If every person turns to his childhood, he will not be able to say at what moment he began to think, remember, think logically. It seems that the person has had thinking skills all his life. In fact, thinking requires its development, which occurs on the basis of the external environment in which the child preschool age located. Parents, who are the first teachers working with the physical and intellectual development of their child, are primarily responsible for development.

The online magazine site indicates that the development of thinking can be done at any age. However, the sooner a child receives the skills he needs, the faster he will adapt to social conditions. Parents should understand how their baby thinks and what exercises can be done with him during preschool age.

What is the development of thinking in children?

The development of thinking in children begins from birth, despite the fact that they do not yet understand what surrounds them, do not have speech and cannot reason. The development of thinking begins with the conditions in which the baby is. For now, he only looks, observes and remembers what objects and people surround him, what phenomena occur, what actions are performed.

At the same time, the child learns the actions that his body allows. Thinking develops in parallel with the actions that a person performs. Thus, if the baby can already pick up toys, then he not only begins to see them, but also to study the composition, the manipulations that can be done with them, the phenomena that the toys themselves perform.

It develops as the baby masters his body and begins to move on his own. If at first he can only observe and remember, then at an older age he develops fantasizing, imagination, reasoning, inventing and expressing his thoughts.

Understanding this, adults must create appropriate conditions for the development of their baby. They must not only feed and care for him, but also develop his physiological body, show him the world around him, talk, tell stories, and also gradually invite the child to independently encounter surrounding phenomena and objects, to feel and experience them himself.

There are three stages in the development of thinking, which take a huge period of time, including school age:

1. Visual thinking, when the baby only observes or performs primitive actions with objects.
2. Specific object thinking, when the baby already begins to use objects, perform certain actions with them, use his hands to perform certain manipulations.
3. Logical-abstract thinking, when the baby begins to operate with words and images.

Development of thinking in preschool children

Preschool thinking is primarily based on the ideas that the baby has based on his past experience. He is already familiar with certain objects and phenomena, so he may not have contact with them, but he can operate with images, which allows him to go beyond the existing situation and expand the boundaries of his thinking.

Gradually mastering speech, the baby begins to expand the boundaries of his intellectual activity when:

• Speech is associated with actions and, accordingly, thinking - reasoning. In this process, the main question becomes the question. When a question arises within a child, it indicates his desire to understand the problems and truths of the world around him (curiosity). Questions arise depending on what interests the baby has and how he views the world. When faced with a new subject, he wants to study it, find a place for it and harmonize it with the past experience he has.

Questions also arise when the child is faced with contradictions in the outside world and the experience that he has. If what he knows does not match what he sees or hears, then a question arises which he wishes to resolve.

Questions also appear when the child wants to confirm his idea or conclusion. He turns to adults whose competence he recognizes. Every year there are more and more such questions.

Here it becomes important to understand the causality of events. The child gradually begins to notice patterns, sees the multiplicity of causes of the same phenomenon, and asks questions about why those phenomena that are new to him arise. He notes inconsistencies with reality. Critical thinking allows the child to form his own conclusions and conclusions, which makes him independent and independent from adults.

Sometimes children's conclusions are unusual and new for adults. This is due to the fact that a child’s thinking is not yet the same as that of adults. He operates with existing knowledge and what he sees. Moreover, attention is always focused on what is bright, unusual, and inappropriate, which allows one to draw conclusions that simply cannot be made by an adult who does not notice what the baby sees.

A child has unusual thinking for three reasons:

1. Lack of knowledge, experience, information, so he cannot understand the essence of what is happening.
2. Underdevelopment of mental processes.
3. Lack of critical thinking. In what is happening, the child often highlights individual details, bright and visible at first glance, without noticing everything else.

Based on this reasoning, the baby is original, but at the same time subjective (there is no objectivity here). The child proceeds from what he sees and hears, perceives and feels personally, without having the ability to look at the situation from different angles.

This kind of thinking allows the child to form the first rudiments of the world in which he appeared. Undoubtedly, his knowledge is superficial and shallow. However, gradually he will acquire knowledge that will help him more fully expand the horizons of his knowledge.

• Speech becomes planning, that is, to some extent replacing physical actions. This is associated with the experiments that the child begins to make with surrounding objects. Already throwing a stone into water allows him to see the phenomena that will follow his action. In the future, the baby will be able to reproduce the experience in his head. The more experiments the child conducts in school age, the more knowledge he will have when faced with new situations.

