thinking.

Development of imaginative thinking at different stages of preschool age

At each stage of preschool age, the preschooler makes a special decision, working on tasks for the development of visual-figurative thinking. For example, young preschoolers are oriented towards external actions. Children use trial and error until they find a suitable solution to the problem. The child remembers the correct option found and can reuse it when solving a similar task.

Children from a group of children of middle preschool age, adhering to the same trial and error method, try to perform actions in their minds, after which, if necessary, solve the problem
They try in practice the option that seemed most effective in their minds.

At older preschool age, children are capable of generalizing practical experience, solving problems in their minds, using generalized images, displaying only those features of the subject that will help find the correct solution to the problem.

During games, construction, and drawing, children develop the sign function of consciousness, during which they learn to build visual-spatial models that are a reflection of real connections, regardless of the intentions and desires of preschoolers. As a result, children, without intentionally creating these connections, use them in the process of solving problems.

Development of artistic and figurative thinking in preschool children

The concept of artistic-imaginative thinking can be divided into components: “artistic” - is a reflection of the characteristics of perception to reveal the image, and “figurative” - the ability to analyze, generalize, and group.

The best way to stimulate the development of artistic and imaginative thinking is to engage in art. Experts are confident that preschoolers need to form a positive picture of the world from a very early age, surrounding them with poetry, music, and introducing them to painting.

Development of artistic and imaginative thinking with
using practical techniques and methods will allow children to correctly assess situations, find the right solutions to problems, and come up with innovative ideas.

You can engage with children using musical games based on a number of actions similar to the sound of musical instruments. Preschoolers can also be taught to find the right associations while listening to music, instill the ability to replace elements of musical speech with symbols, and develop a vocabulary of emotions and musical thinking.

Creative tasks and games with the need to demonstrate emotional experiences, build game actions based on a storyline, as well as variations in musical activity stimulate the development of artistic and imaginative thinking in preschoolers.

MOSCOW DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

State budgetary educational institution

higher professional education in Moscow

MOSCOW CITY

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Educational Psychology

COURSE WORK

Development of visual-figurative thinking in preschool age

Direction 050400.62 Psychological and pedagogical education

Profile Psychology and pedagogy of preschool education

Head Zinchenko E.A.

Student Sukhova T.A. 4th group, 1st year

Moscow, 2014

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1. General characteristics of the development of thinking in children of senior preschool age

1Theoretical foundations of visual-figurative thinking

1.2Psychological and pedagogical characteristics of senior preschool age

3Visual-figurative thinking is the basis of cognitive activity of older preschoolers

Chapter 1 Conclusions

Chapter 2. Features of the development of visual-figurative thinking in preschool children

1Stages of development of visual-figurative thinking in older preschoolers

2.2Conditions for the development of visual-figurative thinking in children

Conclusions for Chapter 2

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

Currently, the problem of mental education of preschool children is of particular relevance. For a number of years, the main efforts of Soviet scientists studying the cognitive processes of preschool children were focused on studying two problems. One of them is the problem of the development of perception processes. The second problem is the problem of forming conceptual thinking. At the same time, the problem of developing visual-figurative thinking in preschoolers has been much less developed. Important materials on this issue are contained in the works of A.V. Zaporozhets, A.A. Lyublinskaya, G.I. Minskoy and others.

However, the main features of the formation and functioning of visual-figurative thinking have not yet been sufficiently studied. At present, it is indisputable that visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking are important in the mental development of preschool children. The development of these forms of thinking largely determines the success of the transition to more complex, conceptual forms of thinking. In this regard, in modern psychological research, a significant place is occupied by the study of the basic functions of these more elementary forms, the determination of their role in the general process of the child’s mental development. A number of studies have shown that the capabilities of these forms of thinking are extremely great and are not yet fully used.

With age, the content of preschoolers' thinking changes significantly, their relationships with people around them become more complicated, play activity develops, various forms of productive activity arise, the implementation of which requires knowledge of new aspects and properties of objects. Such a change in the content of thinking also requires its more advanced forms, which provide the opportunity to transform the situation not only in terms of external material activity, but also in terms of what is represented.

A number of studies (B.G. Ananyev, O.I. Galkina, L.L. Gurova, A.A. Lyublinskaya, I.S. Yakimanskaya, etc.) convincingly show the important role of imaginative thinking when performing various types of activities, making decisions both practical and educational tasks. Various types of images were identified and their function in the implementation of mental processes was investigated.

The problem of figurative thinking was intensively developed by a number of foreign scientists (R. Arnheim, D. Brown, D. Hebb, G. Hein, R. Hold, etc.) A number of domestic studies reveal the structure of visual-figurative thinking and characterize some of the features of its functioning ( B.G. Ananyev, L.L. Gurova, V.P. Zinchenko, T.V. Kudryavtsev, F.N. Limyakin, I.S. Yakimanskaya, etc.).Many authors (A.V. Zaporozhets, A. .A. Lyublinskaya, J. Piaget, etc.) consider the emergence of visual-figurative thinking as a key moment in the mental development of a child. However, the conditions for the formation of visual thinking in preschoolers and the mechanisms for its implementation have not been fully studied. It should be noted that the ability to operate with ideas is not a direct result of the child’s acquisition of knowledge and skills.

Analysis of a number of psychological studies gives reason to believe that this ability arises in the process of interaction of various lines of psychological development of a child - the development of object and instrumental actions, speech, imitation, play activities, etc. Analysis of both domestic and foreign studies shows that the development Visual-figurative thinking is a complex and lengthy process, a comprehensive and complete study of which requires a cycle of experimental and theoretical work.

The object of the study is the visual-figurative thinking of preschool children.

The subject of the study is the process of development of visual-figurative thinking in preschoolers

The purpose of the study is to identify the features of the development of visual-figurative thinking in preschool children.

Research objectives:

Consider thinking as a mental process;

Conduct an analysis of available theoretical data and psychological and pedagogical literature.

Chapter I. General characteristics of the development of thinking in children of senior preschool age

1 Theoretical foundations of visual and figurative thinking

Thinking is the highest cognitive process. It represents the generation of new knowledge, an active form of creative reflection and transformation of reality1.

Thinking is the most generalized and indirect form of mental reflection, establishing connections and relationships between cognizable objects.

The difference between thinking and other mental processes is that it is almost always associated with the presence of a problem situation, a task that needs to be solved, and an active change in the conditions in which this task is given. Thinking, unlike perception, goes beyond the limits of sensory data and expands the boundaries of knowledge. In thinking based on sensory information, certain theoretical and practical conclusions are made. It reflects existence not only in the form of individual things, phenomena and their properties, but also determines the connections that exist between them, which most often are not given directly to man in his very perception. The properties of things and phenomena, the connections between them are reflected in thinking in a generalized form, in the form of laws and entities.

Thinking as a separate mental process does not exist; it is invisibly present in all other cognitive processes: perception, attention, imagination, memory, speech. The highest forms of these processes are necessarily associated with thinking, and the degree of its participation in these cognitive processes determines their level of development.

In a number of studies B.G. Ananyeva, P.Ya. Galperina, A.V. Zaporozhets, V.P. Zinchenko, E.I. Ignatieva, S.L. Rubinshteina, I.S. Yakimanskaya convincingly shows the important role of thinking in performing various types of activities and solving both practical and cognitive problems.

Thinking is the movement of ideas that reveals the essence of things. Its result is not an image, but a certain thought, an idea. A specific result of thinking can be a concept - a generalized reflection of a class of objects in their most general and essential features.

A person can think with varying degrees of generality, relying more or less on perceptions, ideas or concepts in the thinking process. Depending on this, three main types of thinking are distinguished: objective-effective, visual-figurative and abstract.

Subject-specific thinking is a type of thinking associated with practical actions on objects. In its elementary form, objectively effective thinking is characteristic of young children, for whom thinking about objects means acting and manipulating with them.

Visual-figurative thinking is a type of thinking that is based on perception or ideas. Thoughts are visual and figurative, a person is tied to reality, and the images themselves necessary for thinking are presented in his short-term and operative memory. This form of thinking is most fully and comprehensively represented in children of preschool and primary school age.

