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The world around the child enters throws up more and more complex tasks every year, for the solution of which it is not enough just to see, hear, feel, but it is very important to highlight the connections, relationships between phenomena. Why is it possible to sculpt all kinds of handicrafts from clay diluted with water, but wet clay simply crumbles? Why does a wooden boat not sink, while an iron one immediately sinks into the water? Why does fruit juice placed in a freezer turn into figured ice in a mold?
Curious questions become a natural accompaniment to growing up. In order to independently answer them, the child must turn to the process of thinking. With the help of thinking, we gain knowledge that the senses cannot give. Thinking correlates the data of sensations and perceptions, compares, distinguishes and reveals the relationships between surrounding phenomena. The result of thinking is a thought expressed in a word.
Children’s thinking goes through certain stages in its development. As the famous child psychologist A.A. Lyublinskaya points out, the first means of solving problems for a small child is his practical action. So, for example, having received a toy helicopter in which the propeller and wings suddenly stop rotating, or a box closed on the latch, a child of three to five years does not think about ways and means of solving this problem. He immediately begins to act: something pulls, twists, jerks, shakes, knocks … Not getting the desired result, he turns to an adult for help or refuses further tests altogether. This kind of thinking is called visual-effective, or practical: the task is given visually and is solved by hands, that is, by practical action. “Thinking with hands” does not disappear as they grow up, but remains in reserve even for adults, when they cannot solve some new problem in their mind and begin to act through trial and error.
For the development of visual-effective thinking of preschoolers, puzzle pictures, parts of the Lego constructor, different models of the ueka cube, puzzles from movably linked rings, triangles and other figures work.
As child psychologist V.S. Mukhin, by the older preschool age, tasks of a new type appear, where the result of the action will not be direct, but indirect, and in order to achieve it, the child will need to take into account the connections between two or more phenomena occurring simultaneously or sequentially. For example, such problems arise in games with mechanical toys (if you place a ball in a certain place on the playing field and pull the lever in a certain way, the ball will be in the right place), in construction (its stability depends on the size of the base of the building), etc.
When solving such problems with an indirect result, children of four or five years old begin to move from external actions with objects to actions with images of these objects, performed in the mind. This is how it develops visual-figurative thinkingwhich is based on images: the child does not have to pick up the object, it is enough to clearly present it. In the process of visual-figurative thinking, visual representations are compared, as a result of which the problem is solved.
The possibility of solving problems in the mind arises due to the fact that the images used by the child acquire a generalized character. That is, they do not display all the features of the subject, but only those that are essential for solving a specific problem. That is, schemes, models arise in the mind of the child. Especially vividly model-shaped forms of thinking develop and manifest themselves in drawing, designing and other types of productive activity.
Thus, children’s drawings in most cases are a diagram in which the connection of the main parts of the depicted object is conveyed and its individual features are absent. For example, when drawing a house, the figure shows the base and the roof, while the location, shape of windows, doors, and some interior details are not taken into account.
For example, from the age of five, a child can find a hidden object in a room, using a mark on the plan, choose the right path in an extensive system of paths, based on a scheme such as a geographical map.
Mastering models brings to a new level the ways in which children acquire knowledge. If, with a verbal explanation, a child cannot always understand, say, some primary mathematical operations, the sound composition of a word, then based on a model, he will do it easily.
Figurative forms reveal their limitations when the child faces tasks that require the identification of properties and relationships that cannot be visualized. This type of task was described by the famous Swiss psychologist J. Piaget and called them «tasks for the conservation of the amount of matter.»
For example, a child is presented with two identical plasticine balls. One of them turns into a cake in front of the child’s eyes. The child is asked where there is more plasticine: in a ball or a cake. The preschooler answers that in a tortilla.
When solving such problems, the child cannot independently consider the changes that are visually occurring with the object (for example, a change in area) and the amount of substance remaining constant. After all, this requires a transition from judgments based on images to judgments based on verbal concepts.
Verbal-logical thinking the most difficult thing is that it operates not with concrete images, but with complex abstract concepts expressed in words. At preschool age, we can only talk about the prerequisites for the development of this type of thinking.
Already by the age of three, the child begins to understand that an object can be designated with the help of another object (a cube is like a glass from which you can drink), a picture, a word. When performing various actions, the child often accompanies them with words, and it may seem that he is thinking aloud. But in fact, at this stage, the child uses in his mental actions not words, but images. Speech plays a supporting role. So, preschoolers of four or five years old, when they were given specially damaged toys, in many cases correctly determined the cause of the breakdown and eliminated it. But they could not tell why they did this, pointing to some secondary signs of the toy (according to V.S. Mukhina).
