10 age characteristics of children of primary school age. Chapter I. Age characteristics of children of school age. Changes in thinking and perception of a primary school student

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Age features children of primary school age.

The initial period of school life occupies the age range from 6-7 to 10-11 years (grades 1-4). At primary school age, children have significant reserves of development. Their identification and effective use is one of the main tasks of developmental and educational psychology. With the child entering school, under the influence of education, the restructuring of all his conscious processes begins, they acquire the qualities characteristic of adults, since children are included in new types of activity and a system of interpersonal relations. General characteristics of all cognitive processes of the child become their arbitrariness, productivity and stability.
In order to skillfully use the reserves available to the child, it is necessary to adapt children to work at school and at home as soon as possible, teach them to study, to be attentive, diligent. By entering school, the child must have sufficiently developed self-control, labor skills, the ability to communicate with people, and role-playing behavior.

During this period, the further physical and psychophysiological development of the child takes place, providing the possibility of systematic education at school. First of all, the work of the brain and nervous system is improved. According to physiologists, by the age of 7 the cerebral cortex is already largely mature. However, the most important, specifically human parts of the brain responsible for programming, regulation and control complex shapes mental activity, in children of this age have not yet completed their formation (development of the frontal parts of the brain ends only by the age of 12), as a result of which the regulatory and inhibitory effect of the cortex on subcortical structures is insufficient. Imperfection of the regulatory function of the cortex is manifested in the peculiarities of behavior, organization of activity and activity characteristic of children of this age. emotional sphere: younger students are easily distracted, incapable of long-term concentration, excitable, emotional.

Primary school age is a period of intensive development and qualitative transformation of cognitive processes: they begin to acquire a mediated character and become conscious and arbitrary. The child gradually masters his mental processes, learns to control perception, attention, memory.

From the moment the child enters school, a new social situation of development is established. The teacher becomes the center of the social situation of development. In primary school age, learning activity becomes the leading one. Learning activity is a special form of student activity aimed at changing himself as a subject of learning. Thinking becomes the dominant function in primary school age. The transition from visual-figurative to verbal-logical thinking, which was outlined in preschool age, is being completed.

School education is structured in such a way that verbal-logical thinking is predominantly developed. If in the first two years of education children work a lot with visual samples, then in the next classes the volume of such activities is reduced. Figurative thinking is becoming less and less necessary in educational activities.

At the end of primary school age (and later) there are individual differences: among children. Psychologists single out groups of "theorists" or "thinkers" who easily solve learning problems verbally, "practitioners" who need reliance on visualization and practical actions, and "artists" with vivid imaginative thinking. Most children show a relative balance between different types thinking.

An important condition for the formation of theoretical thinking is the formation of scientific concepts. Theoretical thinking allows the student to solve problems, focusing not on external, visual signs and connections of objects, but on internal, essential properties and relationships.

At the beginning of primary school age, perception is not sufficiently differentiated. Because of this, the child "sometimes confuses letters and numbers that are similar in spelling (for example, 9 and 6 or the letters I and R). Although he can purposefully examine objects and drawings, he is distinguished, as well as at preschool age, by the brightest, "conspicuous" properties - mainly color, shape and size.

If preschoolers were characterized by analyzing perception, then by the end of primary school age, with appropriate training, a synthesizing perception appears. Developing intellect creates an opportunity to establish connections between the elements of the perceived. This can be easily seen when children describe the picture. These features must be taken into account when communicating with the child and his development.

Age stages of perception:
2-5 years - the stage of listing objects in the picture;
6-9 years old - description of the picture;
after 9 years - interpretation of what he saw.

Memory in primary school age develops in two directions - arbitrariness and meaningfulness. Children involuntarily memorize educational material that arouses their interest, presented in a playful way, associated with bright visual aids, etc. But, unlike preschoolers, they are able to purposefully, arbitrarily memorize material that is not very interesting to them. Every year, more and more training is based on arbitrary memory. Younger schoolchildren, like preschoolers, usually have a good mechanical memory. Many of them throughout their studies in primary school mechanically memorize educational texts, which most often leads to significant difficulties in high school when the material becomes more complex and larger in volume, and the solution of educational problems requires not only the ability to reproduce the material. Improving semantic memory at this age will make it possible to master a fairly wide range of mnemonic techniques, i.e. rational ways of memorizing (dividing the text into parts, drawing up a plan, etc.).

It is in early childhood that attention develops. Without the formation of this mental function, the learning process is impossible. At the lesson, the teacher draws the attention of students to the educational material, holds it for a long time. A younger student can focus on one thing for 10-20 minutes. The volume of attention increases 2 times, its stability, switching and distribution increase.

