In this article:

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

What is figurative thinking?

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

Creative thinking- this is a 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 in view of its visual representation and find the right solution for it in the optimally short time.

In preschool children, imaginative thinking allows you to develop a responsive attitude to everything good and beautiful that exists in life. Without imaginative thinking, there would be no high-class creative specialists, such as designers, constructors, writers, and simply creative, enterprising, self-confident and comprehensively developed personalities.

In the process of presenting the image in the mind, previously experienced perceptions are reproduced. When it comes to spatial representation, it means the ability
a person, in this case a preschooler, to see the world in a three-dimensional image, colorful, capable of changing in space.

A kid can draw for himself an image of a real object or phenomenon, or something that does not really exist, as, for example, it 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 for any problems, it is important for a preschooler to learn how to operate with images, to be able to visualize situations.
2. Developed figurative thinking allows preschool children, and then adults, to learn to emotionally respond to aesthetic images of the real world, developing a craving for beauty.

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

Options for the development of figurative thinking

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

It is necessary to deal with preschool children, following a certain sequence of actions:

1. Demonstrate;
2. Tell;
3. Practice collaborative activities;
4. Offer to work on your own using a sample;
5. Offer to create something on your own 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 has mastered the technique of working with different types of materials, you need to try not to praise, accustoming to evaluate their own capabilities and skills adequately, without overestimating self-esteem.

Experts recommend parents not to be afraid to work with 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 carefully, both independently and collectively.

Origami as an effective method for the development of figurative thinking

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

Children, especially preschoolers, are not overly interested
in paper construction until they see the results of manipulations - toys and figures created by 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 secondary details and highlighting the brightest elements. As a result, they get a completely new image, fitted into 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 visually obtained crafts resemble the original very remotely, the kid gets great pleasure from the result and calmly thinks about the missing elements in his mind.

Comprehension of the images of objects that preschool children convey during the manufacture of paper figures occurs in the process of applying various methods and techniques, the purpose of which is to convey the beauty and originality of the object in a new form.

Difficulties and Solutions

Designing using paper is very difficult for preschool children, 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 retain interest in the process, you need to start by teaching them the simplest paper folding techniques, demonstrating the techniques by personal example. Watching the process, the child will think, analyze, try to bend the paper carefully, adhering to the rules -
"fitting" the corners under each other. All this will require a lot of willpower and patience from the baby.

To make crafts especially bright and beautiful, you need to experiment with the size of the squares, their color. At the same time, it is necessary to convey to the baby that the result, namely the quality of the craft, largely depends not on the choice of blanks, but on how carefully the bending and smoothing of the folds will be carried out. That is why initially you need to show the crumbs how to fold the paper correctly - before he starts 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. The ability of a preschooler to make such blanks will help him master the folding of more complex shapes in the future.

How does figurative thinking develop in preschoolers with mental retardation?

Figurative thinking has a direct connection with speech, the degree of development of which determines the consolidation of images-representations.

Children of preschool age with mental retardation have one feature: they lag behind in the development of all forms of thinking. Such children have reduced motivation, which negatively affects cognitive activity and results in
in unwillingness to succumb to intellectual stress, up to a categorical refusal to complete the task.

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

Diagnosis of the level of development of figurative thinking in children with mental retardation is ambiguous. Some children can easily cope with the assigned tasks, while 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

Hearing-impaired children are initially forced to grow up in unfavorable conditions for their development, associated with impaired orientation in space 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 not earlier than the third year of life, and these actions come down for the most part to manipulations. That is why there is a delay in practical activity with objects, which leads to a lack of practical experience and delays in the development of figurative 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 a figurative-active nature is largely related to the activities of a preschooler. Usually, he does not have difficulties with tasks during which he does not need to think about connections that lie on the surface.

Several answers can lead the baby to certain difficulties in making a decision. But it will be even more difficult for hearing-impaired children to identify less obvious connections that require evaluation and mapping of several actions.

If hearing-impaired preschool children are compared with healthy children, then the options they use to solve problems will differ markedly from the options used by normally hearing children.

A healthy child, who accidentally discovers an important component in the process, will not hesitate to 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 directed not to the means to achieve the goal, but directly to the goal itself.

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

Over time, children will progress in solving problems of a visual-effective nature, although, of course, compared with the pace 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 fixed images of objects, which will confirm the development of planning speech. All this will be possible only if corrective work is established 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 preschool children with hearing impairments opens up opportunities for the development of thinking. It is possible and necessary to contribute to the process of its development using an integrated approach to the development of the personality of such children.

The impact process should be built taking into account the existing level of development and compensatory possibilities. It is very important that when working with a child
managed, 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, memory, they try to create suitable conditions for expanding opportunities that can become compensators for a defect.

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

Particularly important are visual-effective methods and means, with the help of which it will be possible to form representations and concepts at a visual-figurative level of generalizations. We are talking about dramatization, 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 figurative thinking. Children with speech disorders according to the type of non-verbal intelligence can be divided into three groups:

In the process of studying the features of figurative thinking, it was concluded that children of preschool age in terms of academic performance when performing tasks are somewhat different. All children with speech disorders can be divided into those who show a low level of solving problems of a visual type, and those who cope with the task on the same level as healthy children.

The most obvious factor hindering the development of figurative 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 the shortcomings of the motivational sphere and the lack of constant interest in tasks.

Children with speech disorders are not always able to quickly enter the situation proposed to them, provoked to solve the problem, or, on the contrary, they try to start the task too quickly, assessing it superficially and not delving into the specifics. Another category of such preschoolers is children,
who start to do the task, but quickly lose interest in it, even if they cope with the task.

It is important to note that with all this, the possibilities for the consistent implementation of thought processes in such children are preserved if they are helped to 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 figurative thinking at different stages of preschool age

At each stage of preschool age, a preschooler makes a special decision, working on tasks for the development of visual-figurative thinking. So, for example, preschoolers of younger age are guided by external actions. Children use trial and error until they find a suitable solution for the task at hand. The kid remembers the correct option found and can reuse it when solving a similar task.

The guys from the group of children of middle preschool age, adhering to the same trial and error method, try to perform actions in the mind, after which, if necessary, solve the problem
try in practice the option that in the mind seemed to be the most effective.

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

During games, construction, drawing, children develop a sign function of consciousness, in the process of 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.

The development of artistic and figurative thinking in preschoolers

The concept of artistic and figurative 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, group.