The existing experience allows the child to turn to it when he needs to decide what to do next. If a child has already encountered some phenomena, then he can already predict what will follow each of his actions. He begins to reason and choose what action to take, based on the cause-and-effect relationships that he has already encountered.

Gradually, the child begins to secrete not only visible signs surrounding objects, but also their invisible functions. This allows objects to be divided into types and classified, albeit in a primitive way: “edible”/“inedible”, “mobile”/“immobile”, etc.

• Speech helps activate the imagination.

Thus, we can distinguish following features thinking in preschool children:

1. Everything that a child sees and hears, feels and experiences is perceived by him, remembered and creates his first ideas about the world.
2. The inclusion of speech allows you to additionally influence the world around you, reason, and draw conclusions.
3. Indirect perception of the world, that is, when unfamiliar phenomena are explained by familiar ones. This allows the child to understand a world that is unfamiliar to him and fill in information gaps.
4. As the child gains experience, he begins to analyze and reason more and more, and then takes any action.
5. The ability to operate objects in the mind based on existing experience.
6. Dividing objects into categories leads the child to use abstract thinking, when he perceives a world that does not exist and divides it.

Play is the main operation where the child begins to learn about the world around him. That is why it should be carried out under the control of adults, who can, through play moments, influence how their child will perceive the world around him.

Logical thinking begins to emerge when the baby begins to recognize and use words. First, he understands the meaning of words that characterize the function or concept of a particular object. Then the child understands the rules of reasoning and relationships between objects and phenomena.

Development of logical thinking in children

Logical thinking is the main form of intellectual activity that distinguishes man from animals. A person perceives the world, makes judgments, operates with conclusions, concepts and abstract terms, expresses his thoughts - all these are forms logical thinking.

In preschool children, logical thinking begins at the age of 3, when they begin to actively explore the world. It includes such mental operations as:

1. Analysis and synthesis.
2. Abstraction and concretization.
3. Generalization and comparison.

The development of one type of thinking inevitably entails the development of another. Also, parents should not skip developmental stages and exercises that are aimed at a specific type of thinking, no matter how simple they may seem. Logical thinking is based on the child’s ability to reproduce images in his head. And for them to appear, he must first perceive them on a physical level, work them out, and use them.

Creative thinking is based on the child's fantasies and imagination. It also needs to be developed, despite the fact that it is based on a certain naturalness of manifestation. Logic is often formulaic and stereotypical, that is, a person must think in a certain way, which is dictated by society. This creates limited thinking. However, thanks creative approach the child can expand the boundaries of his mental activity.

Parents should develop all types of thinking, since they all complement each other and contribute to the development of the whole personality.

Bottom line

Why know about how children's thinking develops during the period when kids do not yet go to school? Parents must have this knowledge in order to promote the development of their children's mental activity. Firstly, adults begin to understand the motives behind the actions of their children, who often do what is considered bad and wrong in society. Secondly, they contribute to the development of their child, who will soon go to school, where all types of thinking will be useful.

Experts recommend paying special attention to creative thinking, which will allow their child at any age to go beyond the boundaries of what is proposed, remain flexible and reasoning.

When and how to start developing thinking in children?
The development of thinking in children is the primary task of responsible parents. How to teach a child to think? Some people think that this problem should be solved by schools. And some, on the contrary, strive to stuff the baby with useful knowledge as early as possible. This article will help parents understand the peculiarities of children's thinking. of different ages and competently direct the development of intellectual abilities.
The ability to think is one of the most important qualities of a person. This is confirmed by the existence of many synonyms for the concept of “thinking”: intelligence, intelligence, intelligence, logic, ingenuity, intellect, ingenuity. Folk wisdom is expressed in numerous proverbs and sayings about fools and smart people. According to one of them: what Vanya didn’t learn, Ivan won’t learn. This statement shows the phenomenal sensitivity of the child's brain.

The baby is intelligent from birth. The development of thinking in infants is called the sensorimotor stage. The toddler learns about the world through simple actions such as sucking, looking and grasping. This means that the environment must be filled with a variety of stimuli: patterned wallpaper, colorful pillows, images on the ceiling and movable mobiles.
An empty room with neutral walls and a white ceiling significantly impairs the development of a child’s intellectual abilities. Dear parents! When decorating a children's room, give preference to paintings by famous artists rather than cartoon characters. Cultivate your child's taste for classical music. Babies really enjoy Vivaldi concertos and Beethoven's 5th symphony.

