All parents want their children to be the smartest, most developed. How much pride they feel when a 3-4-year-old kid, walking down the street, perfectly reads the names of stores, advertisements ... And, starting teaching a child to read, they are faced with a huge selection of various methods. Zaitsev's cubes are an effective method of teaching children to read from a very early age. This is one of those techniques that is of great interest to many parents.

Who is Nikolay Zaitsev

The parents of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Zaitsev worked in a rural school. After graduating from school, Nikolai worked for 2 years at the factory, after which he followed in the footsteps of his parents. In 1958, he entered the Pedagogical Institute at the Faculty of Philology. In his fifth year, he is sent to do an internship in Indonesia, where he works as a translator.

It was this period of time, when he had to teach adults a non-native Russian language, that gave rise to the development of his most famous method of teaching reading and writing. Bringing new techniques to life, creating interesting tables on the go, he tried to "transmit the essence of the language to others."

Having developed his own teaching method, the young teacher decided to test it in the middle classes of a comprehensive school. Here, however, a huge setback awaited him. The students could only memorize the rules without trying to understand them. Accustomed to such training, they could not readjust.

Then, Nikolai Aleksandrovich decided to test his method on babies. The methodology was revised, he conducted all classes in a playful way. And here he was waiting for a huge success. Toddlers as young as a year and a half and preschoolers who had trouble learning to read needed only a few sessions to start reading. Some schools began to fully apply his teaching system, using the "ringing miracle" (as the cubes were called) in their work.

Observing the kids, the teacher came to the following conclusions:

• In order to learn to read, crumbs do not need to know what the letters are called at all. Most often in alphabets, letters are associated with pictures. The child remembers the image of the letter and the image that he associates with it. Then it is very difficult for him to explain that CAT (letter K), SCISSORS (letter H), TOY (letter I), MUSHROOM (letter G) and STORK (letter A) add up to one word BOOK.
• Reading by syllables is very difficult for a child. Even if the baby learns the names of the letters without pictures, it will be difficult for him to understand how the syllable MA is obtained from the letters M and A. To understand the principle of merging syllables with a crumb, teachers have to use various tricks in their work. But in Russian there are words from one syllable, in which there are many consecutive consonants (for example, VSPLESK). Reading such words will be very difficult for a child who reads by syllables.
• It is easier for a person to learn to write first than to read. By writing, he understood the transformation of sounds into signs, and by reading, the transformation of signs into sounds. It will be much easier for the baby to learn to read through writing.

In the next video, you can find out interesting information about Nikolai Zaitsev and his legendary cubes.

General principles of the Zaitsev technique

Zaitsev's one-of-a-kind author's technique has been around for more than 20 years. However, the famous teacher does not stop constantly improving it. Now many different methods and games have already been created that complement the foundation. With the help of the technique, even very young children can be successfully taught to read and write. At the same time, for preschoolers of 6 years old, just a few lessons will be enough, and you can see that he can already start reading.

This learning method is suitable not only for children who like calm games with blocks, but also for mobile restless children. The use of this technique is suitable for working with hearing-impaired, with very poor eyesight and deviations in mental development of children. When working with them, you can get very good results. You can see a good effect when working with children with autism.

In his methodology, Zaitsev emphasized that the processes of cognition in a child must go through all types of perception: auditory, visual, motor memory, touch and thinking. The teacher in working with kids should be able to organize a fun learning game environment, be in the role of a mentor in the learning process.

With dice games:

• the baby's vocabulary will expand;
• writing skills will be developed;
• the child's speech will become more intelligible;
• a number of speech therapy problems can be corrected;
• develop the logic and thinking of the child;
• teach the baby to work independently.

Equipment

The standard set includes:

• 61 pcs. assembled cardboard cube
• 6 pcs. cardboard tables with syllables, letters and other graphic signs
• 4 things. cardboard table format B3
• CD for listening with chants for cubes and tables
• a teaching aid that you can use as a summary of classes.

What is a warehouse

In his methodology, Nikolai Zaitsev offers an alternative to syllables - he uses warehouses. It is the basic unit of the language. A warehouse can be one letter, a combination of a vowel and a consonant, a consonant and a hard sign, a consonant and a hard sign. This principle of reading - warehouse - is the basis of Zaitsev's methodology. This technique is very similar to the primer of Fedot Kuzmichev, XIX century, and the alphabet of L. Tolstoy. These books also used the principle of learning by warehouses.