The best way to stimulate the development of artistic and figurative thinking is to get involved in art. Experts are sure that preschoolers need to form a positive picture of the world from the earliest years, surrounding them with poetry, music, and introducing them to painting.

The development of artistic and figurative 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 series of actions similar to the sound of musical instruments. Also, preschoolers can be taught to find the right associations while listening to music, instill the ability to replace elements of musical speech with symbols, develop a vocabulary of emotions and musical thinking.

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

Anastasia Kondratieva
Thinking: forms, properties, types, methods of development in children

Thinking- the process of mediated and generalized cognition (reflection) of the surrounding world. Its essence is in reflection: 1) general and essential properties of objects and phenomena, including those properties that are not perceived directly; 2) essential relationships and regular connections between objects and phenomena.

Basic forms of thinking

There are three main forms of thinking: concept, judgment and inference.

A concept is a form of thinking that reflects the general and, moreover, essential properties of objects and phenomena.

Each object, each phenomenon has many different properties, signs. These properties, features can be divided into two categories - essential and non-essential.

Judgments reflect the connections and relationships between objects and phenomena of the surrounding world and their properties and features. A judgment is a form of thinking that contains the assertion or denial of a position regarding objects, phenomena or their properties.

Inference is a form of thinking in which a person, comparing and analyzing various judgments, derives a new judgment from them. A typical example of inference is the proof of geometric theorems.

Properties of thinking

The main properties of human thinking are its abstractness and generalization. The abstractness of thinking lies in the fact that, thinking about any objects and phenomena, establishing connections between them, we single out only those properties, signs that are important for solving the issue before us, abstracting from all other signs, in this case we not interested: listening to the explanation of the teacher in the lesson, the student tries to understand the content of the explanation, highlight the main thoughts, connect them with each other and with their past knowledge. At the same time, he is distracted from the sound of the teacher's voice, the style of his speech.

The abstractness of thinking is closely related to its generalization. Highlighting the most important aspects, connections and relationships that are essential from one point of view or another, we thereby focus our thoughts on the general thing that characterizes entire groups of objects and phenomena. Each object, each event, phenomenon, taken as a whole, is unique, as it has many different sides and signs.

Types of thinking

In psychology, the following simple and somewhat conditional classification of types of thinking is common: 1) visual-effective, 2) visual-figurative, and 3) abstract (theoretical) thinking. There are also intuitive and analytical thinking, theoretical, empirical, autistic and mythological thinking.

Visual-active thinking.

In the course of historical development, people solved the problems that confronted them, first in terms of practical activity, only then did theoretical activity stand out from it. Practical and theoretical activities are inextricably linked.

Only as practical activity develops does it stand out as a relatively independent theoretical mental activity.

Not only in the historical development of mankind, but also in the process of mental development of each child, the starting point will be not purely theoretical, but practical activity. It is within this latter that children's thinking first develops. At preschool age (up to three years inclusive) thinking is mainly visual and effective. The child analyzes and synthesizes cognizable objects as he practically separates, dismembers and reunites, correlates, connects with each other these or those objects perceived at the moment with his hands. Inquisitive children often break their toys in order to find out "what's inside."

Visual-figurative thinking.

In its simplest form, visual-figurative thinking occurs mainly in preschoolers, i.e., at the age of four to seven years. The connection between thinking and practical actions, although they retain, is not as close, direct and immediate as before. In the course of the analysis and synthesis of a cognizable object, the child does not necessarily and by no means always have to touch the object that interests him with his hands. In many cases, systematic practical manipulation (action) with the object is not required, but in all cases it is necessary to clearly perceive and visualize this object. In other words, preschoolers think only in visual images and do not yet master concepts (in the strict sense).

Distracted thinking.

On the basis of practical and visual-sensory experience, children at school age develop, at first in the simplest forms, abstract thinking, that is, thinking in the form of abstract concepts.

Mastering concepts in the course of assimilation by schoolchildren of the basics of various sciences - mathematics, physics, history - is of great importance in the mental development of children. The formation and assimilation of mathematical, geographical, physical, biological, and many other concepts in the course of schooling is the subject of numerous studies. The development of abstract thinking in schoolchildren in the course of assimilation of concepts does not at all mean that their visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking now ceases to develop or disappears altogether. On the contrary, these primary and initial forms of all mental activity continue to change and improve as before, developing together with abstract thinking and under its influence.

Intuitive and analytical thinking.

Analytical thinking is characterized by the fact that its individual stages are clearly expressed and the thinker can tell another person about them. An analytically thinking person is fully aware of both the content of his thoughts and their constituent operations. Analytic thinking in its extreme form takes the form of careful deductive (from general to particular) inference.

Intuitive thinking is characterized by the fact that it lacks clearly defined stages. It is usually based on a folded perception of the whole problem at once. The person in this case arrives at an answer, which may be right or wrong, with little or no awareness of the process by which he got that answer. Therefore, the conclusions of intuitive thinking need to be verified by analytical means.

Intuitive and analytical thinking complement each other Through intuitive thinking, a person can often solve problems that he would not solve at all or, at best, would solve more slowly through analytical thinking.

theoretical thinking.

Theoretical thinking is thinking that does not lead directly to practical action. Theoretical thinking is opposed to practical thinking, the conclusion of which is, in the words of Aristotle, an act. Theoretical thinking is guided by a special attitude and is always associated with the creation of a specific "theoretical world" and the drawing of a fairly clear boundary between it and the real world.

empirical thinking.

There are at least three vital functions of empirical thinking.

First, empirical thinking provides a person with an awareness of similar and different. The most important task of thinking when faced with an infinite variety of sensually given properties and relations of things is to separate them, to focus on similar and different, to single out a general idea of ​​\u200b\u200bobjects.

Secondly, empirical thinking allows the subject to determine the measure of similarity and difference. Depending on practical everyday tasks, a person can define the same objects, phenomena, situations as more or less similar and different.

Thirdly, empirical thinking makes it possible to group objects according to generic relations, to classify them.

Ways to develop thinking

The development of visual - effective thinking of children.

By the age of 5-6, children learn to perform actions in their minds. The objects of manipulation are no longer real objects, but their images. Most often, children present a visual, visual image of an object. Therefore, the thinking of the child is called visual-effective.

For the development of visual-effective thinking, the following methods of working with children should be used:

1) Teaching the analysis of a visual image (an adult can draw the child's attention to individual elements of objects, ask questions about similarities and differences).

2) Learn to determine the properties of objects (children do not immediately understand that different objects may have similar properties; for example: “Name 2 objects that have three features at once: white, soft, edible”).