Take your baby in your arms, stroke and hug him as often as possible. It activates tactile sensations. Psychologists recommend using such methods of communication not only for mothers, but also for fathers. Talk to your child. He doesn't understand the meaning yet, but all the words are firmly imprinted in his brain. Don't babysit with your little one. Baby babble is not a sign of mental incompetence, but a stage in the development of the speech apparatus.
It is useful for a child to see his parents and observe their actions. Never quarrel or sort things out at home. Infant intelligence is sensitive to negative emotions. Adequate methods of developing thinking should prevent the appearance of unhappy children. Stimulate your child's limitless potential using natural means to make life interesting and joyful for your child. Any child will grow up smart if he is given what he needs and does it on time.

Intellectual abilities of a young child
The first three years of life - crucial time, which determines all subsequent development of the child’s intellectual abilities. It is during this period that connections between brain cells are most actively formed. By the age of 3, 80% of all possible connections are formed. The further development of thinking in children will be based on this base. Parents who have neglected to lay a strong foundation will struggle to teach their children to work well on a bad computer.
In early childhood (from 1-3 years), the main activity of the child is object-manipulative activity. The baby no longer just confidently grabs various objects, but also performs various actions with them. First he throws, then taps one cube against another, tries to form a pyramid, selects parts according to shape and size. This is how visual and effective thinking is formed.

The peculiarities of children's thinking at this stage are associated with the fact that the little one learns the world through trial and error. By manipulating objects, the child encounters the first tasks that require thinking. The ball rolled under the sofa, an interesting object is behind the closet door, the TV stopped showing your favorite cartoon. The puzzled kid enthusiastically begins the practice tests. Tries to reach the ball with his hand, using improvised means.
Overly efficient parents immediately rush to help, depriving the child of the pleasure of independent search. Dear mothers and dads! Don't rush to solve your child's problems. Don't rush or push kids who are testing their limits. Give the little one time to understand the operating principle of a particular mechanism, to grasp the connection or sequence. Don't disturb the future genius!

Techniques for developing the thinking of young children:

- "Freedom of expression!". Active kids draw on the wallpaper, tear books, and get their clothes dirty. These are the first acts of children's self-expression. It is difficult for a child to understand why one cannot leave a handprint on the wall. Mothers' excessive predilection for cleaning is detrimental to the development of creative thinking. You can raise a very clean and orderly person, but he will definitely not offer the world a single original idea.

- “Give me an idea!”. Young children do not yet have a conscious attitude towards solving mental problems. They act intuitively, guided by random methods and available tools. Having noticed that your child cannot achieve success, unobtrusively draw his attention to a more promising option. At the same time, avoid direct instructions, act according to the principle: “What if...”.

Peculiarities of thinking of preschool children
Many parents hope that the development of the thinking of preschool children is fully ensured by cognitive classes in kindergarten. Indeed, kids attending nursery preschool, demonstrate extensive knowledge in the field of natural phenomena, seasons, living and inanimate nature, etc. All this is great, but we should not forget that assimilation of a sum of knowledge is not thinking as such.
A thinking preschooler does not just memorize facts, but operates with information: compares objects, finds common and different, establishes causes and consequences. At this age, the child acquires the ability to imagine an action before it is carried out. Talk first, then do. This kind of thinking is visual and figurative. They don't teach this in kindergarten.

Methods for developing the thinking of a preschooler:

- "Associative chains". Associations that connect objects and phenomena by similarity, contiguity and contrast form the basis of thinking. The development of children's intellectual abilities will occur faster if they are taught to compare and find similar things in different things. Throw a ball to your child and name any object. Let the preschooler, in turn, name something similar (by color, shape, size, weight).

- "Socks and Light Bulbs". Children love to imagine. For children's thinking nothing is impossible. Show your preschooler two unrelated objects. For example, a sock and a light bulb. Work together to describe the basic properties of each object. And then try to transfer the properties of one object to another. think about what might come of it.
Isn't it true that glowing socks would be very convenient to find under the bed? And woolen light bulbs would never break. Such methods of thinking development contribute to the formation of flexibility and originality of the intellect, creativity. The child gets used to seeing the unusual in the ordinary, combining the incongruous, and producing non-standard ideas.