Warehouse can be determined by placing a hand below the chin and pronouncing a word. That muscle effort that you feel with your hand will be a warehouse.

Warehouses according to his method are located on cubes and in tables. He used vision, hearing, and tactile sensations to help him learn. analytical thinking, the formation of which is required when reading, develops only by the age of 7. Arranging warehouses on cubes, Zaitsev made them differ in color, sound, size. With this, when the child takes the blocks, various channels of perception are activated.

Description of the technique

Classes should be held only in the form of a game. Children should not sit in one place, they need to move, jump, dance and sing. All movements in the lesson take place in the game with cubes.

Cubes may vary in size. Large-sized dice depict hard-sounding warehouses. On small cubes - with a soft sound. They can be single or double. On doubled cubes there are consonants that do not combine with all vowels (zha-zhu-zhi).

The soundness of the warehouse is indicated by metal, the deafness - by wood.

Gold - vowels. A hard sign is depicted on iron-wood cubes, a soft one - on wooden-gold ones. Punctuation marks are located on the white cube. The color selection for the letters is different from the school one. Here, blue is used to indicate vowels, consonants are indicated in blue, and hard and soft signs are green. Such unlike the school colors of blue, red and green, according to Zaitsev, it helps children to start reading fluently.

The filling of the cubes is also different.

Cubes 52 pcs. in the set, besides them there are 7 more repeated ones. In total, 200 warehouses are depicted on the cubes.

Sets can be different:

• a layout for self-gluing cubes can be offered;
• may already be assembled;
• with plastic base.

In order to glue the cubes yourself, it will take a lot of time. They need to be further strengthened from the inside. This can be done using a cardboard cube of the same size. After gluing, it is better to cover it with elastic bands, this is necessary so that your cube does not fall apart while it dries. For better protection, cover each cube with a film or laminate the cube scan. If you chose this option of cubes, then it is better to make a copy of each sweep. So during the game you will definitely have enough warehouses to write words.

Tables should be hung fairly high. This contributes to the prevention of scoliosis and visual impairment. If you are engaged only with your child, then it is better to determine the height by the baby's hand raised up. It should touch the top edge of the table. It will be convenient to hang tables in the corners of the room, so it will be more convenient for the baby to look for the necessary warehouses. Tables can also be wrapped with film to increase the service life. The use of tables is just as important as dice games.

According to the method of Nikolai Alexandrovich, all warehouses on cubes must be sung. He believes that the effect of this is much better, and it’s more interesting for the baby to play with music, which helps to instill an interest in learning.

Give your child all the blocks to play at once. This study guide should never be taken away from him. They should always be in his field of vision. Let the kid get acquainted with them, carefully consider.

Ask him to choose the one that interests him the most. Warehouses written on its faces, you need to show singing. Ask to find a large cube, then a small one, iron, wooden, gold. The child must understand that all the cubes are different in size and sound.

After he has mastered this information, introduce him to the syllabary tables. Sing one of the columns of the table and ask the baby to bring a cube with the same warehouses. Sing artistically, showing the child what warehouses can be: voiced or deaf, small or large. You can even use appropriate movements. No need to ask the child to sing warehouses to you in response. When he is ripe for this, he will begin to sing along with you and on his own.

Teach your child to write with blocks or a pointer. Singing warehouses and showing them on the table, the baby will begin to understand how words are composed. You can teach your child to write and play outdoor games at the same time. Ask him to write the names of loved ones in different parts of the room. Now let the child run to visit relatives.

Once again, we draw your attention to the fact that all classes should be held only in the form of a game. The child should not sit in one place, give him complete freedom of movement. Each child is individual. He doesn't owe anything in class. Let the baby develop to the best of his ability, do not rush things. Don't make the game a forced activity. Of course, it’s better to do it every day, at least a little, but if the kid is not in the mood for classes today, then it’s better to postpone it than to force it. You can play both in the morning and in the evening. Focus on the mood of the crumbs.

Choose the games that your child will like the most. If you have a fidget, it is better to use outdoor games in class. If your child prefers quiet games, collects puzzles for a long time, then use games that do not involve activity during class.