3) Learning to recognize an object by describing possible actions with it (for example, riddles).

4) Learning to find alternative ways of acting (for example, "What if you need to know the weather outside?").

5) Learning to compose plot stories.

6) Learning to draw logical conclusions (for example, "Petya is older than Masha, and Masha is older than Kolya. Who is the oldest?").

Development of logical thinking of children.

To develop the logical thinking of preschool children, the following techniques are used:

1) Teaching the child to compare objects (for example, "Find 10 differences in the following pictures").

2) Teaching the child to classify objects (for example, the game "What is superfluous?").

3) Teaching the child to search for the same properties or signs of objects (for example, among toys, invite the child to find 2 identical ones).

Development of logical thinking of children of primary school age:

1) The use of exercises aimed at developing the ability to divide objects into classes (for example, “Read the words (lemon, orange, plum, apple, strawberry) and name the berries and fruits”).

2) Formation of the ability to define concepts.

3) Formation of the ability to highlight the essential features of objects.

Thinking acts mainly as a solution to problems, questions, problems that are constantly put forward before people by life. Solving problems should always give a person something new, new knowledge. The search for solutions is sometimes very difficult, so mental activity, as a rule, is an active activity that requires focused attention and patience. The real process of thought is always a cognitive process.

Bibliography:

1. Brief psychological dictionary / ed. A. V. Petrovsky, M. G. Yaroshevsky. - Rostov-ND, 1998.

2. Gippenreiter Yu. B. Introduction to General Psychology: Textbook / Yu. B. Gippenreiter. - M. : Omega L, 2006.

3. Tertel A. L. Psychology. Course of lectures: Textbook / A. L. Tertel. – M. : Prospekt, 2006.

4. Diagnosis and correction of the mental development of preschoolers: Textbook / Ed. Ya. L. Kolominsky, E. A. Panko. - Mn., 1997.

5. Uruntaeva G. A. Workshop on child psychology: Textbook / G. A. Uruntaeva, Yu. A. Afonkina. - M .: Education, 1995.

The significance of the first form of thinking, visual-effective, is that some mistakes that were made in the development of the child negatively affect his further mental development. Thus, visual-effective thinking for a small person entering this world is the starting point, which in the future will allow the brain to develop and move on to other, more complex forms of thinking.

When does it start to form?

Important. The visual-effective form of thinking is actively formed in children of the earliest and younger preschool age.

This process starts when the child is not yet able to plan anything on his own. The first "symptoms" of this form of thinking can be observed even in seven-month-old babies. The period when the child solves problems related to objects and toys gives information about the level of his development in a baby up to the age of three.

At three years old, a child can already plan something. Let this not yet the most daring and confident plans. From cubes and fragments of the designer, he can already build various structures - from houses to airplanes. Takes pieces of his toys to find out what they are from, "puts things in order" in home cabinets.

This is how, with visual-real thinking, a complex, but life-long cognitive path begins.

Development features

Preschoolers

Preschoolers are ahead of the logic of logical thinking - "thinking with their hands."

1. At first, the child can understand the ultimate goal.
2. Then he begins to analyze the specific conditions of the assigned tasks.
3. And only then compares the conditions of the problem with the goal to be achieved.

This is how the whole chain of small decisions is built that will lead to the achievement of the final goal.

In young years

Important. A feature of thinking at four or five years old is its complete instability. It seems that the child wants to analyze everything that he sees around him, compares objects with each other and can already draw a conclusion about their relationships. But his judgments about objects are simply their enumeration.

Young children often act inappropriately and cannot be critical of themselves and their actions. They only understand the end goal (removing a candy from a tall vase, catching a toy fish), but they do not yet understand how to solve these problems. As soon as the child speaks, everything will change.

For elementary and middle school students

This transitional age - from childhood to adolescence - is an important and difficult stage in the development of the child. Physical abilities increase: movements and actions are more confident and varied. More and more meaningful contacts with peers are needed. At this age, children communicate on various issues and the range of these issues is much wider than that of babies.

Teenagers

With age, experience accumulates. Teenagers reason and are able to draw conclusions. They consider themselves adults. The guys have their own solutions, not always correct and adequate. At this stage, it is good for parents to pay attention to the development of thinking, while not forgetting about the psychological climate.

Diagnostic methods

To immerse a child in creativity is the main and right parental decision. Creative people are always looking for something new. You can notice the inclinations of a child at a very early age. The main thing is to love, develop and observe. And here's what you can see:

• bright emotions on toys;
• genuine interest in people;
• an acute desire to imitate, repeat after someone heard words and actions.

To assess the creative abilities of children in psychology, a number of criteria are used - for example:

• flexibility;
• originality;
• creative ideas and solutions.

How to develop it?

Depending on the age and preferences of the child himself, development methods should also be chosen. At three years old, it can be a pyramid and other collapsible toys.

1. To begin with, an adult demonstrates the process of disassembling and assembling them.
2. Then the child repeats these procedures.
3. Further, the tasks become more difficult. For example, a pyramid is taken with rings of different shapes, sizes and colors.

In older preschool age, the following methods can be used to develop thinking:

• Observe nature with a further description of what he saw.
• Compare objects of different sizes and shapes.
• Collect puzzles, mosaics, periodically complicating tasks.
• Draw.
• Sculpt (clay, plasticine).
• Go to museums, visit exhibitions.
• Create crafts from natural materials, cardboard, colored paper.

Adults should take an active part in all these processes. Any of these activities should not be a burden to the child. If the child felt tired, it is recommended to switch his attention, praising him, motivating him to perform more and more complex tasks.

In children with ADHD

If the ZPR is of cerebro-organic origin, then, as a rule, all types of thinking processes suffer. But the visual-effective is less affected. This is due to the fact that with such forms of development it is slowed down:

1. formation of locomotor functions;
2. hand-eye coordination;
3. there is a low level of ability to analyze, compare and generalize the properties of phenomena and objects.

Such special children can only talk about superficial, non-essential qualities, and even then not completely and accurately. In children with mental retardation, figurative thinking appears later than one and a half to two years (more about what figurative thinking is, why it is needed, read

The highest level of human knowledge is thinking. The development of thinking is a mental process of creating obvious patterns of the surrounding world that do not require proof. This is a mental activity that has a goal, a motive, actions (operations) and a result.

Development of thinking

Scientists offer several options for defining thinking:

1. The highest stage of assimilation and processing by a person 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 the process of cognition of reality, which is based on the acquired knowledge, the constant replenishment of the baggage of ideas and concepts.