Primary school age is the age of a fairly noticeable formation of personality.

It is characterized by new relationships with adults and peers, inclusion in a whole system of teams, inclusion in a new type of activity - a teaching that imposes a number of serious requirements on the student.

All this decisively affects the formation and consolidation of a new system of relations with people, the team, teaching and related duties, forms character, will, expands the range of interests, develops abilities.

At primary school age, the foundation of moral behavior is laid, the assimilation of moral norms and rules of behavior takes place, and the social orientation of the individual begins to form.

The nature of younger students differs in some features. First of all, they are impulsive - they tend to act immediately under the influence of immediate impulses, motives, without thinking and weighing all the circumstances, for random reasons. The reason is the need for active external discharge with age-related weakness. volitional regulation behavior.

An age-related feature is also a general lack of will: the younger student does not yet have much experience in a long struggle for the intended goal, overcoming difficulties and obstacles. He can give up in case of failure, lose faith in his strengths and impossibilities. Often there is capriciousness, stubbornness. The usual reason for them is the shortcomings of family education. The child is accustomed to the fact that all his desires and requirements are satisfied, he did not see a refusal in anything. Capriciousness and stubbornness are a peculiar form of a child's protest against the firm demands that the school makes on him, against the need to sacrifice what he wants for the sake of what he needs.

Younger students are very emotional. Emotionality affects, firstly, that their mental activity is usually colored by emotions. Everything that children observe, what they think about, what they do, evokes an emotionally colored attitude in them. Secondly, younger students do not know how to restrain their feelings, control their external manifestation, they are very direct and frank in expressing joy. Grief, sadness, fear, pleasure or displeasure. Thirdly, emotionality is expressed in their great emotional instability, frequent mood swings, a tendency to affect, short-term and violent manifestations of joy, grief, anger, fear. Over the years, the ability to regulate their feelings, to restrain their undesirable manifestations, develops more and more.

Great opportunities are provided by the primary school age for the education of collectivist relations. For several years, the younger schoolchild accumulates, with proper upbringing, the experience of collective activity, which is important for his further development - activities in the team and for the team. The upbringing of collectivism is helped by the participation of children in public, collective affairs. It is here that the child acquires the basic experience of collective social activity.

Literature:

Vardanyan A.U., Vardanyan G.A. The essence of educational activity in the formation creative thinking students // Formation of creative thinking of schoolchildren in educational activities. Ufa, 1985.
Vygotsky L.S. Pedagogical psychology. M., 1996.
Gabay T.V. Educational activity and its means. M., 1988.
Galperin P.Ya. Teaching methods and mental development child. M., 1985.
Davydov V.V. Problems of developmental education: The experience of theoretical and experimental psychological research. M., 1986.
Ilyasov I.I. The structure of the learning process. M., 1986.
Leontiev A.N. Lectures on General Psychology. M., 2001.
Markova A.K., Matis T.A., Orlov A.B. Formation of learning motivation. M., 1990.
Psychological features of personality formation in pedagogical process/ Ed. A. Kossakovski, I. Lompshera and others: Per. with him. M., 1981.
Rubinshtein S. L. Fundamentals of general psychology. SPb., 1999.
Elkonin D.B. Psychology of teaching younger students. M., 1974.
Elkonin D.B. Psychology of development: Proc. allowance for students. higher textbook establishments. M., 2001.

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Psychological characteristics of children of primary school age

Primary school age covers the period of life from 6 to 11 years, when he is studying in the primary grades, and is determined by the most important circumstance in the life of the child - his admission to school.

At this time, there is an intensive biological development of the child's body (central and vegetative nervous systems, bone and muscle systems, the activity of internal organs). At the heart of such a restructuring (it is also called the second physiological crisis) is a distinct endocrine shift - the "new" endocrine glands are activated and the "old" glands cease to operate. Such a physiological restructuring requires a lot of stress from the child's body in order to mobilize all the reserves. During this period, the mobility of nervous processes increases, excitation processes predominate, and this determines such characteristics younger schoolchildren, as increased emotional excitability and restlessness.

Since muscle development and methods of controlling it do not go synchronously, children of this age have features in the organization of movement. The development of large muscles is ahead of the development of small ones, and therefore, children are better at performing strong and sweeping movements than small ones that require precision (for example, when writing). At the same time, growing physical endurance, increased efficiency are relative, and in general, increased fatigue and neuropsychic vulnerability remain characteristic of children. Their performance usually drops after 25 - 30 minutes of the lesson. Children get tired in case of attending an extended day group, as well as with increased emotional saturation of lessons and activities.