If the baby loves to build, then invite him to build steam locomotives with names, towers with warehouses, roads, houses from cubes.

For highlights on teaching children, see the following video.

At what age can you start learning and what games to play

You can introduce your baby to cubes almost from birth. Keep in mind that at this age the child is not yet capable of classes. Up to six months, the development of the child is very fast. Don't overload it now. The cubes can be used as a rattle, only at times showing him a warehouse or a word. Do not try to see any results during this period, do not expect them from the child. Now, with their help, you will only prepare the child for the learning that lies ahead of him.

After 6 months, the child is no longer interested in playing with cubes, like with a rattle. Now you can start singing warehouses. Until reaching the age of one, continue to show cubes, warehouses, simple words. Let the baby crawl among them. You can try to ask him to give you a die with a certain storage. Leave warehouses on the items whose names you have made up and during the day, show and sing them to the baby.

The older the child becomes, the more difficult the games are offered to him. A one-year-old baby, along with those games that were before, can already increase the level of difficulty by offering new ones. Act gradually. You can use N. Zaitsev's manual “Letter. Reading. Account ”, to which a lot of entertaining games are offered, or you can come up with your own. Connect the kid's fantasy, ask him what games he wants to play.

Play Zoo. Let the kid settle various animals around the zoo, making up their names from warehouses. In the "Shop" he can put the goods on the shelves. Going on a "Journey" it is necessary to pack a suitcase. Let him stay in the role of a cook, adding the names necessary for making soup or a favorite dish, ingredients into a saucepan.

Invite the child to play the game "Who will name more." Name words that begin with a given warehouse. You can make this game themed.

Put the cubes in front of him, from the warehouses on them it should be possible to make up his name. Let the kid try to do it on his own. Complicate the task next time, he must find suitable warehouses himself. Let him add the words from the cubes, and then look for these warehouses in the table, pointing to the necessary warehouse with a pointer.

In the games that you came up with together, the child will play with great pleasure, because they are much more entertaining for him than those offered by the author. These games will be exactly the ones that he likes, designed with his interests in mind.

Pros and cons of the technique

Like every modern technique, learning to read using Zaitsev's cubes has both its advantages and disadvantages. Let's consider in more detail.

Advantages

• Children learn to read very quickly. It takes a little time for a child to start doing this. Moreover, the older he is, the faster the learning process proceeds. According to the author himself, even children who are only 4 years old can start reading on their own after 4 lessons. Of course, this does not apply to all children. On average, babies 3-4 years old need six months to study, an older preschooler needs 10-12 lessons, a child of 6-7 years old will already have enough weeks.
• Zaitsev's teaching method is not tied to any specific age. You can start practicing when the child is 6 months old, or you can use it for first graders.
• Different in timbre, height and volume, the sounds made by the cubes will contribute to the development of hearing, memory, will develop a great sense of rhythm.
• As a result of games with cubes, fine motor skills of the child's hands are actively developing, which is very important for the development of intelligence.
• Learning takes place at a pace that allows the child's abilities. Everything is very individual. No one rushes and drives the guys, does not tell them that they owe something.
• Mastering the technique is not difficult. It can be successfully used at home.
• Children immediately learn to write correctly. There are no warehouses on the cubes, which are impossible in Russian (such as CHYa, ZhYY).
• Zaitsev's teaching method contributes to the prevention, preservation and promotion of health. While playing, the child trains the eye muscles. This helps maintain vision. Its safety is facilitated by the location of large text on the tables in different places, the bright color of the cubes, which does not irritate the eyes.

Game aids, located at the proper height and in different places, taking into account the requirements of the methodology, serve as an excellent prevention of posture disorders, physical inactivity, and didactics workload during classes.

In general, such a game method of teaching reading successfully helps in the development of a comprehensively developed harmonious personality.

• The method is built on the principles of collaborative pedagogy, which avoids conflicts between children, parents and teachers.
• Children play by themselves. This is great for developing independence and self-organization. Even short sessions are enough for successful learning. Playing with them constantly, the invisibility of their conduct on the principle of "by the way", will give an excellent result in training.
• The technique is very simple, systematized, visual.
• The child does not have to learn how to merge letters into syllables, he learns ready-made warehouses, which contributes to the ability to read fluently and without hesitation.

disadvantages

Despite the huge number of advantages when choosing this method of learning, you can encounter a number of problems.