Thinking is studied by 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 sequential process of displaying the realities of reality in the human brain.

Types of human thinking

Most often, psychologists divide thinking by content:

• visual-figurative thinking;

• abstract (verbal-logical) thinking;

• visual action thinking.

Visual-figurative thinking

Visual-figurative thinking implies a visual solution to the problem, without resorting to practical actions. The right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for the development of this species.

Many people think 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, on the other hand, includes the creation of a fictitious, unrealistic image that is not 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 distinguished from standard objects, and non-standard combinations of things are established.

Exercises for the development of visual-figurative thinking:

Question answer

If the capital letter N from the English alphabet is turned 90 degrees, what letter will be the result?
Ear shape of a German Shepherd?
How many rooms are in the living room of your house?

Image creation

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

1. How many family members were present, who was wearing what?
2. What meals 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. Feel the taste of the food you have eaten.
5. Was the picture shown in black and white or color?
6. Describe the visual image of the room.

Description of items

Describe each of the following items:

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

Imagination

Imagine Beauty, Wealth, Success.

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

Memories

Imagine the people with whom you have communicated today (or someday).

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, not noticing minor details that only complement the subject. Such thinking is well developed among physicists, chemists - people who are directly related to science.

Forms of abstract thinking

Abstract thinking has 3 forms:

• concept- objects are combined according to signs;

• judgment- approval 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 take it in your hands). What can be done with it?

Options: play football, throw into the ring, sit on it, etc. are not abstracts. But if you imagine that a good ball game will attract the attention of a coach, and you can get into a famous football team ... this is already beyond, abstract thinking.

Exercises for the development of abstract thinking:

"Who's extra?"

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

• cautious, fast, cheerful, sad;
• turkey, dove, crow, duck;
• Ivanov, Andryusha, Sergey, Vladimir, Inna;
• square, pointer, circle, diameter.
• plate, saucepan, 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 for 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, bootleg.
• Barn - walls, ceiling, animals, hay, horses.
• Road - asphalt, traffic lights, traffic, cars, pedestrians.

Read phrases backwards

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

The words

In 3 minutes, write as many words as you can that start with the letter w (w, h, z)

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

Come up with names

Come up with 3 most unusual male and female names.

Visual Action Thinking

It implies the solution of mental problems through the transformation of the 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 kind of thinking is carried out through the transformation of the practical use of real objects. Visual-figurative thinking is extremely developed among people who are engaged in industrial work - engineers, plumbers, surgeons. When they see an object, they understand what actions to perform with it. People say that people of such professions have a “full hand”.

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

The game of chess perfectly develops visual-effective thinking.

Exercises for the development of visual-effective thinking

1. The simplest, but very effective task for the development of this type of thinking is collection of designers. There should be as many details as possible, at least 40 pieces. Visual instructions can be used.
2. No less useful for the development of this kind of thinking and various puzzles, puzzles. The more details, 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 rhombus and a triangle.
5. Blind a cat, a house, a tree from plasticine.
6. Determine without special devices the weight of the pillow on which you sleep, all the clothes you are wearing, the size of the room in which you are.

Conclusion

Each person must have developed all three types of thinking, but one type always prevails. You can determine this even in childhood, while observing the behavior of the child.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF MOSCOW

State budget educational institution

higher professional education of the city of Moscow

MOSCOW CITY

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Faculty "Educational Psychology"

COURSE WORK

The 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. 4 group, 1 course

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 the cognitive activity of older preschoolers

Chapter 1 Conclusions

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

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

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

Chapter 2 Conclusions

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

At present, the problem of mental education of preschool children is of particular relevance. For a number of years, the main efforts of Soviet scientists who have studied the cognitive processes of preschool children have been concentrated on the study of two problems. One of them is the problem of the development of perception processes. The second problem is the problem of the formation of conceptual thinking. At the same time, the problem of the development of visual-figurative thinking in preschool children is much less developed. Important materials on this issue are contained in the works of A.V. Zaporozhets, A.A. Lyublinskaya, G.I. Minsky 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 of great importance in the mental development of preschoolers. The development of these forms of thinking largely determines the success of the transition to more complex, conceptual forms of thinking. In this connection, the study of the basic functions of these more elementary forms and the determination of their role in the general process of the child's mental development occupies an important place in contemporary psychological research. A number of studies have shown that the possibilities of these forms of thinking are extremely large and are far from being fully used.

With age, the content of thinking of preschoolers changes significantly, their relationships with other people 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 the imagined one.

A number of studies (B.G. Ananiev, O.I. Galkina, L.L. Gurova, A.A. Lyublinskaya, I.S. Yakimanskaya and others) convincingly show the important role of figurative thinking in performing various activities, solving both practical and educational tasks. Various types of images were identified and their function in the implementation of thought 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.) In a number of domestic studies, the structure of visual-figurative thinking is revealed and some features of its functioning are characterized ( B. G. Ananiev, L. L. Gurova, V. P. Zinchenko, T. V. Kudryavtsev, F. N. Limyakin, I. S. Yakimanskaya, and others). A. Lublinskaya, J. Piaget and others) consider the emergence of visual-figurative thinking as a key moment in the mental development of the child. However, the conditions for the formation of visual thinking in preschoolers, the mechanisms for its implementation are far from being fully studied. It should be noted that the ability to operate with ideas is not a direct result of the child's assimilation of knowledge and skills.

An analysis of a number of psychological studies suggests that this ability 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 activity, etc. An analysis of both domestic and foreign studies shows that 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;

To analyze the 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 - figurative thinking

Thinking is the highest cognitive process. It is a product of new knowledge, an active form of creative reflection and transformation of reality.

Thinking is the most generalized and mediated 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 set. Thinking, unlike perception, goes beyond the limits of the sensually given, expands the boundaries of knowledge. In thinking based on sensory information, certain theoretical and practical conclusions are drawn. It reflects being not only in the form of individual things, phenomena and their properties, but also determines the connections that exist between them, which are most often not given directly, in the very perception of a person. The properties of things and phenomena, the connections between them are reflected in thinking in a generalized form, in the form of laws, 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 higher 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. Anan'eva, P.Ya. Galperin, A.V. Zaporozhets, V.P. Zinchenko, E.I. Ignatieva, S.L. Rubinstein, I.S. Yakimanskaya convincingly shows the important role of thinking in performing various activities, solving both practical and cognitive problems.