Development of thinking in younger schoolchildren
Efforts of educators kindergarten could well leave a preschooler indifferent. But the school is simply obliged to influence the development of children’s intellectual abilities. Having confident command of speech, penetrating the secrets of his native language, mastering arithmetic operations, the junior schoolchild enters the time of verbal-logical thinking. Very soon he will be quite free to compare, classify, establish patterns, and identify hidden properties and connections.
Parents who have tirelessly shaped their children's thinking from birth to school can take a break. But not for too long. The intellectual abilities of a child of primary school age can quickly wither without proper training. By overloading a child’s brain with new demands and responsibilities, you can completely discourage any desire to think.

Techniques for developing the thinking of a junior schoolchild:
- "Bloom's Cube". A paper cube is used, on the sides of which it is written: “describe”, “explain how?”, “explain why?”, “evaluate”, “suggest”, “invent”. The child throws a dice and, depending on the side that comes up, describes the properties, mechanism of action, reasons, pros and cons, gives an assessment, and offers his solution. The development of children's intellectual abilities using this method can be carried out both at school and at home.

- "System effect". The world around us consists not only of individual objects. If you combine several objects, you get a system that performs certain functions. Systems are a car, a computer, a telephone. And even an ordinary mop is also a system consisting of many fibers. Teach children to find useful systems in nature and in human activity: a family, a flock of birds, a sofa bed, reinforced concrete.

Methods for developing a teenager's thinking
The teenage brain can be compared to a fairly powerful processor. During this period, the development of abstract theoretical thinking was in full swing. Teenagers love to put forward hypotheses, justify and refute, argue and prove. They can abstract from a specific situation, work out combinations, change proportions.
Teenagers do not trust adults and communicate mainly with peers. Parents are unlikely to be able to significantly influence the thinking of children on the threshold of adulthood. The leading role here belongs to an older comrade or an authoritative teacher who was able to become a mentor for the teenager. Quite often this is the coach sports section or the leader of the circle.

Methods for developing a teenager’s thinking:
- “Smart question”. The work of thought is the path from question to answer. In order to easily and quickly analyze any phenomenon, teach your teenager to find answers to 5 basic questions: “what?”, “where?”, “when?”, “why?” and “why?” A child’s intellectual abilities are also manifested in the ability to ask questions. Teach the younger generation to correctly formulate clarifying, problematic, reflective, leading and other types of questions.

- "Morphological box". This method of developing thinking helps to carefully analyze complex systems and not miss a single solution. First, you need to identify everything in the object or phenomenon being studied. important signs(parts, properties, features) and write it down on a piece of paper horizontally. Everything is written vertically possible options existence or execution (shapes, sizes, etc.).

Let's say you're planning to create a portrait of an ideal person. We write down horizontally: eyes, nose, ears, etc. Vertical: shape, color, size, etc. By sequentially filling in all the cells of the resulting table, we obtain the most full description the phenomenon being studied. The morphological box is used to solve a wide range of mental problems. The main thing is to clearly formulate the problem and correctly define the columns of the table.

Conclusion: The development of thinking in children does not pursue the goal of creating geniuses. Raise your child to be kind, responsible and smiling. A flexible mind and a healthy body are natural states of the human body. Try to support them in every possible way!

Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus

EE Vitebsk State University named after P.M. Masherova

Test No. 6

by subject Developmental psychology

on the topic Development of thinking in children

Introduction

1.2 Development of speech and thinking in preschool age

1.3 Development of speech and thinking in early school age

Chapter 2. The theory of the development of children's intelligence according to J. Piaget

2.1 Basic concepts and principles of intellectual development

2.2 Stages of development of intelligence according to J. Piaget

2.3 Egocentrism of children's thinking

2.4 Piaget's phenomena

Chapter 3. Intellectual development child according to J. Bruner

Table

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

The development of a child's thinking occurs gradually. At first, it is largely determined by the development of object manipulation. Manipulation, which at first has no meaning, then begins to be determined by the object at which it is directed and acquires a meaningful character.

The intellectual development of a child is carried out in the course of his objective activity and communication, in the course of mastering social experience. Visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical thinking are successive stages of intellectual development. Genetically, the earliest form of thinking is visual-effective thinking, the first manifestations of which in a child can be observed at the end of the first - beginning of the second year of life, even before he masters active speech. Primitive sensory abstraction, in which the child highlights some aspects and is distracted from others, leads to the first elementary generalization. As a result, the first unstable groupings of objects into classes and bizarre classifications are created.