• Defectologists and speech therapists say that when memorizing warehouses, without understanding how to merge letters, children often begin to skip the endings of words. Problems may arise when dividing words into syllables, parsing words by composition.
• Sounds different from the school color(blue, blue, green instead of blue, green, red) create problems for the student in the phonemic analysis of words. Retraining children is more difficult than teaching from scratch.
• The high cost of benefits. A lot of trouble with self-gluing cubes.
• Certain difficulties are created when choosing the spelling of the letters E and E. On the cubes there are warehouses such as BE, VE. In Russian, they can be found very rarely. We will have to constantly stop the child’s desire to write the letter E in words where, after a solid consonant, we hear E, and we need to write E (for example, the word TENNIS).
• The use of the technique will be more effective in children who are more developed in the right hemisphere of the brain. They have more developed imaginative thinking.
• Children may have difficulty isolating a single sound from a word, what will affect the letter.
• This way of learning is practically does not develop the creative abilities of children.

Comparison with Chaplygin cubes

Evgeny Chaplygin created his own methodology based on Zaitsev's methodology. However, his way of teaching is unique and patented. A set of Chaplygin's cubes contains: 10 single cubes with letters and 10 double cubes forming blocks, instructions for use. Cubes in blocks rotate around their axis, forming warehouses.

Consider the main differences between the methods.

• Chaplygin cubes are easier to use.
• In Chaplygin's methodology there is no memorization of warehouses, as with Zaitsev. It uses letters and syllables. It is easier for children to understand how to make words.
• Chaplygin cubes do not require much storage space.
• Zaitsev's cubes are made of paper or plastic, while Chaplygin's cubes are made of wood.
• Buying Chaplygin's cubes is much cheaper than Zaitsev's cubes.
• Zaitsev's technique contributes to the greatest development of children. Learning from it, the child gets acquainted with hard and soft consonants, voiced and deaf.
• Zaitsev uses chants and tables in his methodology for better assimilation of the material by children.
• There are 52 warehouses on Zaitsev's cubes, and only 32 can be made from Chaplygin's cubes.

OUR PLUSES AND ADVANTAGES

The classes are based on an effective system of teaching children according to the method of N. Zaitsev.

Main directions:

• warehouse reading training;
• basics of mathematics (counting, entertaining geometry, simple calculations);
• preparation for writing.

In the older age group, special attention is paid to preparing for school, in addition to the basic exercises of the N. Zaitsev method, psychological adaptation to the team is carried out. Future first-graders master the basics of classical school disciplines.

Only here the guys are engaged in two halls: and a hall for rest and outdoor games. The main part of the lesson according to the method of N. Zaitsev is held in a specially equipped room using original manuals (Russian and Ukrainian storage cubes by Zaitsev, tables, a hundred-count tape, thematic cards, etc.). To switch attention and dynamic rest after intensive exercises, dynamic games and musical minutes are held in the second hall.

Education is based on the analytical-synthetic method using warehouse blocks and takes place in the form of a fun and exciting game, during which preschoolers begin to read earlier than their peers.

Greetings to all readers of the blog.

Today's material is more "to taste" for parents of kindergarten graduates - future first-graders, because we will learn to read. Learning to read has long tacitly fallen on the shoulders of parents. All schools look forward to children already reading and already counting. You and I just have to be patient and find a technique that will allow you to quickly and, importantly, interestingly, teach your child to read.

Perhaps the most demanded reading technique has become the reading method of Zaitsev, a teacher from St. Petersburg. Why is it so good that it stands out from all the others?

Lesson plan:

How did the idea come about and what did it result in?

His parents were teachers in a rural school, so no one doubted who their son would become in the future. It just so happened that from the fifth year of the Faculty of Philology, a student Zaitsev was sent to Indonesia as a translator.

It would seem that this is complicated. Yes, it was not so simple that “the fairy tale had an effect”, but the matter completely reached a dead end. The Indonesian students of Zaitsev were far from the Russian language, which was difficult for foreign minds to comprehend. I had to look for original ways to convey Russian phonetics, draw tables and draw cards.

So, step by step, all his practical experiments grew into a real technique, which, upon returning to his homeland, he decided to test on preschool kids, somewhat similar to those Indonesians “still blind” in Russian.