Thinking is the movement of ideas, revealing the essence of things. Its result is not an image, but some 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 generalization, to a greater or lesser extent rely in the process of thinking on perceptions, ideas or concepts. Depending on this, three main types of thinking are distinguished: subject-effective, visual-figurative and abstract.

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

Visual-figurative thinking is a type of thinking that relies on perception or representations. Thinking visually-figuratively, a person is attached to reality, and the images necessary for thinking are presented in his short-term and operative memory. This form of thinking is most fully and extensively presented in children of preschool and primary school age.

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

All of the listed types of thinking in humans coexist and can be represented in one and the same activity. However, depending on its nature and ultimate goals, one or another type of thinking dominates. On this basis, they all differ. According to the degree of their complexity, according to the requirements that they place on the intellectual and other abilities of a person, all 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 a perceived object arises and various kinds 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 the meaning visible. These images are distinguished by 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 informational preparation of a mental act, but also in its implementation. These materials provide an opportunity to take a fresh look at the formation of figurative thinking in preschool children.

One of the main tasks of our study of visual-figurative thinking in preschoolers was to study the conditions for its occurrence, as well as to identify its role in the overall 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.

Different forms of a child's thinking (visual-active, 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 an essential role. Therefore, when we talk about the figurative or conceptual thinking of children, this is to a certain extent an abstraction. In reality, the child's thinking acquires one character or another depending on the predominance of one or another of its components (figurative or conceptual). When solving certain classes of problems, the operation of images comes to the fore, and the whole process of thinking 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 such aspects and properties of objects that are actually inaccessible to conceptual thinking; it would be more correct to say that they are accessible, but only in close connection with figurative thinking. One of the features of the latter is that in its process objects are represented in our mind differently than in conceptual thinking. This determines the peculiarities of operating with the content reflected in the human mind.

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

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

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

V.P. Zinchenko, analyzing the specifics of visual-figurative (visual thinking), notes: "the main advantage of a visual image (as well as a 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 completion of undeveloped logic. Figurative logic is heuristic in nature, often leading to intuitive solutions.

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, fidgeting, clowning. He begins to pretend to be a jester, speaks “not in his own voice”, grimaces, and in general he is distinguished by a general unmotivated 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 of L.S. Vygotsky considered the emergence of a meaningful orientation in one's 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 appearance of a specific neoplasm - generalization of experience (intellectualization of affect): the world, as such, around the child is still the same, but the attitude towards it on the part of the child changes.

L.I. Bozhovich argues that the crisis of 6-7 years is associated with the emergence of a new, pivotal systemic neoplasm for the child's personality - an "internal position", which expresses a new level of self-awareness and reflection of the child. Up to 6-7 years old, the child hardly thinks about his place in life, purpose and does not seek to change it; but in older preschool age, in connection with his general advancement in mental and intellectual development, there appears a clearly expressed desire 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 has an awareness of his social "I". It was at this time that the games “to school” and the imitation of the “work” of adults appeared.

Almost all researchers of this period of development of children 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 connected with the appearance of ideas in them.

S.L. Rubinshtein, P.Ya. Galperin, N.N. Poddyakov and other psychologists note that children's ideas are fragmented, 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 construction, visual activity, as well as the complication of educational tasks in the classroom, create the need for older preschoolers to form sufficiently 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 of 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 to the complex nature of the development of cognitive processes in older preschool age.

The process of development of children's perception at 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 activities, in particular, the ability to mentally divide a visible object into parts and then combine them into a single whole. New content is also acquired by perceptual images related to the shape of objects. In addition to the contour, the structure of objects, spatial features and the ratio of its parts are also distinguished.

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

So, if younger preschoolers can play the same game for 30-50 minutes, then by the age of five or six, the duration of the game increases to one and a half hours. This is due to the fact that the game reflects more complex actions and relationships of people and interest in it is supported by the constant introduction of new situations. The stability of attention also increases when children look at pictures, 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 better aware of the picture than a younger preschooler, highlights more interesting sides and details in it.

But the main change in attention at the older preschool age is that children first begin to control their attention, consciously direct it to certain objects, phenomena, and hold on to them, using certain methods for this. The origins of voluntary attention lie outside the personality of the child. This means that the development of involuntary attention in 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 activities and, with the help of certain means, direct and organize his attention.

Similar age 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, gives the best impressions. Thus, the amount of recorded material is largely determined by the emotional attitude to a given object or phenomenon.

Z.M. Istomina analyzed that in the senior 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 stand out and begin to develop relatively independently, mediating mnemonic processes and aimed at better remembering, more fully and accurately reproducing the material retained in memory. Compared with the younger and middle preschool age, the relative role of involuntary memorization in children of six to seven years of age is somewhat reduced, at the same time, the strength of memorization increases.

At the older preschool age, the child is able to reproduce the impressions received after a sufficiently long period of time. In a child of 5-7 years old, it is necessary to develop all types of memory - figurative and verbal-logical, short-term, long-term and operational. However, the main emphasis should be placed on the development of the 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 the readiness of children to study at school.

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

At older preschool age, the child's speech becomes more connected and takes the form of a dialogue. The situational nature of speech, characteristic of young children, here gives way to contextual speech, the understanding of which by the listeners does not require correlation of the statement with the situation. At preschool age, the development of speech "to oneself" and inner speech is noted.

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

This plan does not appear as "pure ideas". It is included in the elementary forms of the child's conscious activity. The reality surrounding the child does not act for him as a chaos of disparate phenomena. He already has, albeit relatively simple, but still a system of specific and generalized ideas about surrounding things, fixed and objectified in speech form. This system serves as the basis for a fairly broad orientation in the world around the child, and allows for the correct qualification of perceived phenomena.

As A.N. Leontiev 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 a task of an educational nature - a learning task. Adults are guided by it, creating this or that didactic game, but clothe it in an entertaining form for children. Here are examples of learning tasks: to teach children to distinguish and correctly name colors (“Salute”, “Colored rugs”) or geometric shapes (“Ice drift”), to clarify ideas about tableware (“Katya doll is having lunch”) or clothes, to form the ability to compare objects according to external signs, location in space (What has changed, paired pictures), develop an eye and coordination of small movements (“Catch a fish”, “Flying caps”). The learning task is embodied by the creators of the game in the appropriate content, implemented with the help of game actions that children perform.

The child is attracted to the game not by the learning task that is inherent in it, but by the opportunity to be active, perform game actions, achieve results, win. However, if the participant in the game does not master the knowledge, mental operations that are determined by the learning task, he will not be able to successfully perform game actions and 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 teaching task. This encourages the child to be attentive, memorize, compare, classify, clarify their knowledge. This means that the didactic game will help him learn something in an easy, relaxed way. This unintentional learning is called autodidacticism.