Abstract thinking, which predominantly characterizes older schoolchildren and adults, is conceptual thinking, devoid of direct visualization, inherent in perception and ideas.

All of the listed types of thinking coexist in humans and can be represented in the same activity. However, depending on its nature and ultimate goals, one or another type of thinking dominates. For this reason they all differ. In terms of their degree of complexity, in terms of the demands they place on a person’s intellectual and other abilities, all of these types of thinking are not inferior to each other.

Interaction with a cognizable object (or its model) is an important condition for the thought process. Such interaction can occur both in terms of practical transformations and in terms of visual perception. In the process of the latter, an image of the perceived object appears and various types of transformations of this image are carried out.

V.P. Zinchenko notes: “...there is not only reproductive, but also productive perception, and in the visual system there are mechanisms that ensure the generation of a new image.”

One of the types of visual-figurative thinking is visual.

“Visual thinking is a human activity, the product of which is the generation of new images, the creation of new visual forms that carry a certain semantic load and make meaning visible. These images are distinguished by their autonomy and freedom in relation to the objects of perception.”

In research on visual thinking, a methodological approach has been developed that has made it possible to obtain important data that perceptual, identification and mnemonic actions are involved not only in the information preparation of a mental act, but also in its implementation. These materials provide an opportunity to take a fresh look at the formation of imaginative thinking in preschool children.

One of the main objectives of our study of visual-figurative thinking in preschool children was to study the conditions for its occurrence, as well as to identify its role in the general process of mental development of children. This form of thinking is not only a prerequisite for conceptual thinking, but also performs specific functions that cannot be performed by other forms of thinking.

Various forms of a child’s thinking (visual-effective, visual-figurative and conceptual) never function in isolation from each other. Thus, in conceptual thinking there are always figurative components; in the process of figurative thinking, concepts or related formations play a significant role. Therefore, when we talk about the figurative or conceptual thinking of children, this is to a certain extent an abstraction. In fact, the child’s thinking acquires one or another character depending on the predominance of one or another of its components (figurative or conceptual). When solving certain classes of problems, operating with images comes to the fore, and the entire thinking process acquires specific features that distinguish it from conceptual thinking.

Visual-figurative thinking is essential not only for a child, but also for the successful implementation of many types of professional activities of adults - designers, operators, etc.

Within certain limits, visual-figurative thinking is characterized by special patterns of functioning and allows one to cognize aspects and properties of objects that are actually inaccessible to conceptual thinking; It would be more accurate to say this - accessible, but only in close connection with imaginative thinking. One of the features of the latter is that in its process objects are represented in our consciousness differently than in conceptual thinking. This determines the peculiarities of operating with the content reflected in the human consciousness.

In conceptual thinking, movement around an object is carried out in the logic of operating concepts, where the main role is played by various kinds of judgments, inferences, etc. Here there is a strict regulation of the process by the structure of individual concepts and their interrelations. Reality is reflected in concepts; a number of significant connections and relationships are highlighted in it, but some of the features are omitted, which is a necessary result of abstraction. These omitted features cannot be filled in with logical operations. It is necessary to return to reality itself and implement new forms of its transformation, during which new images and new concepts are formed.

In the process of visual-figurative thinking, the diversity of aspects of the subject is more fully reproduced, which appear not in logical, but in factual connections. And in this aspect, visual-figurative thinking approaches thinking “in complexes”, studied by L. S. Vygotsky. The ability to present an object with all the particular and, in a given system of analysis, secondary features can serve as the basis for rethinking the entire problem situation. These secondary properties can become the beginning of a line of analysis that will allow you to see the object in a new plane, in a different system of connections, where these secondary properties and connections will appear as essential.

Another important feature of visual-figurative thinking is the ability to display in a sensory form the movement and interaction of several objects at once. There is reason to believe that it is this feature that underlies the figurative cognition of basic kinematic dependencies by preschool children - the dependence of the distance traveled on the speed and time of movement, the dependence of movement time on the speed of the distance, etc.

V.P. Zinchenko, analyzing the specifics of visual imagery (visual thinking), notes: “the main advantage of the visual image (as well as the visualized image) is the breadth of coverage of the displayed situation.”

L.L. Gurova notes that visual-figurative thinking has its own logic, which cannot be considered as a primitive replenishment of undeveloped logic. Figurative logic is heuristic in nature, often leading to intuitive decisions.

2 Psychological and pedagogical characteristics of senior preschool age

Senior preschool age is designated in psychology as the age of formation of psychological readiness for schooling and the formation of its prerequisites. This period is characterized by a crisis of 6-7 years, described in the works of L.S. Vygotsky, L.I. Bozhovich, A.V. Zaporozhets.

So, L.S. Vygotsky noted that the older preschooler is characterized by mannerisms, capriciousness, fidgetiness, and clowning. He begins to act like a buffoon, speaks “in a voice that is not his own,” grimaces, and in general he is characterized by a general lack of motivation in behavior, stubbornness, and negativism.

Analyzing these manifestations, the scientist explained them by the loss of childish spontaneity, involuntary behavior, which disappears as a result of the beginning differentiation of external and internal life. Another distinctive feature of this critical period is L.S. Vygotsky believed in the emergence of a meaningful orientation in his own experiences: the child suddenly discovers the fact of the presence of his own experiences, discovers that they belong to him and only him, and the experiences themselves acquire meaning for him. This is due to the emergence of a specific new formation - a generalization of experience (intellectualization of affect): the world, as such, around the child is still the same, but the child’s attitude towards it changes.

L.I. Bozhovich argues that the crisis of 6-7 years is associated with the emergence of a new, core systemic neoplasm for the child’s personality - an “internal position” that expresses a new level of self-awareness and reflection of the child. Until the age of 6-7 years, a child almost does not think about his place in life, purpose and does not strive to change it; but in older preschool age, in connection with his general progress in mental and intellectual development, a clearly expressed desire appears to take a new, “more adult” position in life and fulfill a new one, important not only for himself, but also for the people around him activity. In other words, a child of this age becomes aware of his social “I”. It was at this time that “back to school” games and imitation of adults’ “work” appeared.

Almost all researchers of this period of child development emphasize that it is essential for him to have a calm emotionality, devoid of affective outbursts and conflicts. This special character of the course of the emotional life of children is closely related to the appearance of ideas in them.

S.L. Rubinstein, P.Ya. Galperin, N.N. Poddyakov and other psychologists note that children’s ideas are fragmentary, unstable, and diffuse. However, in the preschool period there is a process of their intensive development in various types of play and productive activities.

The development of various types of children's activities, such as design, visual activity, as well as the complication of educational tasks in the classroom, creates the need for older preschoolers to develop fairly accurate, stable and arbitrarily updated ideas about the external properties of objects. Developing ideas leave an imprint on the entire process of mental development. Therefore, such forms of the psyche and components of psychophysiological functions as imagination, figurative memory and memorization of specific words develop faster.

Numerous studies by domestic psychologists E.F. Rybalko, A.V. Skripenko, S.A. Lukomskaya, E.I. Stepanova, L.A. Golovey, N.A. Grishchenko, L.N. Kuleshova, L.A. Wenger point out the complex nature of the development of cognitive processes in older preschool age.

The process of development of children's perception in preschool age was studied in detail by L.A. Wenger and described as follows. In older preschool age, under the influence of productive, design and artistic activities, the child develops complex types of perceptual, analytical and synthetic activity, in particular the ability to mentally dismember a visible object into parts and then combine them into a single whole. Perceptual images related to the shape of objects also acquire new content. In addition to the outline, the structure of objects, spatial features and relationships of its parts are also highlighted.

The child’s attention at the beginning of preschool age reflects his interests in relation to surrounding objects and the actions performed with them. The child is focused only until interest wanes. The appearance of a new object immediately causes a shift of attention to it. Therefore, children rarely do the same thing for a long time. During preschool age, due to the complication of children's activities and their progress in general mental development, attention becomes more focused and stable.