And what did it result in? Into a real sensation.

Zaitsev's cubes were known as a "ringing miracle", capable of teaching even those children who were hard to read to read in a short time. Moreover, the feedback from teachers served as an impetus for many schools to switch to the Zaitsev method of teaching reading.

What is the whole cymus?

The teacher Zaitsev's observation of young children provided the basis for understanding why it is sometimes so difficult for children to learn to read.

Such little tricks served to ensure that Zaitsev "invented" his own unit of the Russian language, different from the usual syllable for everyone. This is the so-called warehouse. What he really is? Yes, everything is simple - a sweet couple: a consonant + a vowel, well, there is also a consonant + a hard or soft sign.

This is exactly what a living colloquial speech sounds like, understandable to a child. They transferred these same warehouses to cubes, which acted as a fundamentally important tool in training.

Why not the usual cards, namely cubes? The author of the methodology explains this by the lack of analytical thinking in children (by the way, it is formed by the age of seven), which is replaced by a stake on visual, auditory and tactile memory. Therefore, its instrumentation with warehouses of different colors and sizes painted on the edges in accordance with the sound series.

That is, we learn from Zaitsev from the visual to the logical: to see once instead of telling twenty times.

What is Zaitsev's technique "made of"?

There are only 52 cubes in Zaitsev's toolkit, plus seven repeating words for building words like "MA-MA" or "BA-BA". There are 200 warehouses in total. All of them differ in color, there are small and large, single and double. Even for punctuation marks, there is a white cube. And now in order and in more detail. The set for the little ones (and this is from two years old) includes the main set.

At first glance, everything is complicated, but when you see the cubes, everything quickly falls into place and becomes clear.

Zaitsev's warehouses are also placed in tables that are hung in convenient places so that the child can find the right combinations with his eyes. The tabular form serves as an additional toolkit for game dice.

Materials can be bought ready-made, but you can also purchase those kits that are designed for self-gluing. The process, of course, is time-consuming, but if you involve a child in it, it will be entertaining.

Tricks of using the technique

The initial acquaintance of the student takes place with the whole mass, and only then does the young reader choose for himself the warehouses that he likes the most for singing. Gradually, “according to the music”, they are introduced to small-large, iron-wooden, in order to make it clear that they, like warehouses, are different.

As the famous teacher promises, 15-20 lessons are enough for the child to master “how good it is to be able to read” and no longer ask you: “Read, please! Read!".

And further! Parents often ask the question: “When to start ?!” So, according to the author Zaitsev, at least from birth.

After all, the tools of technology are nothing more than a toy for a baby, which will first develop fine motor skills, and then gradually develop memory, hearing and form his reading skills. Already a one-year-old student can be asked to sing songs with warehouses and offer to look for cubes with the right combinations.

Is there a fly in the ointment in a barrel of honey?

The fact that such a method of teaching reading is just a godsend, we have already found out. But as usual, not all that glitters is gold.

In other words, there are also disadvantages here, which should be taken into account.

1. First of all, speech therapists are concerned that when memorizing warehouses, children do not understand the mechanism for folding letters separately and subsequently often skip the endings of words and face a problem when asked to divide words into syllables so unloved by Zaitsev when parsing by composition.
2. Further, there are difficulties with phonetic tasks, because in the school curriculum the colors for sounds are different (as we remember, blue and red) than Zaitsev’s (blue, blue and green). Teachers complain: teaching children is easier than retraining.
3. Thirdly, there is confusion in similar-sounding vowels. So, for example, such Zaitsev warehouses as “BE” and “VE” often become substitutes for the correct “BE” and “BE” in children’s writing (well, the word “tennis” “Zaitsevsky” can write the word “tennis” as he hears - “tennis” ).

There are gaps with the isolation of individual sounds, which directly affects literacy.

Be that as it may, there are many supporters of this technique who like this playful form of learning to read. Teachers recommend it for those children who have a more developed right cerebral hemisphere (and we remember that these are at least all left-handers) - they think figuratively. And at the same time, do not forget to say that this method does not develop creative abilities. Although for some this is not such a big problem.

I found a video on the topic, in which dad and baby are very fun to do according to the method presented above. Look)

All success in your studies!