The author of one of the first pedagogical systems of preschool education, F. Fröbel, was convinced that the task of primary education was not to teach, but to organize the game. While remaining a game, it must be permeated with a lesson. Froebel developed a system of didactic games, which is the basis of educational and educational work with children in kindergarten. This system included didactic games with different toys, materials (balls, cubes, balls, 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, songs rhymed by F. Frebel and his students in order to enhance the educational impact of games.

Another world-famous system of didactic games, authored by M. Montessori, also received an ambiguous assessment. It is close to Froebel's position: the game must be educational, otherwise it is an "empty game" that does not affect the child.

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

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

In Soviet pedagogy, the system of didactic games was created in the 60s. Its authors are well-known teachers and psychologists: L.A. Wenger, A.P. Usova, V.N. Avanesov. Recently, the search for scientists (Z.M. Boguslavskaya, O.M. Dyachenko, N.E. Veraks, E.O. Smirnova) has been going in the direction of creating a series of games for the full development of children's intellect, which are characterized by flexibility, initiative of thought processes, transfer formed mental actions for 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 into games with objects, desktop-printed, and verbal games has developed.

A number of studies have shown that with age, the content of thinking of preschoolers changes significantly - their relationships with other people 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 the imagined, ideal. In the process of visual-effective thinking, the prerequisites are formed for a more complex form of visual-figurative 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 the cognitive activity of an older preschooler

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

The thinking of older preschool children is figurative in its essence. This thinking is specific in its reliance not on actions, but on representations and images: when solving problems, a preschooler can imagine a situation and mentally act in it.

J. Piaget, N.N. Poddyakov, L.I. Bozhovich, L.V. Zankov, D.B. Elkonin and dr. At preschool age, the child's thinking is based on his ideas. The child may think about what he does not perceive at the moment, but what 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 knowledge.

An analysis of the children's ideas about the surrounding objects and phenomena makes it possible to single out two different but interrelated ways in which these ideas are formed.

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 the representation of 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 activity of the children themselves. Assimilated with the help of an adult, the methods of practical transformation of objects act as a powerful tool for understanding the surrounding world of things. These methods are of particular importance for discovering hidden, not directly perceived sides, properties and relationships of objects.

Thus, the plan of representations of children does not appear in a "pure form", it is included in the system of forms of social experience assimilated by the child, fixed in speech form.

However, there are two different lines of research, which from different angles lead us to one main 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 suggest that visual-figurative thinking is in fact always associated with speech processes.

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

Figurative thinking includes three thought processes: creating an image, operating it and orientation 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 singles out certain relationships in them, depending on which of the substructures of figurative thinking is dominant in him (main, predominant, more developed, more often used). In general, this kind 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-disconnected, compact-non-compact, belongs-does not belong, establishes the areas of inclusion and intersection of spatial figures. It kind of “sculpts” the required image or the necessary visual transformations in the representation. Children operate with such characteristics as together, inside, outside, on a plane, on the border intersect, have (do not have) common points, the inner (outer) part of objects, their association. 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 at the same time never get tired, consistently moving a pencil or other object along intricate tangled lines, find out who is calling whom, and with great pleasure solve other similar tasks that require continuous coherent movement or transformation.

Those who are dominated by the projective substructure - this dominant provides the ability to recognize, create, represent, operate and navigate among visual objects or their graphic images from any point of reference, from different angles. It allows you to establish the similarity 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 is a thing. It is a great joy for them to look for and find various ways of using the object in practice, its everyday purpose and possibilities of application. Therefore, considering the given drawings, it is these children who, first of all, notice a different angle, a projection of the image.

Comparing and evaluating in a general qualitative form is preferred by those who are dominated by the ordinal substructure. Based on it, the child manages to isolate properties, establish and classify relationships on various grounds: size (bigger-smaller, longer-shorter), distance (closer-further, lower-higher), shape (round, rectangular, triangular), position in space (top-bottom, right-left, front-back, parallel-perpendicular, behind, between, side by side), the nature of movement (left to right-right to left, top-down-bottom-up, front-back), temporal spatial representations (first -then, before-after, earlier-later), etc. these children act logically, sequentially, in order. Working on an algorithm is their favorite pastime.

"Metris" (children with a dominant metric substructure) focus on quantitative characteristics and transformations. The main question for them is "how much?" what is the length, area, distance, value in numerical terms. They recalculate with great pleasure, determine specific numerical values ​​and measure lengths, distances, lengths, distances.

Children with a dominant compositional (or algebraic) substructure are constantly striving for all sorts of combinations and manipulations, isolating additional parts and assembling them into a single whole (single block), reduction (“folding”) and replacing several transformations with one, even without a direct need for this. , quickly and easily switch from direct to reverse action. These are the very "hurried" 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 real) Ostap Benders (“great schemers”) think and act quickly, but they often make mistakes.

From the described point of view (model), to form figurative 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 allows us to explain and understand many seemingly paradoxical and not entirely clear situations. For example, why does one think slowly but surely, and the other, although quickly, but often makes mistakes? It's all about the dominant substructure. The first in this case perceives the world and solves problems, isolating, first of all, topological relations, and acts consistently, in detail, without missing the slightest detail. Therefore, the process takes him a long time, but it is difficult for him to make a mistake. The second one, with a dominant compositional (algebraic) substructure, constantly "folds" (reduces) its actions, jumps, skips whole pieces. Therefore, it is natural for him not to replace something, to miss, but at the same time the process (due to numerous reductions) 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 own position, from our own point of view, and we cannot switch to the substructure of the other.

Taking into account the indicated theoretical positions, it is easy to understand that it is not necessary, and indeed it is impossible, to demand from children always 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 intended response of an adult. How often children confuse adults with their unexpected answers. There is no need to suppress the initiatives of the child, children must think independently, in their own ways, inherent in their dominant substructures.

The visual-figurative reflection of the reality surrounding the child is closely connected with speech. Objects and phenomena, as well as their individual properties and connections, are cognized in a figurative form and fixed in a speech plan, i.e. there is a simultaneous reproduction in the minds of children of various objects with the help of figurative and speech means.

Here one should 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 path of development 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 representations and their operation are carried out with the aim of a deeper and more complete knowledge of the object.