So, if younger preschoolers can play the same game for 30-50 minutes, then by the age of five or six years the duration of the game increases to one and a half hours. This is explained by the fact that the game reflects more complex actions and relationships between people and interest in it is maintained by the constant introduction of new situations. The stability of attention also increases when children look at pictures and listen to stories and fairy tales. Thus, the duration of looking at a picture approximately doubles by the end of preschool age; A six-year-old child is more aware of a picture than a younger preschooler and identifies more interesting aspects and details in it.

But the main change in attention in older preschool age is that children for the first time begin to control their attention, consciously direct it to certain objects and phenomena, and stay on them, using certain methods for this. The origins of voluntary attention lie outside the child’s personality. This means that the development of involuntary attention itself does not lead to the emergence of voluntary attention. The latter is formed due to the fact that adults include the child in new types of activities and, using certain means, direct and organize his attention.

Similar age-related patterns are observed in the process of memory development. Memory in older preschool age is involuntary. The child remembers better what is of greatest interest to him and gives the best impressions. Thus, the volume of recorded material is largely determined by the emotional attitude towards a given object or phenomenon.

Z.M. Istomina analyzed that in older preschool age there is a gradual transition from involuntary to voluntary memorization and reproduction of material. At the same time, in the corresponding processes, special perceptual actions are identified and begin to develop relatively independently, mediating mnemonic processes and aimed at better remembering, more fully and more accurately reproducing the material retained in memory. Compared with primary and middle preschool age, the relative role of involuntary memorization in six- to seven-year-old children decreases somewhat, but at the same time, the strength of memorization increases.

At older preschool age, the child is able to reproduce the impressions received after a sufficiently long period of time. A 5-7 year old child needs to develop all types of memory - figurative and verbal-logical, short-term, long-term and operational. However, the main emphasis should be on the development of arbitrariness of the processes of memorization and reproduction, since the development of these processes, as well as arbitrary forms of the psyche in general, is one of the most important prerequisites for children’s readiness to study at school.

According to a study by O. Tsyn, in children aged 5-6 years, imagination indicators are at the center of the structure of cognitive functions and various components of intelligence. In the development of preschoolers’ ideas, words and actions, practical analysis of objects in the surrounding world, are essential. Their accelerated development is facilitated by the general social context of raising a child. Being updated in close connection with knowledge functioning in the speech plane, these ideas were successfully used by children in the general course of their cognitive activity.

In older preschool age, the child’s speech becomes more connected and takes the form of dialogue. The situational nature of speech, characteristic of young children, here gives way to contextual speech, the understanding of which by the listener does not require correlation of the statement with the situation. In preschool age, the development of speech “to oneself” and internal speech is noted.

A number of studies have shown that in preschool age one of the important forms of a child’s internal activity is the plan of ideas. He can anticipate future changes in the situation, visually imagine various transformations and changes in objects (A.V. Zaporozhets, A.A. Lyublinskaya, G.I. Minskaya).

This plan does not appear in the form of “pure ideas”. It is included in the elementary forms of the child’s conscious activity. The reality surrounding the child does not appear to him as a chaos of disparate phenomena. He already has a relatively simple, but still system of specific and generalized ideas about surrounding things, recorded and objectified in speech form. This system serves as the basis for a fairly broad orientation in the world around the child and allows one to correctly qualify perceived phenomena.

As Leontyev A.N noted, didactic games contribute to the development of cognitive activity, intellectual operations, which are the basis of learning. Didactic games are characterized by the presence of an educational task - a teaching task. Adults are guided by it when creating this or that didactic game, but they put it in a form that is entertaining for children. Here are examples of educational tasks: to teach children to distinguish and correctly name colors (“Salute”, “Colored rugs”) or geometric shapes (“Ice drift”), to clarify ideas about tableware (“Katya the doll is having lunch”) or clothing, to develop the ability to compare objects by external signs, location in space (What has changed”, paired pictures), to develop the eye and coordination of small movements (“Catch the Fish”, “Flying Caps”). The educational task is embodied by the creators of the game in appropriate content and is implemented through game actions that children perform.

What attracts a child to a game is not the educational task inherent in it, but the opportunity to be active, perform game actions, achieve results, and win. However, if a participant in the game does not master the knowledge and mental operations that are determined by the learning task, he will not be able to successfully perform game actions or achieve results.

Thus, active participation, especially winning in a didactic game, depends on how much the child has mastered the knowledge and skills that are dictated by her learning task. This encourages the child to be attentive, remember, compare, classify, and clarify his knowledge. This means that the didactic game will help him learn something in an easy, relaxed manner. This unintentional learning is called autodidactism.

The author of one of the first pedagogical systems of preschool education, F. Froebel, was convinced that the task of primary education was not learning, but organizing play. While remaining a game, it must be imbued with a lesson. Froebel developed a system of didactic games, which represents the basis of educational work with children in kindergarten. This system included didactic games with different toys and materials (balls, cubes, spheres, cylinders), arranged strictly sequentially according to the principle of increasing complexity of learning tasks and game actions. An obligatory element of most didactic games were poems and songs rhymed by F. Froebel and his students in order to enhance the educational impact of the games.

Another world-famous system of didactic games, authored by M. Montessori, also received mixed reviews. It is close to Froebel’s position: the game must be educational, otherwise it is an “empty game” that has no impact on the child.

The author of one of the first domestic pedagogical systems of preschool education E.I. Tikheyeva announced a new approach to didactic games. According to Tikheyeva, they are only one of the components of educational work with children, along with reading, conversation, drawing, singing, gymnastics, and labor. E. I. Tikheyeva directly considered the effectiveness of didactic games in raising and teaching children to be dependent on the extent to which they are in tune with the interests of the child, bring him joy, and allow him to show his activity and independence. Educational tasks involve the formation of mental operations (comparison, classification, generalization), improvement of speech (enrichment of vocabulary, description of objects, composing riddles), development of the ability to navigate distance, time, space. The content of didactic games was the surrounding life.

E.I. Tikheyeva has developed didactic materials, board and printed games, geometric mosaics, which are used in preschool institutions.

In Soviet pedagogy, a system of didactic games was created in the 60s. Its authors are famous teachers and psychologists: L.A. Wenger, A.P. Usova, V.N. Avanesova. Recently, scientists (Z.M. Boguslavskaya, O.M. Dyachenko, N.E. Veraksa, E.O. Smirnova) have been searching for a series of games for the full development of children's intelligence, which are characterized by flexibility, initiative of thought processes, transfer formed mental actions on new content. In such games there are no fixed rules; on the contrary, children are faced with the need to choose ways to solve a problem. In preschool pedagogy, a traditional division of didactic games has developed into games with objects, board-printed, and verbal.

A number of studies have shown that with age, the content of preschoolers’ thinking changes significantly - their relationships with people around them become more complicated, play activity develops, various forms of productive activity arise, the implementation of which requires knowledge of new aspects and properties of objects. Such a change in the content of thinking also requires its more advanced forms, which provide the opportunity to transform the situation not only in terms of external material activity, but also in the imaginable, ideal level. In the process of visually effective thinking, the prerequisites are formed for a more complex form of visually imaginative thinking, which is characterized by the fact that the solution of certain problems can be carried out by the child in terms of ideas, without the participation of practical actions.

3 Visual-figurative thinking is the basis of cognitive activity of an older preschooler

Thinking is a very complex holistic and at the same time concrete form of mental activity. The thinking process is aimed at obtaining new information about an object and involves the use of only familiar methods of action.

The thinking of children of senior preschool age is figurative in nature. This thinking is specific in that it relies not on actions, but on ideas and images: when solving problems, a preschooler can imagine a situation and mentally act in it.

Research in the field of studying the visual-figurative thinking of preschoolers was carried out by J. Piaget, N.N. Poddyakov, L.I. Bozhovich, L.V. Zankov, D.B. Elkonin and dr. In preschool age, a child’s thinking is based on his ideas. The child may think about things that he does not perceive at the moment, but that he knows from his past experience. Operating with images and ideas makes the preschooler’s thinking extra-situational, going beyond the perceived situation and significantly expanding the boundaries of cognition.