Physiological transformations cause great changes in the mental life of the child. With the entry into school life, the child, as it were, opens up a new era. L.S. Vygodsky said that parting with preschool age is parting with childish spontaneity. A child, getting into school childhood, finds himself in a less indulgent and more severe world. And a lot depends on how he adapts to these conditions. Teachers and parents need to have knowledge about this period of child development, since its unfavorable course for many children becomes the beginning of disappointment, the cause of conflicts at school and at home, and poor mastery of school material. And the negative emotional charge received in primary school may be a conflict in the future.

Symptoms of loss of spontaneity. Crisis of seven years.

School age, like all ages, opens with a critical, or turning point, period, which was described in the literature earlier than others as a crisis of seven years. It has long been observed that in the transition from preschool to school age a child changes very sharply and becomes more difficult to educate than before. This is some kind of transitional stage - no longer a preschooler and not yet a schoolboy. When a preschooler enters into a crisis, it strikes the most inexperienced observer that the child suddenly loses his naivety and immediacy; in behavior, in relations with others, he becomes not as clear in all manifestations as he was before.

What is hidden behind the impression of naivete and spontaneity of the child's behavior before the crisis? Naivety and spontaneity mean that the child looks the same on the outside as on the inside. One quietly passes into the other, one is directly read by us as the discovery of the second.

The loss of immediacy means the introduction into our actions of an intellectual moment that wedged between experience and immediate action, which is in direct contrast to the naive and direct action characteristic of the child.

At the age of 7, we are dealing with the beginning of the emergence of such a structure of experiences, when the child begins to understand what it means “I am happy”, “I am upset”, “I am angry”, “I am kind”, “I am evil”, i.e. . he has a meaningful orientation in his own experiences. Thanks to this, some of the features that characterize the crisis of seven years come to the fore.

1. Experiences acquire meaning (an angry child understands that he is angry), thanks to this, the child develops such new relationships with himself that were impossible before the generalization of experiences.

2. By the time of the crisis of seven years, a generalization of experiences, or an affective generalization, the logic of feelings, arises for the first time. There are deeply retarded children who experience failure at every step: ordinary children play, a “loser” child tries to join them, but he is refused, he walks down the street and is laughed at. In a word, he loses at every turn. In each individual case, he has a reaction to his own insufficiency, and after a minute you look - he is completely satisfied with himself. Thousands of individual failures, but no general sense of his own worthlessness, he does not generalize what has happened many times already. A child of school age has a generalization of feelings, i.e. if a situation has happened to him many times, an affective formation arises in him, the character of which is just as related to a single experience, or affect, as a concept is related to a single perception or memory. For example, a child of preschool age does not have real self-esteem, pride. The level of our requests for ourselves, for our success, for our position arises precisely in connection with the crisis of seven years.

Thus, the crisis of 7 years arises on the basis of the emergence of personal consciousness. The main symptoms of the crisis:

1) loss of immediacy. Wedged between desire and action is the experience of what significance this action will have for the child himself;

2) mannerisms; the child builds something out of himself, hides something (the soul is already closed);

3) a symptom of "bitter candy": the child feels bad, but he tries not to show it. Difficulties in upbringing arise, the child begins to withdraw and becomes uncontrollable.

These symptoms are based on the generalization of experiences. A new inner life has arisen in the child, a life of experiences that is not directly and directly superimposed on the outer life. But this inner life is not indifferent to the outer, it influences it.

The emergence of inner life is an extremely important fact; now the orientation of behavior will be carried out within this inner life. The crisis requires a transition to a new social situation, requires a new content of relations. The child must enter into relations with society as a set of people who carry out compulsory, socially necessary and socially useful activities. In our conditions, the tendency towards it is expressed in the desire to go to school as soon as possible. It is not uncommon to confuse the higher stage of development that a child reaches by the age of seven with the problem of the child's readiness for schooling. Observations in the first days of a child's stay at school show that many children are not yet ready to study at school.

In one of the first math lessons, children in the first grade were asked to draw as many circles as there are toys on the typesetting canvas (5), and then color 3 circles red and 2 circles blue. Some children painted the figures in other colors, explaining that it's better that way, or that way they like it better. This observation shows that the rules have not yet become the rules of the child's behavior; we still need to work with such children, bring them to the appropriate school form.