In its development, thinking goes through two stages: pre-conceptual and conceptual. Pre-conceptual thinking is the initial stage of the development of thinking in a child, when his thinking has a different organization than that of adults; Children’s judgments are singular about this particular subject. When explaining something, they reduce everything to the particular, the familiar. Most judgments are judgments by similarity, or judgments by analogy, since during this period in thinking main role memory plays. The earliest form of proof is an example. Taking into account this feature of a child’s thinking, when convincing him or explaining something to him, it is necessary to support his speech with clear examples. The central feature of pre-conceptual thinking is egocentrism. Due to egocentrism, a child under 5 years old cannot look at himself from the outside, cannot correctly understand situations that require some detachment from his own point of view and acceptance of someone else’s position. Egocentrism determines such features of children's logic as: 1) insensitivity to contradictions, 2) syncretism (the tendency to connect everything with everything), 3) transduction (the transition from the particular to the particular, bypassing the general), 4) the lack of an idea of ​​​​the conservation of quantity. During normal development, there is a natural replacement of pre-conceptual thinking, where concrete images serve as components, with conceptual (abstract) thinking, where concepts are components and formal operations are used. Conceptual thinking does not come immediately, but gradually, through a series of intermediate stages. So, L.S. Vygotsky identified five stages in the transition to the formation of concepts. The first - for a 2-3 year old child - is manifested in the fact that when asked to put together similar objects that fit together, the child puts any objects together, believing that those placed next to each other are suitable - this is the syncretism of children's thinking. At the second stage, children use elements of objective similarity between two objects, but already the third object can be similar only to one of the first pair - a chain of pairwise similarities arises. The third stage appears at 6-8 years old, when children can combine a group of objects by similarity, but cannot recognize and name the features that characterize this group. And finally, in adolescents aged 9-12 years, conceptual thinking appears, but it is still imperfect, since primary concepts are formed on the basis of everyday experience and are not supported by scientific data. Perfect concepts are formed at the fifth stage, at the youthful age of 14-18 years, when the use of theoretical principles allows one to go beyond own experience. So, thinking develops from concrete images to perfect concepts, designated by words. The concept initially reflects the similar, unchangeable in phenomena and objects.

Thus, visual-figurative thinking occurs in preschoolers aged 4-6 years. Although the connection between thinking and practical actions remains, it is not as close, direct and immediate as before. In some cases, no practical manipulation of the object is required, but in all cases it is necessary to clearly perceive and visualize the object. That is, preschoolers think only in visual images and do not yet master concepts (in the strict sense). Significant changes in a child’s intellectual development occur at school age, when his leading activity becomes learning aimed at mastering concepts in various subjects. The mental operations that are developing in younger schoolchildren are still connected with specific material and are not sufficiently generalized; the resulting concepts are concrete in nature. The thinking of children of this age is conceptually concrete. But junior schoolchildren have already mastered some more complex shapes conclusions, realize the power of logical necessity.

Schoolchildren in middle and older ages become able to undertake more complex cognitive tasks. In the process of solving them, mental operations are generalized and formalized, thereby expanding the range of their transfer and application in various new situations. There is a transition from conceptually concrete to abstract conceptual thinking.

The intellectual development of a child is characterized by a natural change of stages, in which each previous stage prepares the subsequent ones. With the emergence of new forms of thinking, old forms not only do not disappear, but are preserved and developed. Thus, visual and effective thinking, characteristic of preschoolers, acquires new content, finding, in particular, its expression in solving increasingly complex structural and technical problems. Verbal-figurative thinking also rises to a higher level, manifesting itself in schoolchildren’s mastery of works of poetry, fine art, and music.

Chapter 1. Development of speech and its influence on thinking

1.1 Development of speech and thinking in early childhood

Early childhood is a sensitive period for language acquisition.

The child’s autonomous speech transforms and disappears quite quickly (usually within six months). Words with unusual sound and meaning are replaced by phrases of “adult” speech. But, of course, a quick transition to the level speech development is possible only in favorable conditions - first of all, with full communication between the child and the adult. If communication with an adult is not enough or, conversely, relatives fulfill all the child’s wishes, focusing on autonomous speech, speech development slows down. Delayed speech development is also observed in cases where twins grow up and intensively communicate with each other in a common children's language.