Analysis of children's ideas about surrounding objects and phenomena allows us to identify two different, but interconnected ways of forming these ideas.

The first way is the formation of ideas in the process of direct perception of objects, but without their practical transformation. On the basis of perceptual actions, children develop the ability to reproduce in their imagination various objects and phenomena that previously acted as objects of their perception.

The second way is the formation of children's ideas in the process of practical, transformative activities of the children themselves. The methods of practical transformation of objects learned with the help of an adult act as a powerful tool for understanding the surrounding world of things. These methods are of particular importance for detecting hidden, not directly perceived aspects, properties and connections of objects.

Thus, the plane of children’s ideas does not appear in “pure form”; it is included in the system of forms of social experience acquired by the child, fixed in speech form.

However, there are two different lines of research, which from different angles lead us to one basic conclusion that speech in one form or another takes part in this process. Research by A.N. Sokolova showed that in the process of visual-figurative thinking, hidden speech impulses arise. The results of these works indicate that visual-figurative thinking is in fact always associated with speech processes.

Another line of research leads us to the same conclusions, in which the peculiarities of the formation in preschoolers of the ability to operate with their ideas were studied. In the work of N.P. Sakulina showed that operating with images of objects is formed in children in the process of special organization of their cognitive activity.

Imaginative thinking includes three thought processes: creating an image, operating with it and orienting in space. All these three processes have a common basis, a foundation that does not depend on the type and content of human activity.

When studying various objects or their images, the child identifies certain relationships in them, depending on which of the substructures of figurative thinking is dominant in him (main, predominant, more developed, used more often than others). In general, this type of thinking consists of five intersecting substructures.

According to the research of J. Piaget, the following substructures of figurative thinking are distinguished: topological, projective, ordinal, metric, compositional (algebraic).

With the help of the first substructure - topological - the child, first of all, isolates and more easily operates with such characteristics of objects as continuous-discontinuous, connected-incoherent, compact-non-compact, belongs-does not belong, establishes areas of inclusion and intersection of spatial figures. He, as it were, “fashions” in the representation the required image or the necessary visual transformations. Children operate with such characteristics as together, inside, outside, on a plane, intersect at the border, have (do not have) common points, the internal (external) part of objects, their union. Those who are dominated by this substructure do not like to rush. They carry out each action in great detail, trying not to miss a single link in it. They “walk” through various labyrinths with great pleasure and never get tired, consistently moving a pencil or other object along intricate intertwined lines, finding out who is calling whom, and with great pleasure solving other similar problems that require continuous coherent movement or transformation.

Those who have a dominant projective substructure - this dominant provides the ability to recognize, create, imagine, operate and navigate among visual objects or their graphic images from any point of reference, from different angles. It allows you to establish similarities between a spatial object or its model (real or symbolic) with their various projections (images).

A favorite activity for children with this dominant substructure is to view and study an object from different points of view, from different angles. They are happy to establish the correspondence of a certain thing to its image and, conversely, the image to the thing. Searching for and finding different ways to use an object in practice, its everyday purpose and application possibilities is a great joy for them. Therefore, when looking at given drawings, it is these children who first of all notice a different angle, a projection of the image.

Comparison and evaluation in a general qualitative manner are preferred by those for whom the ordinal substructure is dominant. Based on it, the child manages to isolate properties, establish and classify relationships on various grounds: size (larger-smaller, longer-shorter), distance (closer-further, lower-higher), shape (round, rectangular, triangular), position in space (above-bottom, right-left, front-behind, parallel-perpendicular, behind, between, next to), the nature of movement (from left to right-right to left, from top to bottom-from bottom to top, forward-back), temporary spatial representations (first -then, before-after, earlier-later), etc. these children act logically, consistently, in order. Working on an algorithm is their favorite pastime.

“Metrists” (children with a dominant metric substructure) focus their attention on quantitative characteristics and transformations. The main question for them is “how much?” what is the length, area, distance, magnitude in numerical terms. They take great pleasure in recalculating, determining specific numerical values ​​and measuring lengths, distances, extents, and distances.

Children with a dominant compositional (or algebraic) substructure constantly strive for all sorts of combinations and manipulations, isolating additional parts and assembling them into a single whole (single block), reducing (“collapsing”) and replacing several transformations with one, even without a direct need for this , quickly and easily switch from direct action to reverse action. These are the same “hurries” who do not want and with great difficulty force themselves to trace in detail, pronounce, explain all the steps of the solution or justify their own actions. These future (or present) Ostap Benders (“great schemers”) think and act quickly, but they often make mistakes.

From the described point of view (model), to form imaginative thinking in children means to form in them each of the indicated substructures in their unity and interconnections.

Possession of knowledge about the structure of figurative thinking makes it possible to explain and understand many seemingly paradoxical and not entirely clear situations. For example, why does one think slowly but correctly, while the other, although quickly, is often mistaken? It's all about the dominant substructure. The first in this case perceives the world and solves problems, isolating first of all topological relationships, and acts consistently, in detail, without missing the slightest detail. Therefore, his process takes a long time, but it is difficult for him to make mistakes. The second one, with a dominant compositional (algebraic) substructure, constantly “collapses” (reduces) its actions, skips, and skips entire pieces. Therefore, it is natural for him not to replace something, to miss something, but at the same time the process (due to numerous abbreviations) proceeds very quickly. It becomes clear why, of course, smart people sometimes behave extremely stupidly. After all, we evaluate the behavior and actions of another from our position, from our point of view, and cannot switch to the substructure of the other.

Taking into account these theoretical positions, it is easy to understand that it is not necessary, and indeed impossible, to always demand from children the unambiguous answer we expect. Indeed, depending on the dominant substructure of figurative thinking, various options are very often possible, sometimes not coinciding with the expected answer of the adult. How often children baffle adults with their unexpected answers. There is no need to suppress the child’s initiatives; children should think independently, in their own ways, inherent in their dominant substructures.

The visual and figurative reflection of the reality surrounding the child is in close connection with speech. Objects and phenomena, as well as their individual properties and connections, are cognized in figurative form and recorded in speech terms, i.e. There is a simultaneous reproduction of various objects in the minds of children with the help of figurative and verbal means.

Here it is necessary to distinguish between the speech and conceptual aspects of children’s cognitive activity. Reflection in speech is no longer a figurative reflection, but also not a conceptual one. The meanings of words for a child undergo a long development process before they reach the conceptual level.

Children's ideas can only accompany the speech plan, playing the role of simple illustrations. However, in a number of cases, the actualization of ideas and their manipulation are carried out with the aim of deeper and more complete knowledge of the object.

The relationship between the figurative and verbal reflection of objects and phenomena is manifested in the particular actualization of their images. As a rule, when a person tries to directly imagine an object “head-on”, he does not succeed well. The simple name of this item is ineffective. However, the plane of ideas comes to life and begins to actively function in the course of reasoning about this subject - about its external features, its functional properties, etc. The ideas that arise in this case can have a noticeable reverse influence on the very course of reasoning.

Conclusions on chapter 1

Senior preschool age is considered the age of formation of readiness for schooling. At this age, further development of cognitive processes occurs. One of the most complex processes is thinking - an indirect, generalized reflection of reality. A person can think with varying degrees of generality, and in the process of thinking rely more or less on perceptions, ideas, and concepts. Depending on this, three main types of thinking are distinguished: objective-effective, visual-figurative, abstract. In children of senior preschool age, thinking is based on the plane of ideas; it is figurative in nature.

A number of studies have shown that in preschool age one of the important forms of a child’s internal activity is the plan of ideas. He can anticipate future changes in the situation, visually imagine various transformations and changes in objects.

In the process of visual-figurative thinking, the diversity of aspects of objects is more fully reproduced. Objects and phenomena, as well as their individual properties and connections, are cognized in figurative form and recorded in speech.

A child, informing an adult about his impressions and actions, objectifies in speech the results of his cognitive and practical activities. Receiving their assessment from an adult, the child himself learns to see and evaluate his actions as if from the outside, from socially developed positions.