The word begins to be used as an independent means of thinking as the child masters the concepts developed by mankind — knowledge about the general and essential features of objects and phenomena of reality, enshrined in words. Adults often make the mistake of believing that words have the same meaning for them and preschoolers. For the child, the words used are representational words. For example, the word «flower» in the child’s mind can be strongly associated with the image of a particular flower (for example, a rose), and the presented cactus is not considered as a flower. During preschool age, the child gradually moves from single concepts to general ones.
Let’s ask children of three to six years old what a cat is. A three-year-old child can answer: «I know a cat, she lives in our yard.» Five-year-old: “The cat catches mice, she still loves milk”, “The cat is the head, torso, tail and paws, there are scratches on them. There are also ears on the head. Six year old: “A cat is an animal. She lives at home, but I know there are wild cats. They catch mice. (According to Ya.L. Kolominsky and E.A. Panko)
By the age of six, children’s concepts become deeper, fuller, more generalized, they include more and more essential features of an object, phenomenon. In order for words to turn into concepts, a specially organized training of the child by an adult is required. Systematic mastery of concepts begins in the process of schooling. However, specially organized classes with older preschoolers allow them to master some concepts.
For example, when forming concepts about the quantitative characteristics and relationships of things, children are taught to use such a tool as a measure. For example, with the help of a colored string of a certain length, used as a measure, a child, together with an adult, measures objects of different sizes, comparing them with each other. With the help of a measure, the value is determined objectively, regardless of the appearance. The child can make sure that the high cabinet and the low table can be the same length. Later, without an external support of the measure (colored string), the child in his mind can draw correct conclusions about the size of objects.
At the senior preschool age mastering of actions with numbers and mathematical signs begins. It is important to manage this and strive to form in children an abstract concept of number as a characteristic of any objects, mathematical operations, without relying on images. Otherwise, it will cause difficulties in schooling. At preschool age, the child masters some abstract concepts: about temporal relations, cause and effect, space, etc. At the same time, concepts about specific objects are formed, of course, easier and faster.
Although logical thinking makes it possible to solve a wider range of problems, to master scientific knowledge, one should not rush to form this type of thinking in a preschooler as early as possible. First, it is important to create a solid foundation in the form of developed figurative forms. It is figurative thinking that allows the child to find solutions based on a specific situation. The extreme generalization, schematicity of logical thinking often turns into weakness, giving rise to a phenomenon that is called «formalism of thinking.» The child’s consciousness operates with dry schemes, not capturing the richness and fullness of life phenomena, and therefore is incapable of adequately solving developmental problems.
The development of figurative thinking is facilitated by games, design, applications, drawing, listening to fairy tales, dramatization and other children’s productive activities.
During preschool age, such forms of mental activity as judgment and inference are also developed. There has been a long discussion in child psychology about the ability of children to these forms of thinking. There is no reason to equate children’s judgments and conclusions with adults. But it is impossible to talk about the lack of logic in children. The child tries to explain the observed, but cannot draw the right conclusion due to the limited experience.
An adult asks: “Where are the stars in the sky from?” Six-year-old Gosha replies: “From golden papers. The astronauts threw them there.” — Are the stars moving? — «They are moving.» — «Why?» “Because the wind blows in different places.” (According to L.F. Obukhova)
Preschool age is a time of endless children’s questions. As noted by Ya.L. Kolominsky and E.A. Panko, children of primary preschool age are dominated by questions caused by curiosity (“Where is he?”, “Whose is this?”, “What is this?”, “Who is this?”). At the age of four or five, the child begins to show interest in a more “remote” reality (questions about school, professions), questions arise about his birth. At the age of five or six, there are more and more questions caused by curiosity, expressing a causal relationship in the form of “Why?” (“Why doesn’t the goose drown in water?”, “Why doesn’t the chicken swim?” Etc.). The questions of a six-seven-year-old child are already caused not so much by curiosity as by the need to be convinced of the truth (“How does the blood flow?”, “If we put a monkey in our house, will it turn into a man?”). See →
From the point of view of D.B. Elkonin, the study of children’s issues shows that children’s thought is aimed at differentiation and generalization of objects and phenomena of the surrounding world. Distinguishing living and non-living, good and evil, past and present, etc. is the basis for the child’s penetration into the essence of different spheres of life. On the basis of this, the first generalizations of ideas about the world, the outline of the future worldview, arise.