By mastering their native speech, children master both its phonetic and semantic aspects. The pronunciation of words becomes more correct, the child gradually stops using distorted words and fragmentary words. This is also facilitated by the fact that by the age of 3 all the basic sounds of the language are acquired. The most important change in a child’s speech is that the word acquires an objective meaning for him. The child uses one word to denote objects that are different in their external properties, but similar in some essential feature or way of acting on them. Therefore, the first generalizations are associated with the emergence of objective meanings of words.

IN early age The passive vocabulary is growing - the number of words understood. By the age of two, a child understands almost all the words that an adult utters, naming the objects around him. By this time, he begins to understand the adult’s explanations (instructions) regarding joint actions. Since a child actively explores the world of things, manipulating objects is a significant activity for him, and he can only master new actions with objects together with an adult. Instructive speech, which organizes the child’s actions, is understood by him quite early. Later, at 2–3 years, understanding of speech-story emerges.

Active speech also develops intensively: the active vocabulary grows (and the number of spoken words is always less than the number of understood ones), the first phrases appear, the first questions addressed to adults. By the age of three, the active vocabulary reaches 1,500 words. Sentences initially, at about 1.5 years old, consist of 2 - 3 words. This is most often the subject and his actions (“Mom is coming”), the action and the object of the action (“Give me a bun,” “let’s go for a walk”) or the action and the place of action (“The book is there”). By the age of three, the basic grammatical forms and basic syntactic structures of the native language are mastered. Almost all parts of speech occur in a child’s speech, different types sentences, for example: “I’m very glad that you came,” “Vova offended Masha. When I’m big, I’ll beat Vova with a shovel.”

A child's speech activity usually increases sharply between 2 and 3 years. His circle of contacts is expanding - he can already communicate through speech not only with close people, but also with other adults and children. In such cases, the child’s practical action is mainly spoken out, that visual situation in which and about which communication occurs. Dialogues intertwined with joint activities with adults are frequent. The child answers the adult’s questions and asks questions about what they are doing together. When he enters into a conversation with a peer, he delves little into the content of the other child’s remarks, so such dialogues are poor and children do not always answer each other.

A special process of cognition of the surrounding world in humans is thinking. Preschool children quickly go through developmental stages, which is reflected in the development of types of thinking.

Characteristics of thinking

Thinking is one of the basic psychological processes. Its formation has been well studied. It has been proven that it is closely related to speech. And it is characterized by the following features:

As the child grows and socializes, the nervous system and thinking improve. For their development, you will need the help of adults who surround the baby. Therefore, as early as one year you can begin classes aimed at developing cognitive activity children.

Important! It is necessary to consider what objects and how the child is ready to work. Taking into account individual characteristics children are selected educational materials and tasks.

Features of this thinking age group are defined as follows:

• generalization – the child is able to compare and draw conclusions about similar objects;
• visibility – the child needs to see facts, observe various situations in order to form his own idea;
• abstraction – the ability to separate signs and properties from the objects to which they belong;
• concept - an idea or knowledge about a subject related to a specific term or word.

Systematic mastery of concepts occurs already at school. But groups of concepts are laid down earlier. Along with the development of abstraction, children gradually master inner speech.

Types of mental activity in preschoolers

At preschool age, children are able to acquire knowledge about the world around them. The more they know the synonyms and characteristics of objects, the more advanced they are. For children at the preschool stage of development, the ability to generalize and establish connections between objects is the norm. At 5–7 years old, they are more inquisitive, which leads to numerous questions, as well as independent actions to discover new knowledge.

Types of thinking characteristic of children before school:

• visually effective – predominates at the age of 3–4 years;
• figurative – becomes active in children over 4 years old;
• logical – mastered by children aged 5–6 years.

Visual-effective thinking assumes that the child visually observes different situations. Based on this experience, he chooses the desired action. At 2 years old, the baby takes action almost immediately; he goes by trial and error. At 4 years old, he thinks first and then acts. The situation with opening doors can be used as an example. A two-year-old baby will knock on the door and try to find the mechanism for opening it. Usually he manages to carry out an action by accident. At 4 years old, the baby will carefully examine the door, remember what they are like, try to find the handle and open it. These are different levels of mastering visual-effective thinking.