With age, the content of preschoolers' thinking changes - their relationships with people around them become more complicated, play activity develops, and various forms of productive activity arise.

Didactic games contribute to the development of cognitive activity, intellectual operations, which are the basis of learning. Didactic games encourage children to be attentive, remember, compare, classify, and clarify their knowledge about the world around them.

CHAPTER II. FEATURES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF VISUAL-FIGURATORY THINKING IN SENIOR PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

1 Stages of development of visual-figurative thinking in older preschoolers

At preschool age, the transition from visual-effective to visual-figurative thinking occurs. According to P.N. Poddiakov, ideas are an important basis that largely determines the success of the formation of visual-figurative thinking in children. “The latter is characterized by the fact that children’s knowledge of various properties and connections of things occurs in the process of operating with images of these things. But before operating with an image, you must be able to actualize it.”

Poddyakov identified six stages of thinking development from junior to senior preschool age. These steps are as follows.

The child is not yet able to act in his mind, but is already capable of using his hands, manipulating things, to solve problems in a visually effective way, transforming the problem situation accordingly,

Speech is already included in the process of solving a problem by the child, but it is used by him only to name objects with which he manipulates in a visually effective manner. Basically, the child still solves problems “with his hands and eyes,” although in verbal form he can already express and formulate the result of the practical action performed.

The problem is solved figuratively through the manipulation of object representations. Here, the ways of performing actions aimed at transforming the situation in order to find a solution to the problem are probably realized and can be verbally indicated. At the same time, differentiation occurs in the internal plan of the final (theoretical) and intermediate (practical) goals of action. An elementary form of reasoning aloud arises, not yet separated from the performance of a real practical action, but already aimed at theoretically clarifying the method of transforming the situation or the conditions of the task;

The child solves the problem according to a pre-compiled, thoughtful and internally presented plan. It is based on memory and experience accumulated in the process of previous attempts to solve similar problems.

The problem is solved in terms of actions in the mind, followed by the execution of the same task in a visually-effective plan in order to reinforce the answer found in the mind and then formulate it in words.

The solution to the problem is carried out only internally with the issuance of a ready-made verbal solution without subsequent return to real, practical actions with objects.

An important conclusion that was made by N.N. Poddyakov from studies of the development of children's thinking, is that in children the stages and achievements in improving mental actions and operations have not completely disappeared, but are transformed and replaced by new, more advanced ones. They are transformed into “structural levels of organization of the thinking process” and “act as functional stages in solving creative problems.”

When a new problem situation or task arises, all these levels can again be included in the search for the process of solving it as relatively independent and at the same time as components of the logical links of the holistic process of searching for its solution. In other words, children's intelligence already at this age functions on the basis of the principle of systematicity. It presents and, if necessary, simultaneously includes in the work all types and levels of thinking: visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical.

The projective substructure appears next in the child’s figurative thinking. This is easy to detect if, for example, you invite children to fence off the house with posts. Children under four years old lay out the fence along a continuous, wavy path, without worrying about its shape (as long as it is topologically continuous). After four years they are already building a straight fence. Therefore, it becomes clear that it is premature to offer three-year-olds to assemble a pyramid according to the proposed scheme, which requires some kind of program. This task presupposes that children have a projective substructure, which they do not yet have at this age. This fact is confirmed by the observations of I.Ya. Kaplunovich over the actions of children in the classroom.

The third in the discussed sequence appears the ordinal substructure. It is the basis of the “principle of conservation” during various transformations of lengths, volumes, etc., which appears in children after five years. Until the child has mastered the ordinal substructure and the principle of conservation (he has not begun to realize, for example, that after pouring from a narrow vessel into a wide one, there is no less liquid, although the height of the column has noticeably decreased), he has to form measurement (quantitative) relationships, skills bills are useless.

Only after mastering ordinal relations in a child can and should move on to the formation of a metric, and then a compositional (algebraic) substructure.

The presented theoretical ideas about the stages of development of imaginative thinking in preschool children allow us to draw the following conclusion: the topological substructure is the basis, the foundation for the development of subsequent substructures of imaginative thinking in children, the initial “cell” for its formation. Experimental research and practice of preschool education show that at a low level of development, the further formation of other substructures (projective, ordinal, etc.) is extremely difficult. If we begin training with the formation of a topological substructure and topological concepts in children, then further progress in mastering the content and intellectual development is noticeably easier.

Moreover, within the framework of the formative experiment, the following feature was discovered. When identifying difficulties in mastering educational material and understanding it, it is more effective not only to correct and “remove” the intellectual difficulties found in a child, but rather to make efforts aimed at significantly increasing the level of development of the topological substructure. In other words, if a teacher has discovered intellectual difficulties in a child, then it makes sense to once again present the same material and content to him, but focusing specifically on topological relationships. Therefore, it becomes clear that without forming this substructure, you cannot move on to working with the next ones.

The presence of a topological substructure in a child’s figurative thinking contributes to the formation of other substructures and facilitates the further development of intellectual abilities. She is responsible for children’s ability to analyze, substantiate their conclusions, reason, and draw conclusions. Thanks to it, children acquire the ability to act in stages, sequentially, continuously, when one judgment naturally follows from another in a chain of mental transformations.

Having achieved that children are able to freely isolate and operate with topological concepts and relationships, in the middle group of a preschool institution one should begin to form a projective substructure for four years old. Further, at the age of five (the older group), children must master the first ordinal relations. Through this activity they develop the following corresponding substructure. And only by the end of the year in the senior group does it make sense to master and operate metric relations. Working with counting operations at an earlier age does not allow children to make quantitative transformations with numbers and quantities consciously. At best, they can remember quantitative characteristics, develop mechanical skills and perform some arithmetic operations on numbers, without understanding the meaning or essence of the transformations being performed. Awareness is impossible, if only due to the absence of the famous phenomenon of J. Piaget - the principle of conservation of quantity. Therefore, it is advisable to study the natural series of numbers earlier than in the second half of the senior group.

The presence of dominant substructures in figurative thinking must be taken into account in the process of cognitive activity of children of senior preschool age. So, for example, in order to learn a new song, it is very important for a “topologist” to understand, comprehend both the text and the music, and somehow connect them.

It will be difficult for a child inclined to order if he does not have the opportunity to imagine, dance, or depict the situation described in the song (for example, a clubfooted bear or a trembling hare). The “orderist” must first of all establish the sequence, the order of actions in the content of the song, the patterns of the sound of instruments, the alternation of low and high, quiet and loud sounds, slow and fast rhythms. The “metrist” most likely will not start “working” on a piece of music and will not experience it until he hears or counts, for example, how many times a particular note is repeated in a piece of music, how many instruments are available or used , how many children sing, etc. It is very difficult for children with a compositional dominant to repeat and reproduce a song several times. They often begin to go out of tune not because of a lack of hearing, but due to the constant desire to construct a new one (rhythm, they try to build a second or third voice, without even suspecting the existence of such). Taking into account these individual characteristics of the children, the teacher manages to significantly facilitate the learning process for them.

And finally, in a preparatory group with six-year-old children, you can actively engage in the development of compositional relationships and, accordingly, the formation of a compositional substructure.

The formation in preschool children of the main substructures of imaginative thinking in the specified sequence gives them the opportunity to consciously and deeply understand the world around them and its patterns. This is explained by the fact that the described path corresponds to the psychological nature of the child’s intellectual development and prepares him to overcome various difficulties and problems that he will encounter in the future.

The presence of all five of these substructures in children's thinking is the most important indicator of their intellectual readiness for school. In addition, it shows that after this, children are well oriented in all types of spatial relationships that are adequate to the corresponding substructures (for example, they absolutely clearly distinguish between right and left). They exhibit some manifestations of conscious components of theoretical thinking, which traditionally appear for the first time with good effective teaching only at primary school age (for example, the action of planning). The proposed approach clearly implements the well-known position of D.B. Elkonin and V.V. Davydov that “in logical and psychological terms, the content of educational material should be given to children in the form of structures of their activity.”