Another observation: in the first grade, children do not receive written assignments at home, but some students ask about the lessons. This shows that the lessons are important for them, as they put them in a certain relationship with others.

The “symptom of the loss of immediacy” (L. S. Vygodsky) becomes a symptom that cuts through the preschool and primary school ages: a new moment arises between the desire to do something and the activity itself - an orientation in what the implementation of this or that will bring to the child. activities. This is an internal orientation in terms of what meaning the implementation of activities can have for the child - satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the place that the child will occupy in relations with adults or other people. Here, for the first time, the emotional-semantic orienting basis of the act appears. According to the views of D. B. Elkonin, at the moment when an orientation towards the meaning of an act appears, it is then that the child passes into a new age. Diagnosis of this transition is one of the most urgent problems of modern developmental psychology. L. S. Vygodsky said that readiness for school education is formed in the course of education itself - until the child has begun to be taught in the logic of the program, until then there is still no readiness for learning; usually readiness for schooling develops by the end of the first half of the first year of schooling.

In recent years, there is also education at preschool age, but it is characterized by an exclusively intellectualistic approach. The child is taught to read, write, count. However, you can be able to do all this, but not be ready for schooling. Readiness is determined by the activity in which all these skills are included. The assimilation of knowledge and skills by children at preschool age is included in the game activity, and therefore this knowledge has a different structure. Hence the first requirement that must be taken into account when entering school is that readiness for schooling should never be measured by the formal level of skills and abilities, such as reading, writing, counting. Owning them, the child may not yet have the appropriate mechanisms of mental activity.

How to diagnose the readiness of a child for schooling?

According to D. B. Elkonin, first of all, attention should be paid to the emergence of voluntary behavior - how does the child play, does he obey the rule, does he take on roles? The transformation of a rule into an internal instance of behavior is an important sign of readiness.

Under the leadership of D. B. Elkonin, an interesting experiment was carried out.

There are a lot of matches in front of the child. The experimenter asks to take one at a time and shift them to another place. The rules are deliberately made meaningless.

The subjects were children 5, 6, 7 years old. The experimenter watched the children through Gesell's mirror. Children who are getting ready for school scrupulously do this work and can sit at this lesson for an hour. Smaller children continue to move matches for a while, and then they begin to build something. The youngest bring their own task to these activities. When saturation occurs, the experimenter enters and asks to work more: "Let's agree, we'll do this bunch of matches and that's it." And the older child continued this monotonous, meaningless work, because he agreed with the adult. The experimenter said to children of middle preschool age: "I will leave, but Pinocchio will remain." The child's behavior changed: he looked at Pinocchio and did everything right. If you perform this action several times with a substitute link, then even without Pinocchio, the children obey the rule. This experiment showed that behind the fulfillment of the rule lies a system of relations between a child and an adult. When a child obeys a rule, he meets the adult with joy.

So, behind the implementation of the rule, D. B. Elkonin believed, lies the system social relations between child and adult. First, the rules are executed in the presence of an adult, then with the support of an object that replaces the adult, and, finally, the rule becomes internal. If the observance of the rule did not include a system of relations with an adult, then no one would ever follow these rules. The child's readiness for schooling presupposes the "growing" of a social rule.

The transition to the school system is a transition to the assimilation of scientific concepts. The child must move from a reactive program to a program of school subjects (L. S. Vygotsky). The child must, firstly, learn to distinguish between different aspects of reality, only under this condition can one proceed to subject education. The child must be able to see in an object, in a thing some individual parties, the parameters that make up the content a separate subject science. Secondly, in order to master the basics of scientific thinking, the child needs to understand that his own point of view on things cannot be absolute and unique.

In terms of mental development, the formation of arbitrariness (planning, implementation of action programs and control) is put forward in the center. There is an improvement in cognitive processes (perception, memory, attention), the formation of higher mental functions (speech, writing, reading, counting), which allows a child of primary school age to perform more complex mental operations compared to a preschooler. Under favorable conditions for learning and a sufficient level of mental development, on this basis, prerequisites arise for the development of theoretical thinking and consciousness.

From the works of L.S. Vygodsky, it is known that each stage of a child's mental development is characterized by a corresponding type of leading activity. During the period of primary school childhood, educational activities are leading for the child. “It should be noted that at the previous stages of his development the child studied, but only now does study appear to him as an independent activity. AT school years learning activity begins to occupy a central place in the activity of the child. All major changes in the mental development of the child are observed at this stage, and are associated primarily with learning.