The interrelation of figurative and speech reflection of objects and phenomena is manifested in particular the actualization of their images. As a rule, when a person tries to present an object directly "on the forehead", he does not succeed well. The simple name of this subject is ineffective. However, the plane of representations is animated and begins to function actively in the course of reasoning about this subject - about its external features, its functional properties, etc. The representations that arise in this case can have a noticeable inverse effect on the very course of reasoning.

Conclusions for chapter 1

Senior preschool age is considered the age of formation of readiness for schooling. At this age, further development of cognitive processes takes place. One of the most complex processes is thinking - an indirect, generalized reflection of reality. A person can think with varying degrees of generalization, to a greater or lesser extent rely in the process of thinking on perceptions, ideas, concepts. Depending on this, three main types of thinking are distinguished: subject-effective, visual-figurative, abstract. In children of older preschool age, thinking is based on a plan of ideas, it is figurative in its essence.

A number of studies have shown that at preschool age, one of the important forms of the child's internal activity is a plan of representations. He can anticipate future changes in the situation in the representation, visualize various transformations and changes in objects.

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

The child, informing an adult about his impressions, 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 thinking of preschoolers changes - their relationships with other people become more complicated, game activity develops, 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, memorize, compare, classify, clarify their knowledge about the world around them.

CHAPTER II. FEATURES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF VISUAL-FIGURE THINKING IN CHILDREN OF THE OLDER PRESCHOOL AGE

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

At preschool age, there is a transition from visual-effective to visual-figurative thinking. According to P.N. Poddyakov, representations are an important basis, which largely determines the success of the formation of visual-figurative thinking in children. “The latter is characterized by the fact that children's cognition of various properties and connections of things occurs in the process of operating with the images of these things. But before operating with the image, it is necessary to be able to update it.

Poddyakov identified six stages in the development of thinking from the younger to the older preschool age. These steps are the following.

The child is not yet able to act in the mind, but is already able, with the help of hands, manipulating things, to solve problems in a visual-active plan, transforming the problem situation in an appropriate way,

The child has already included speech in the process of solving the problem, but he uses it only to name the objects with which he manipulates in a visual-effective way. Basically, the child still solves problems "with his hands and eyes", although in speech form he can already express and formulate the result of the performed practical action.

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

The task is solved by the child according to a pre-compiled, thought-out and internally presented plan. It is based on the memory and experience accumulated in the process of previous attempts to solve such problems.

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

The solution of the problem is carried out only in the internal plan with the issuance of a ready-made verbal solution without a 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, lies in the fact that in children the stages passed and achievements in the improvement of mental actions and operations do not completely disappear, but are transformed, replaced by new, more advanced ones. They are transformed into "structural levels of the organization of the thinking process" and "act as functional steps 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 its solution as relatively independent and at the same time as logical links of the integral process of searching for its solution. In other words, children's intellect already at this age functions on the basis of the principle of consistency. It presents and, if necessary, simultaneously includes 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 the house with columns. Children under four years of age lay out a fence along a continuous, wavy path, not caring 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. Such a task assumes 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 for the actions of children in the classroom.

The third in the discussed sequence appears the ordinal substructure. It is based on the "principle of conservation" with various transformations of lengths, volumes, etc., which appears in children after the age of five. 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, the liquid has not become smaller, although the height of the column has noticeably decreased), to form in him measuring (quantitative) relationships, skills accounts are useless.

Only after the child has mastered ordinal relations can and should he proceed to the formation of a metric, and then a compositional (algebraic) substructure.

The above theoretical ideas about the stages of development of figurative 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 figurative thinking in children, the initial “cell” for its formation. Experimental studies and the 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, however, learning begins with the formation of a topological substructure and topological representations in children, then further progress in the assimilation of content and intellectual development is noticeably facilitated.

Moreover, within the framework of the formative experiment, the following feature was also discovered. When identifying difficulties in mastering educational material and understanding it, not only the method of correcting and “removing” the intellectual difficulties found in the child is more effective, but efforts aimed at a significant increase in the level of development of precisely 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, content to him, but focusing on topological relations. Therefore, it becomes clear that, without having formed this substructure, it is impossible to proceed to work with the following ones.

The presence of a topological substructure in the figurative thinking of a child contributes to the formation of other substructures and facilitates the further development of intellectual abilities. She is responsible for the ability of children to analyze, justify their conclusions, reason, draw conclusions. Thanks to it, children have 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 relations, in the middle group of a preschool institution, one should begin to form a projective substructure in four years. Further, at the age of five (the older group), children must master the first ordinal relations. Through this activity, they form the following corresponding substructure. And only by the end of the year in the older group does it make sense to master and operate with metric relations. Working with counting operations at an earlier age does not allow children to make quantitative transformations on numbers and quantities consciously. At best, they can memorize quantitative characteristics, develop a mechanical skill and perform some arithmetic operations on numbers, while not understanding the meaning, essence of the transformations being performed. Awareness is impossible, if only because of the absence of the well-known 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 older preschool children. 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 prone to ordering if he does not have the opportunity to imagine, dance, portray the situation described in the song (for example, a clubfoot bear or a trembling hare). "Order" first of all, must establish the sequence, the order of actions in the content of the song, the patterns of sounding instruments, the alternation of low and high, quiet and loud sounds, slow and fast rhythms. A “metrist” most likely will not start “working” on a piece of music and will not feel 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 be out of tune not because of a lack of hearing, but because of the constant desire to construct a new one (rhythm, they try to build a second or third voice, not even suspecting their existence). Given these individual characteristics of the children, the teacher manages to significantly facilitate the learning process for them.

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

The formation of the main substructures of figurative thinking in preschool children in the indicated sequence gives them the opportunity to consciously and deeply learn about 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, prepares him to overcome various difficulties and problems that he will face in the future.

The presence in the thinking of children of all five of these substructures 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 relations that are adequate to the corresponding substructures (for example, they absolutely clearly distinguish between right and left). They have some manifestations of the conscious components of theoretical thinking, which traditionally appear for the first time with good effective training 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 the logical and psychological terms, the content of educational material should be given to children in the form of structures of their activities."

For the development of the topological substructure, such games and tasks as "Labyrinth", "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 happy to drive on paper not with a pencil or finger, but with a typewriter or doll.

For the development of the projective substructure, it makes sense to use various schematic representations, for example, a floor plan for finding a hidden object, a geographical map type scheme for choosing the right road, and the location of an object.