To develop the topological substructure, games and tasks such as “Labyrinth” and “Choose the Right Path” are used. In addition to games, it is good to use attributes that are interesting for children (for example, toys from Kinder Surprises, models), since a preschool child will be very happy to move a car or a doll across paper not with a pencil or finger.

To develop the projective substructure, it makes sense to use various schematic images, for example, a floor plan for finding a hidden object, a map-type diagram for choosing the right road, the location of an object.

This kind of task very well develops initiative, independence and imagination of children. They allow preschoolers to engage in meaningful activity, discover new properties of objects, notice their similarities and differences, learn to see its different sides in each object, starting from a separate feature of the object, and build its image as a whole. For these purposes, by the end of this age period it is quite possible and necessary to offer children tasks for planning their own activities.

For the formation of an ordinal substructure of figurative thinking, various tasks for the development of observation are very effective.

Tasks for the development of the metrical substructure of figurative thinking in children usually do not cause any difficulties. All of them are associated with operating and orientation in quantitative relations. Therefore, these should include teaching children to count, various tasks and examples like: “Where are there more objects and why?” etc.

The development of the compositional substructure is facilitated by various games with cubes and construction sets. In addition, the development of this component of figurative thinking is facilitated by tasks to combine objects or concepts, comparison of two objects, two phenomena, two concepts.

All these games and tasks contribute to the development of children’s independent creative thinking and the formation of their intellectual readiness for learning at school.

2 Conditions for the development of visual-figurative thinking in older preschool age

thinking child preschool

The main condition for the development of thinking in a child is the position of an adult, which has its own specifics in each age period.

The scope of problems that the child solves expands due to knowledge gained from an adult or in his own activities and observations. Therefore, the acquisition of knowledge is not an end in itself of mental education, but its means and at the same time a condition for the development of thinking. The child analyzes his experience, establishes analogies between the familiar and the unfamiliar, which leads him to unique conclusions.

It is the adult’s speech that guides the child’s thinking, gives it generality, purposefulness, problematic nature, some organization, planning and criticality. The development and organization of a child’s perception leads to the formation of his first mental operations - discrimination and comparison. It is necessary to provide the baby with a certain independence so that he can actively act with objects.

An adult teaches a child to see and formulate a problem in speech - to pose a question, and also to reflect in it the results of knowledge, although the child is not yet solving actual intellectual problems, but only practical ones.

In preschool age, in the context of extra-situational-cognitive communication with adults, a special kind of “theoretical” activity arises. Numerous children's questions arise regarding various areas of activity. The attitude of an adult to children's issues largely determines the further development of thinking. When answering them, it is necessary to provide the child with the opportunity, with the help of an adult, peers, or independently, to find the required answer, and not rush to give knowledge in a ready-made form. The main thing is to teach a preschooler to think, reason, and make attempts to resolve issues that arise. This position of an adult forms independent thinking and an inquisitive mind. Reliability, certainty and laconicity of answers, but at the same time their exhaustive nature, confirmed by examples and observations, contributes to the further development of curiosity in preschoolers.

An indifferent attitude to questions reduces the cognitive activity of a preschooler. You should not only treat children’s questions carefully, respectfully and tactfully, but also encourage children to ask.

It is necessary to teach the child to compare, generalize, analyze, organizing observations, experimentation, and familiarization with fiction. When a preschooler is encouraged to explain in detail, in detail, phenomena and processes in nature and social life, then reasoning turns into a way of cognition and solving intellectual problems. And here it is important for an adult to show tolerance and understanding of the unusual explanations that a preschooler gives, in every possible way supporting his desire to penetrate into the essence of objects and phenomena, establish cause and effect relationships, and learn hidden properties.

We emphasize that the development of coherent speech in a child contributes to the development of thinking, giving it a generalized and conscious character. If you do not teach a child to establish connections, then he will remain at the level of sensory perceived facts for a long time.

Not only mastering ways of thinking, but also mastering a system of knowledge allows a preschooler to more effectively solve intellectual problems. The principles of selection of such knowledge and their content have been studied in detail in preschool pedagogy. Let us only emphasize that assimilation should be considered not as an end in itself, but as a means of developing thinking. Mechanical memorization of various information, fragmentary and chaotic, copying adult reasoning does not do anything for the development of a preschooler’s thinking. V.A. Sukhomlinsky wrote: “...Do not bring down an avalanche of knowledge on a child... - inquisitiveness and curiosity can be buried under an avalanche of knowledge. Know how to open one thing to the child in the world around him, but open it in such a way that a piece of life will sparkle in front of the children with all the colors of the rainbow. Always leave something unsaid so that the child will want to return again and again to what he has learned.”

Cognitive activity is characterized by the fact that the solution of a specific cognitive task represents the formulation of the next, perhaps more general, task, and its solution, in turn, leads to the formulation of another task, etc. A person’s cognitive activity determines his self-development.

To create a positive attitude towards cognitive activity in children, it is recommended to use a “strategy for creating success.” It is necessary to take into account the child’s preferences for one or another content of learning and accustom him to mental work on the educational material that is interesting to him, one should select those tasks that the child can objectively perform well, this will increase his self-esteem (one should give feasible tasks and help in necessary cases ), will improve mood, increase readiness to participate in educational work, which contributes to the formation of a positive attitude towards learning. The content of educational material should be interesting, emotional, and use various forms of collective activity. In a word, encourage the child, his slightest success. There must be a qualitative analysis, emphasizing all the positive aspects, and also adequately respond to mistakes, consider them a normal phenomenon - they learn from mistakes.

V.A. Sukhomlinsky wrote that positive emotions associated with the experience of success are the child’s faith in himself18.

The discovery of a new world of serious human activity stimulates in the child an active desire to participate in this life. In this regard, the life of a preschool child is characterized, firstly, by the relative separation of his activities from adults, secondly, by the expansion of living conditions, thirdly, by the discovery of the social functions of people and their relationships to each other, and fourthly by the active desire of the child participate in the lives of adults.

Figurative thinking also develops most clearly when perceiving fairy tales, stories, etc. brightness of ideas, liveliness, spontaneity, the possibility of emotional assistance and empathy with the hero of a literary work, but not in terms of real participation in his activities, but in terms of ideas. All this helps the development of visual and imaginative thinking.

Conclusions on Chapter 2

Thus, visual-figurative thinking is the main type of thinking of an older preschooler and is important for a wide variety of human activities. Ideas are an important basis that largely determines the success of the formation of visual and figurative thinking in children.

Visual-figurative thinking consists of five intersecting substructures: topological, projective, ordinal, metric, compositional (algebraic). The presence of dominant substructures in figurative thinking must be taken into account in the process of cognitive activity of children of senior preschool age. The formation of substructures gives older preschoolers the opportunity to consciously and deeply understand the world around them and its patterns.

Dominant substructures in figurative thinking must be taken into account in the learning process, since they give rise to individual ways of children’s activities. The presence of all five of these substructures in children's thinking is the most important indicator of their intellectual readiness for school.

Games and tasks aimed at developing substructures contribute to the development of children’s independent imaginative thinking and the formation of readiness for school learning.

The main condition for the development of thinking in a child is the guidance of an adult. The scope of problems that the child solves expands due to knowledge gained from an adult or in his own activities and observations.

As a result of cognitive communication with an adult, numerous children’s questions arise that relate to various areas of activity. The attitude of an adult to children's issues largely determines the further development of thinking.

Children need calm emotionality. Imaginative thinking develops most clearly when perceiving fiction (the child’s emotional assistance and empathy with the literary hero), as well as through games, exercises, and assignments.

All this helps the development of visual-figurative thinking. The world of adults opens up before the child, which makes him want to participate in the lives of adults.

CONCLUSION

Thinking is the highest cognitive process. The difference between thinking and other cognitive processes is that it is almost always associated with the presence of a problem situation, a task that needs to be solved, and an active change in the conditions in which this task is given.

Thinking as a separate mental process does not exist; it is present in all other cognitive processes: perception, memory, attention, imagination, speech.