The famous Swiss psychologist J. Piaget was the first to explore the content of ideas about the world and about physical causality. He singled out three major periods of formation of causality. From birth to four years, the child most often uses magical explanations for the causes of what is happening around him — he explains what is happening with magic. From the age of five to nine, animistic explanations come to the fore. The child animates the world around him. He may well imagine a walking closet, a singing alarm clock, a talking dog, etc. Fairy tales and animated films are built on the animism of children’s thinking. And only from the age of ten do these childish forms of explanation of causality gradually disappear, and they are replaced by rationalistic justifications for the external world.
J. Piaget considered the central characteristic of children’s thinking to be his egocentrism. When solving any problems, the starting point for the child is himself. The preschooler is not able to clearly separate his existence and his possibilities from the outside world.
A six-year-old girl is asked the question:
Have you seen how the clouds move? What makes them move?
She answers:
When we move, they move too.
“And you, for example, can you make them move?”
Anyone can if they walk.
— And if I walk, but you don’t, do the clouds move?
-Yes.
— And at night, when everyone is sleeping, do they move?
-Yes.
“But you say they move when someone walks.
“They are always moving. Cats when they walk, and then dogs, they make the clouds move.
(Based on the materials of J. Piaget)
J. Piaget considered one of the consequences of egocentric thinking to be its syncretism: when, instead of explaining, the child connects “everything with everything” and gives not arguments, but a description of the situation.
Six-year-old Anton is asked:
— Why is the wind blowing?
He says:
“Because you need to help people on sailboats and in sports, he blows and helps people.
(According to L.F. Obukhova)
How to develop thinking in preschool age
The thinking of the child is connected with his knowledge. N.N. Poddyakov discovered such trends in the development of knowledge in children. The first is that in the process of mental activity there is an expansion of the volume and deepening of clear, clear knowledge about the world around. This stable knowledge constitutes the core of the child’s cognitive sphere. The second trend suggests that at the same time, a circle of indefinite, not entirely clear knowledge arises and grows, acting in the form of conjectures, assumptions, questions. For the development of children’s thinking, it is very important that, along with the formation of the core of stable knowledge, there is a continuous growth of uncertain, obscure knowledge, which is a powerful stimulus for children’s mental activity.
In the course of classes, special education, it is important to form in preschoolers such mental operations as comparison, generalization, analysis, synthesis, classification.
To master the operation of comparison, the child must learn to see the similar in the different and the different in the similar. For this, as A. A. Lyublinskaya points out, a clearly directed analysis of the compared objects is required, a constant comparison of the distinguished features in order to find homogeneous and different ones. It is necessary to compare form with form, the purpose of an object with the same quality of another object, external features, color, size of an object with similar sides of another object.
Doctor of Psychology I.V. Vachkov offers preschoolers the following exercises:
1. To develop analysis, synthesis and classification.
“Have mom or dad put 3-4 pictures of various objects in front of you (you can use pictures of children’s loto). You must determine which of the pictures is redundant. For example, if the pictures show a girl, a teddy bear and a ball, then the ball is superfluous, since the girl and the teddy bear are alive, but the ball is not.
2. For the development of analysis and synthesis.
“Take turns with mom or dad to take pictures from the children’s loto and describe the object drawn in the picture without naming it. The partner in the game must guess from the description what kind of object it is.
3. For the development of analysis and comparison.
“Tell me what you like about this subject or phenomenon, and what you don’t. For example: why do you like winter and why not? I like it because in winter you can go sledding, play snowballs, celebrate the New Year. I don’t like winter because it’s cold, you have to dress warmly, the days are short and the nights are long. Give an assessment to such concepts as rain, injection, fountain pen, alarm clock, bow.
4. For the development of analysis and generalization.
Name the following items in one generalizing word or phrase:
— cup, spoon, plate, fork;
— apple, pear, lemon, banana;
— dove, peacock, duck, heron;
— dog, cow, pig, ram;
— chamomile, corn, nettle, lily of the valley;
— winter spring Summer Autumn».
The development of thinking in childhood is a special form of labor that the child masters. This is mental work. The work is challenging and interesting. It can strain and frighten someone, while for someone, mental work is associated with a pleasant emotion of surprise. Surprise that opens the door to a world that can be known.
Diagnosis of the development of thinking in children aged 3 to 6 years. Tasks
At preschool age, visual-figurative thinking (operating with images) predominates in children, therefore, tasks for diagnosing the level of development of thinking should be appropriate. The proposed tasks can also be used as developmental exercises. →
Prevention and overcoming mental retardation
The main recommendation for both preventing it and overcoming it is hard work with the child, encouraging him to understand, encouraging him and helping him. Adult members of the family, having allocated time, work with a child who is retarded in mental development, tirelessly, turning hard work into an exciting game for him. See →