This kind of tasks very well develop the 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 metric substructure of figurative thinking in children usually do not cause any difficulties. All of them are connected with operation and orientation in quantitative terms. Therefore, they 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 constructors. In addition, the development of this component of figurative thinking is facilitated by tasks for combining objects or concepts, comparing two objects, two phenomena, two concepts.

All these games and tasks contribute to the development of independent creative imaginative thinking of children, the formation of their intellectual readiness for schooling.

2 Conditions for the development of visual-figurative thinking in senior 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 area of ​​tasks that a child solves is expanded due to the knowledge received from an adult or in his own activities, 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 peculiar conclusions.

It is the speech of an adult that guides the child's thinking, gives it generalization, purposefulness, problematicness, some organization, planning and criticality. The development and organization of the child's perception leads to the formation of his first mental operations - distinctions and comparisons. 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 raise a question, and also to reflect the results of knowledge in it, although the baby still solves not really intellectual, but only practical problems.

At preschool age, in the context of extra-situational-cognitive communication with an adult, a special kind of “theoretical” activity arises. There are numerous children's questions relating to various fields 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 to independently find the required answer, and not rush to give knowledge in a finished form. The main thing is to teach a preschooler to think, reason, and make attempts to resolve emerging issues. This position of an adult forms the independence of thinking, the inquisitiveness of the mind. Reliability, certainty and laconic 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. It is necessary not only to treat children's questions carefully, respectfully and tactfully, but also to encourage the children to ask.

It is necessary to teach the child to compare, generalize, analyze, organizing observations, experimentation, familiarization with fiction. When a preschooler is encouraged to explain in detail, in detail, phenomena and processes in nature, social life, then reasoning turns into a way of knowing 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, to establish cause-and-effect relationships, to find out 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 the child to establish relationships, then he will long be at the level of sensually perceived facts.

Not only the mastery of ways of thinking, but also the assimilation of a system of knowledge allows a preschooler to more effectively solve intellectual problems. The principles of selection of such knowledge and their content are studied in detail in preschool pedagogy. Let us only emphasize that assimilation should be regarded not as an end in itself, but as a means of developing thinking. Mechanical memorization of a variety of information, fragmentary and chaotic, copying adult reasoning does nothing for the development of the thinking of a preschooler. 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. Be able to open one thing in front of the child in the surrounding world, but open it in such a way that a piece of life plays in front of the children with all the colors of the rainbow. Always leave something unsaid so that the child wants to return to what he has learned again and again.

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

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

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

The discovery of a new world of serious human activity induces in the child an active desire to participate in this life. In this regard, the life of a child of preschool age 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 relations to each other, and fourthly by the active desire of the child participate in the lives of adults.

Figurative thinking also develops most vividly when perceiving fairy tales, stories, etc. brightness of ideas, liveliness, immediacy, 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 - figurative thinking.

Conclusions on chapter 2

Thus, visual-figurative thinking is the main type of thinking of an older preschooler, it is important for a wide variety of human activities. Representations are an important basis, which largely determines the success of the formation of visual-figurative thinking of 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 older preschool children. The formation of substructures makes it possible for older preschoolers to consciously and deeply cognize the world around them and its laws.

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

Games and tasks aimed at the development of substructures contribute to the development of independent figurative thinking of children, the formation of readiness for schooling.

The main condition for the development of thinking in a child is the guidance of an adult. The area of ​​tasks that a child solves is expanded due to the knowledge received from an adult or in his own activities, observations.

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

Children need to have a calm emotionality. Figurative thinking develops most vividly when perceiving fiction (emotional assistance and empathy of the child with a literary hero), as well as with the help of games, exercises, tasks.

All this helps the development of visual-figurative thinking. The world of adults opens before the child, which induces in him the desire to participate in the life 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 set.

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 brings the child of preschool age to pre-operational thinking. The preschooler's thinking remains largely visual, including elements of mental abstract operations, which can be seen as a progressive change compared to the previous early age.

An analysis of the psychological and pedagogical literature showed that A.V. Zaporozhets, A.A. Lyublinskaya, G.I. Minskaya, I.S. Yakimanskaya, L.L. Gurova, B.G. Ananiev, J. Piaget, D. Habb, 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 systemic function that ensures the child's adaptation to the conditions of life in the subject and social environment. The main change in the process of thinking in preschool age is the transition from external action to the internal plan, 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 the child. However, the conditions for the formation of visual-figurative thinking in preschoolers, the mechanisms for its implementation are far from being fully studied.

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

visual-figurative thinking is the main type of thinking of a preschooler. Already in the middle preschool age, children can master many of the possibilities 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 the child;

the ability to operate with ideas arises in the process of interaction between various lines of the child's psychological development - the development of objective and instrumental actions, speech, imitation, play activity, 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 for achieving the goal can be detected without trials, children of older preschool age usually solve in their minds, and then they perform an unmistakable 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 orienting 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

.Allahverdov V.M., Bogdanova S.I. et al. Psychology: textbook. - M.: TK Velby, publishing house Prospekt, 2004 - 752s.

2.Wallon A. Mental development of the child.- M.: Enlightenment, 1967

.Wecker, L.M. Psyche and reality. Unified theory of mental processes. - M.: Meaning, 1998 - 685 p.

.Wenger L.A. The development of cognitive abilities in the process of preschool education / Edited by L. A. Venger. - M.: "Pedagogy", 1986. - 225 p.

.Venger L.A., Kholmovskaya V.V., Dyachenko O.M. and others. Diagnostics of the mental development of preschoolers - M .: Pedagogy, 1978 - 248s.

.Vygotsky L.S. Thinking and speech / Ed.G.N. Shelogurov.- 5th ed., Rev.- M.: Labyrinth, 1999

.Vygotsky, L.S. Psychology / L.S. Vygotsky. - M.: APRIL PRESS EKSMO PRESS, 2002. - 1008 p.

.Galperin P. Ya., Elkonin D. B. To the analysis of the theory of J. Piaget on the development of children's thinking. - In the book: J. Flavell. Genetic psychology of Jean Piaget / Per. from English. M., 1967. - 621 p.

.Zaporozhets A. V. Selected psychological works, in 2 volumes. Volume 1. Mental development of the child / Under. ed. V. V. Davydova, V. P. Zinchenko. - M.: Pedagogy, 1986. - 320 p.

10. Kravtsova E.E. Psychological neoplasms of preschool age<#"justify">Elkonin D. B. Psychic development in childhood: Selected psychological works. // Edited by D. I. Feldstein. - M.: Institute of Practical Psychology, 199

Similar works to - The development of visual-figurative thinking in preschool age