At the age of four to seven years, according to J. Piaget, there is a gradual conceptualization of mental activity, which leads the preschool child to pre-operational thinking. The thinking of a preschooler remains largely visual, including elements of mental abstract operations, which can be considered as a progressive change compared to the previous early age.

An analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature showed that the problem of developing visual-figurative thinking in preschoolers was dealt with by A.V. Zaporozhets, A.A. Lyublinskaya, G.I. Minskaya, I.S. Yakimanskaya, L.L. Gurova, B.G. Ananyev, J. Piaget, D. Hebb, D. Brown, R. Holt and others.

Both domestic and foreign studies show that the development of visual-figurative thinking is a complex and lengthy process. Analyzing the views of representatives of various approaches and schools regarding the dynamics of thinking in preschool age, we note significant age-related changes in this most important system function, which ensures the child’s adaptation to the conditions of life in the subject and social environment. The main change in the thinking process in preschool age is the transition from external action to the internal plane, which ensures by the end of preschool childhood the ability to act in the mind.

Many authors consider the emergence of visual-figurative thinking as a key moment in the mental development of a child. However, the conditions for the formation of visual-figurative thinking in preschoolers and the mechanisms for its implementation have not been fully studied.

Research by scientists and the results of an experimental study of visual-figurative thinking in preschool children allowed us to identify the following features of the development of visual-figurative thinking in preschool age:

Visual-figurative thinking is the main type of thinking of a preschool child. Already in middle preschool age, children can master many capabilities associated with this type of thinking (mentally transform images of real objects, build visual models, plan their actions in the mind);

the emergence of visual-figurative thinking is a key moment in the mental development of a child;

the ability to operate with ideas arises in the process of interaction between various lines of a child’s psychological development - the development of objective and instrumental actions, speech, imitation, play activities, etc.

the initial stages of the development of visual-figurative thinking are closely adjacent to the development of perception processes;

tasks in which connections essential to achieving a goal can be discovered without testing are usually solved by children of older preschool age in their heads, and then carry out an error-free practical action;

the success of the transition from an external to an internal plan of action in preschool children is determined by the level of orientation-research activity aimed at identifying the significant connections of the situation.

Based on the results obtained, we have developed recommendations for parents and educators on the development of visual-figurative thinking in preschoolers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Similar works to - Development of visual-figurative thinking in preschool age

In simple terms, visual-figurative thinking helps to imagine something visually without interacting with this object or image in reality. A distinctive feature of this type of thinking is the establishment of connections between properties and objects. It is necessary when a person wants to get something as a result of his activity, but at the same time he simply imagines the situation, how he would do it and what will happen in the end.

Visual-figurative thinking - This a type of thinking characterized by reliance on ideas and images.

The functions of figurative thinking are associated with the representation of situations and changes in them that a person wants to obtain as a result of his activities that transform the situation.

A very important feature of imaginative thinking is the establishment of unusual, incredible combinations of objects and their properties. Speech is actively involved in visual-figurative thinking, which helps to name the sign and compare the signs.

Those. Visual-figurative thinking helps solve tasks mentally, without the participation of practical actions. The right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for this type of thinking.

Stages of development of a child's thinking

Modern psychologists highlight three main stages in the development of a child’s thinking:

• visual-figurative;

Visual and effective thinking is characteristic mainly of children of primary preschool age. However, already in the fourth year he begins visual-figurative thinking is formed, and then logical thinking develops.

At the beginning of the preschool period, babies need physical contact with objects. Over time, the need to touch everything with your hands disappears, and children focus on imagining the image in their mind. The visual-figurative way of thinking becomes active and basic by the age of 5-6 years.

But, unfortunately, not all children develop visual-figurative thinking properly. If you see that it is quite difficult for your child to imagine something in his mind, then do not delay, start actively developing this type of thinking. Otherwise, the child will experience difficulties in school. In particular, it will be difficult for him to solve problems, as well as any tasks of a creative nature.

How to develop visual-figurative thinking?

In this case, various games and exercises will come to the rescue.

The most effective way to develop visual-figurative thinking is activity that allows you to translate your plans into reality. For kids, this is, first of all, any types of construction and all kinds of didactic games aimed at developing thinking and imagination. Let us consider in more detail the techniques that promote the development of imaginative thinking.

The formation and development of visual-figurative thinking is facilitated by:

• passing labyrinths;
• unfinished drawings;
• solving a Rubik's cube;
• tasks to find absurdities;
• tasks to find and restore the missing element;
• design;
• reading with further analysis of the characters of the main characters;
• exercises aimed at developing creative imagination;
• using games with rearranging sticks (matches);
• compiling stories or fairy tales based on a given beginning, or, conversely, inventing the ending of a story;
• describing an object from memory;
• exercises with inventing associations.

Remember how in the poem by Yu. Moritz “What is it like?”

The willow is rustling on the mountain,
The willow is ringing bee,
Striped like a zebra.

Sometimes in our boat
Water is gathering
Floats in the depths star,
Silver like a fish.

There are maples and oaks in the grove,
And under them there are mushrooms,
Every the mushroom looks like an umbrella.

The month has come out young,
The sky looks like water
The cloud seems like a wave,
A month - a wooden boat.

How similar everything is!
So I guess I do too
Looks like someone!

I went and shouted to the goats,
For ducks, sheep and dragonflies:
-Who do I look like?

The white goat turned around
Smiled like a goat
And he said in human terms:
-Can't you see for yourself?

You're kinder than a calf
More fun than a kid
You're still quite child,
But looks like a person!

Thus, the ability to imagine objects in the mind, move them, and perform various manipulations are the most important means of developing a child’s abilities and his mental activity. Developed visual-figurative thinking can be compared to the foundation of all mental activity of a child.

Even in the works of Aristotle, the importance of developing this type of thinking was noted. Creating a mental image helps a person to be result-oriented, strive to achieve what is planned, control his own actions and anticipate their consequences. It helps to activate the creative potential inherent in every person. Anyone who has developed visual-figurative thinking is able to think and remember information much faster.

Therefore, even in preschool age, it is necessary to develop the child’s visual-figurative thinking using the above techniques, and you can also train imaginative thinking with special exercises.

Exercises for the development of visual-figurative thinking

In addition to visual-figurative thinking, these tasks will also contribute to

Exercises will bring great benefits if you do them for a while. The optimal time to complete each task is 2 minutes.

Find two identical teapots out of the six shown in the picture. The rest have their own differences in the pattern.

Teapots G and D are painted the same.

Find two identical pictures of a train with carriages.

One hat out of eight available was purchased from the store. What hat did you buy?

Hat E was purchased

Which vase has a different design from the others?

Vase - A. On the left in the middle it is missing a white star.

Each of the five butterflies has one difference from the others. It is necessary to find these differences.

Butterfly A has a black topmost pattern. Butterfly B does not have a right antennae. Butterfly B does not have a tail in its left wing. Butterfly G has no white circle in the lower part of the right wing (in its center). Butterfly D has an additional black circle in the upper part of the left wing.

Each picture of a motorcyclist differs in one element from the rest. Find these differences.

A - number 61, B - gray boots, C - one stripe on the jacket, D - the front wheel is missing a fender, E - an exhaust pipe of a different color.

The picture shows six kites. You need to find two identical ones.

Each snowman differs in one way from the rest. Find these differences.

The highest level of human knowledge is considered thinking. The development of thinking is the mental process of creating obvious, non-proving patterns of the surrounding world. This is a mental activity that has a goal, motive, actions (operations) and a result.

Development of thinking

Scientists offer several options for defining thinking:

1. The highest stage of human assimilation and processing of information, the establishment of cause-and-effect relationships between objects of reality.
2. The process of displaying the explicit properties of objects and, as a result, creating an idea of ​​the surrounding reality.
3. This is a process of cognition of reality, which is based on acquired knowledge, constant replenishment of the baggage of ideas and concepts.

Thinking is studied in several disciplines. The laws and types of thinking are considered by logic, the psychophysiological component of the process - physiology and psychology.