It is important in preschool age to especially actively develop thinking based on images. In this case, children acquire the ability to perform tasks assigned to them without having an object in front of their eyes. They compare the situation with those models and schemes that they have encountered before. In this case, children:

• highlight the main features and characteristics that characterize the subject;
• remember the correlation of an object with others;
• are able to draw a diagram of an object or describe it in words.

Subsequently, the ability to identify only those features of an object that are needed in a specific situation develops. You can verify this by offering your little one tasks like “remove the unnecessary things.”

Before school, a child can, using only concepts, reason, draw conclusions, and characterize subjects and objects. This age period is characterized by:

• start of experiments;
• the desire to transfer the acquired experience to other objects;
• searching for relationships between phenomena;
• active generalization of one's own experience.

Basic mental operations and their development

The first thing a child masters in the cognitive sphere is the operations of comparison and generalization. Parents identify a large number of objects with the concept of “toys”, “balls”, “spoons”, etc.

From the age of two, the comparison operation is mastered. Often it is built on opposition, so that it is easier for children to form judgments. The main comparison parameters are:

• color;
• size;
• form;
• temperature.

The generalization comes later. For its development, a richer vocabulary child and accumulated mental skills.

Three-year-old children are quite capable of dividing objects into groups. But to the question: “What is this?” they may not answer.

Classification is a complex mental operation. It uses both generalization and correlation. The level of surgery depends on various factors. Mainly based on age and gender. At first, the baby is only able to classify objects according to generic concepts and functional characteristics (“what is this?”, “what is he like?”). By the age of 5, a differentiated classification appears (dad’s car is a service truck or a personal passenger car). The choice of the basis for determining the types of an object in preschoolers is random. Depends on the social environment.

Questions as an element of improving mental activity

Little “whys” are a gift and a test for parents. Appearance in large quantities questions from children indicates a change in stages preschool development. Children's questions are divided into three main categories:

• auxiliary - a preschool child asks older people for help in his activities;
• cognitive - their goal is to obtain new information that interests the child;
• emotional – their purpose is to receive support or certain emotions in order to feel more confident.

Under the age of three, a child rarely uses all types of questions. It is characterized by chaotic and unsystematic questions. But even in them a cognitive character can be traced.

A large number of emotional issues is a signal that the baby lacks attention and self-confidence. In order to compensate for this, it is enough to communicate face-to-face for 10 minutes during the day. Children 2–5 years old will perceive that their parents take a lot of interest in their personal affairs.

The absence of cognitive questions at the age of 5 years should alert parents. More thinking tasks should be given.

Questions from children of junior and senior preschool age require answers of varying quality. If at three years old a child may not even listen to the answer, then at 6 years old they may have new questions in the process.

Parents and teachers of the preschool development system should know how much detail and in what terms they need to communicate with their child. This is the peculiarity of thinking and raising children.

The prerequisites for asking cognitive questions appear in children at about 5 years of age.

Auxiliary questions are typical for a period of up to 4 years. With their help, you can develop the skills necessary for further development and life in everyday life.

How to develop thinking processes in preschoolers?

To develop and improve thought processes in the preschool period, it is necessary to gradually increase the conceptual apparatus and characteristics of objects. You can focus on the following data:

• improvement based on imagination;
• activation of voluntary and indirect memory;
• the use of speech as a tool for setting and solving mental problems.

Attentive attitude towards the child is a kind of guarantee of the normal development of cognitive activity. For those who want to save money, it is important to know that games can be purchased “to grow.” At the same time, show a younger child some actions and explain the basic characteristics. Over time, complicate actions and concepts.

The following can help in the development of thinking in preschool age:

• various types of board games (lotto, dominoes, inserts, etc.);
• active dialogues with the child during walks or at home, which are not in the nature of separate lessons;
• explanations of the actions carried out by surrounding people or animals;
• modeling, applications, drawing;
• learning poetry, reading books.

Important! Sometimes poor nutrition and lack of vitamins lead to inhibited functioning of the nervous system, rapid fatigue of the child, which also affects the development of thinking.

In order for mental activity to be normal, you need to monitor the sufficient amount of B vitamins, iron, zinc, and magnesium in children’s food.

Thus, the psychology of a child involves a gradual immersion into the complex world of objects and phenomena of the external environment. Stringing together concepts, knowledge, and actions develops the thinking of preschoolers. Only joint activities allows you to successfully acquire the skills you need for later life.

Reading strengthens neural connections:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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