Thinking develops throughout a person’s life, starting from infancy. This is a consistent process of mapping the realities of reality in the human brain.

Types of human thinking

Most often, psychologists divide thinking according to content:

• visual-figurative thinking;

• abstract (verbal-logical) thinking;

• visually effective thinking.

Visual-figurative thinking

Visual-figurative thinking involves visually solving a problem without resorting to practical actions. The right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for the development of this species.

Many people believe that visual-figurative thinking and imagination are one and the same. You are wrong.

Thinking is based on a real process, object or action. Imagination includes the creation of a fictitious, unreal image, something that does not exist in reality.

Developed by artists, sculptors, fashion designers - people of the creative profession. They transform reality into an image, and with its help, new properties are highlighted in standard objects and non-standard combinations of things are established.

Exercises to develop visual-figurative thinking:

Question answer

If the capital letter N from the English alphabet is turned 90 degrees, what letter will the resulting letter be?
What is the shape of a German Shepherd's ears?
How many rooms are there in the living room of your home?

Creating images

Create the image of the last family dinner. Mentally picture the event and answer the questions:

1. How many family members were present, and who was wearing what?
2. What dishes were served?
3. What was the conversation about?
4. Imagine your plate, where your hands lay, the face of a relative sitting next to you. Taste the food you ate.
5. Was the picture presented in black and white or color?
6. Describe the visual image of the room.

Description of items

Describe each item presented:

1. Toothbrush;
2. Pine forest;
3. sunset;
4. your bedroom;
5. drops of morning dew;
6. eagle soaring in the sky.

Imagination

Imagine Beauty, Wealth, Success.

Describe the highlighted image using two nouns, three adjectives and verbs, and one adverb.

Memories

Imagine the people you have interacted with today (or ever).

What did they look like, what were they wearing? Describe their appearance (eye color, hair color, height and build).

Verbal-logical type of thinking (Abstract thinking)

A person sees the picture as a whole, highlights only the significant qualities of the phenomenon, without noticing unimportant details that only complement the subject. This kind of thinking is well developed among physicists and chemists - people who are directly related to science.

Forms of abstract thinking

Abstract thinking has 3 forms:

• concept– objects are combined according to characteristics;

• judgment– affirmation or denial of any phenomenon or connection between objects;

• inference– conclusions based on several judgments.

An example of abstract thinking:

You have a soccer ball (you can even pick it up). What can you do with it?

Options: play football, throw a hoop, sit on it, etc. - not abstracts. But if you imagine that a good ball game will attract the attention of a coach, and you will be able to get into a famous football team... this is already transcendental, abstract thinking.

Exercises to develop abstract thinking:

"Who's the odd one out?"

From a number of words, select one or more words that do not fit the meaning:

• careful, fast, cheerful, sad;
• turkey, pigeon, crow, duck;
• Ivanov, Andryusha, Sergey, Vladimir, Inna;
• square, pointer, circle, diameter.
• plate, pan, spoon, glass, broth.

Finding differences

What is the difference:

• train - plane;
• horse-sheep;
• oak-pine;
• fairy tale-poem;
• still life-portrait.

Find at least 3 differences in each pair.

Main and secondary

From a number of words, select one or two, without which the concept is impossible, cannot exist in principle.

• Game - players, penalty, cards, rules, dominoes.
• War - guns, planes, battle, soldiers, command.
• Youth – love, growth, teenager, quarrels, choice.
• Boots - heel, sole, laces, clasp, shaft.
• Barn – walls, ceiling, animals, hay, horses.
• Road - asphalt, traffic lights, traffic, cars, pedestrians.

Read the phrases backwards

• Tomorrow is the premiere of the play;
• Come visit;
• let's go to the park;
• what's for lunch?

Words

In 3 minutes, write as many words as possible starting with the letter z (w, h, i)

(beetle, toad, magazine, cruelty...).

Come up with names

Come up with 3 of the most unusual male and female names.

Visual-effective thinking

It involves solving mental problems through transforming a situation that has arisen in reality. This is the very first way to process the information received.

This type of thinking actively develops in preschool children. They begin to combine various objects into a single whole, analyze and operate with them. Develops in the left hemisphere of the brain.

In an adult, this type of thinking is carried out through the transformation of practical usefulness of real objects. Visual-figurative thinking is extremely developed among people who are engaged in production work - engineers, plumbers, surgeons. When they see an object, they understand what actions need to be performed with it. People say that people in similar professions have their hands full.

Visual-figurative thinking helped ancient civilizations, for example, measure the earth, because both hands and brain are involved during the process. This is the so-called manual intelligence.

Playing chess perfectly develops visual and effective thinking.

Exercises to develop visual and effective thinking

1. The simplest, but very effective task for developing this type of thinking is collection of constructors. There should be as many parts as possible, at least 40 pieces. You can use visual instructions.
2. No less useful for the development of this type of thinking are various puzzles, puzzles. The more details there are, the better.
3. Make 2 equal triangles from 5 matches, 2 squares and 2 triangles from 7 matches.
4. Turn into a square by cutting once in a straight line, a circle, a diamond and a triangle.
5. Make a cat, a house, a tree from plasticine.
6. Without special instruments, determine the weight of the pillow you are sleeping on, all the clothes you are wearing, and the size of the room you are in.

Conclusion

Every person must develop all three types of thinking, but one type always predominates. This can be determined in childhood, while observing the child’s behavior.

Train compliance. Matching games can enhance perceptual reasoning by developing children's ability to recognize and compare visual information. There are an almost endless number of ways to train compliance, but to get started, try:

• Color matching. Challenge the children to find as many blue things as possible, then as many red things as possible, and so on. You can ask them to find objects or things in the room that are the same color as their shirt or eyes.
• Matching shapes and sizes. Take cubes and blocks of various shapes and sizes and ask the children to assemble them according to shape or size, and if the children are already quite developed, then according to two parameters at once.
• Write the letters on cards or paper and ask the children to find the matching ones. Once this skill is mastered, you can move on to short and longer words.
• Give the children the task of finding a match between the word and the picture. This game strengthens the connection between the written word and the visual image. There are similar cards and games on the market designed to develop this skill, but you can also make them yourself.
• Encourage children to find objects or things that start with a certain letter. This game strengthens the connections between a particular letter or sound and the objects and people whose names or names begin with it.
• Play memory training games. Memory games develop both matching and memory skills. For such games, paired cards with different symbols are usually used. The cards are turned face down (after they have been reviewed) and players must find matching ones in a new deck.

Work on your ability to spot differences. Part of imaginative thinking involves the ability to distinguish and determine on the fly what belongs to a certain group of objects and what does not. There are many simple activities that can help children develop these skills. For example:

• Try using "Find the odd one out" pictures. They are in magazines, books and on the Internet. The objects in the picture may be similar, but children need to look carefully and find those small differences between them.
• Encourage children to find objects that do not belong to them. Combine a group of items - say, three apples and a pencil - and ask which object does not belong to them. As you progress, you can come up with more challenging tasks: using an apple, an orange, a banana and a ball, for example, then an apple, an orange, a banana and a carrot.

Train your visual memory. Show children the pictures, then hide some or all of them. Ask them to describe what they saw. Alternatively, show children a number of objects, set them aside, and ask them to name as many as they can.

• Encourage the children to talk about the pictures they see. After they have described them, tell them stories about the objects depicted and compare them with other pictures.

Develop attention to detail. Show children a picture with words or pictures and ask them to find as many as they can.

Put together puzzles. By playing with various puzzles, children train their visual perception: they rotate the puzzle elements, connect them and imagine the picture as a whole. This is a key skill in mathematics.

Teach children where is right and where is left. Orientation as to where is right and where is left is part of perceptual and visual perception. Explain the difference between the left and right sides in the child's hands, using the one he writes with as a basis. Reinforce knowledge by asking your child to take an object in his left hand or wave his right hand - use whatever comes to mind.

• It is helpful to explain to children at their early ages the concept of arrows indicating direction. Show children pictures of left and right arrows and ask them to identify the direction.