With the advent of school, the emotional sphere of the child changes. On the one hand, younger schoolchildren, especially first-graders, retain to a large extent the property characteristic of preschoolers to react violently to individual events and situations that affect them. Children are sensitive to the influences of the surrounding conditions of life, impressionable and emotionally responsive. They perceive, first of all, those objects or properties of objects that evoke a direct emotional response, an emotional attitude. Visual, bright, lively is perceived best of all. On the other hand, going to school gives rise to new, specific emotional experiences, since the freedom of preschool age is replaced by dependence and submission to the new rules of life. The situation of school life introduces the child into a strictly normalized world of relationships, requiring him to be organized, responsible, disciplined, and perform well. Toughening the living conditions, the new social situation in each child who enters school increases mental tension. This affects both the health of younger students and their behavior. Under the guidance of a teacher, children begin to assimilate the content of the main forms of human culture (science, art, morality) and learn to act in accordance with the traditions and new social expectations of people. It is at this age that the child for the first time clearly begins to realize the relationship between him and others, to understand the social motives of behavior, moral assessments, significance conflict situations, that is, gradually enters the conscious phase of personality formation.

The whole life structure of the child fundamentally changes. Until recently, in the development of a small preschooler, the game was the main occupation, and now he is a schoolboy, the whole system of relations with adults and peers has changed. The child appears completely new system relations, namely relations with teachers, who in the eyes of the child act "not as a substitute for parents, but as an authorized representative of society, armed with all means of control and evaluation, acting on behalf of and on behalf of society."

Knowledge for a child of this age does not exist without a teacher. And if the child fell in love with the teacher, then his desire for knowledge will undoubtedly increase, the lesson will become interesting and desirable for him, and interaction with the teacher will be joyful and bring many useful fruits. If the child does not like the teacher, then the teaching loses all value for him.

However, the game does not disappear completely in primary school age, it acquires other forms and content. The game occupies a significant place in the life of the child along with educational activities, first of all, these are games with rules, dramatization games. Many students take their favorite toys with them to class, and during breaks they actively play with their friends, forgetting that they are within the walls of the school. And, although the game no longer occupies that important place in the life of a child that was characteristic of it at preschool age, it still has great importance in the mental development of a younger student.

However, some schoolchildren, due to the delay in their general mental development, find themselves in a difficult situation at this time: for them, play activity has not yet lost its relevance, but at the same time, the school makes new demands on them, confronts them with the need to assign forms of life that correspond to primary school age. , where the educational one is already leading, new social attitudes appear, new social motives associated with a sense of duty and responsibility, the need for education (“to be literate”).

Of great importance for the formation of the personality of a child at the age of 7-9 years is the team that forms the social orientation of the student. Especially towards the end of primary school age, the child seeks the company of other children, is interested in the affairs of the class of which he himself is a member. The opinion of peers begins to acquire special significance for him. Schoolchildren want to take their place in the class, to win the authority and respect of their comrades. The process of including a student in a school team is complex, ambiguous, and often contradictory. First of all, this process is deeply individual. Schoolchildren differ from each other in their state of health, appearance, character traits, degree of sociability, knowledge, skills, so they enter the system of collective relations in different ways. It is especially difficult for younger schoolchildren who have not yet developed self-awareness and self-esteem, the ability to correctly assess the attitude of the team, comrades towards themselves, the ability to find a place in the team.

The desire of children of this age also lies in the fact that they would quickly become adults; in many ways, they willingly imitate their parents, teachers, older brothers and sisters. Children realize the desire of this adulthood in all forms. Everyday life: games, communication with peers, parents, teachers, where the child can actively show his independence and independence. The desire to become an adult as soon as possible is also an irresistible craving for knowledge, such as mastering writing, reading, the desire to start speaking foreign language. Thus, it is absolutely not necessary to remind the child that he is still small and overprotect him, but on the contrary, try to entrust him with “important” things, put some responsibility on him, moreover, knowingly assuming that he will successfully cope with everything. Thus, we are adults, we make this process of growing up tangible for him.

It is at this stage that the most effective impact on the intellectual and personal spheres of the child is possible. The use of various games and developmental exercises in working with younger students has a beneficial effect on the development of not only the cognitive, but also the personal-motivational sphere of students. The favorable emotional background created in the lessons greatly contributes to the development of learning motivation, which is a necessary condition for the effective adaptation of the younger student to the conditions of the school environment and the successful flow of educational activities, which are the main ones at this period of the child's development.

Pupils of grades 1-2 of elementary school are yesterday's preschoolers, they think concretely, in images. At this stage of education and development of children, various visual aids used by the teacher during the lesson play an important role. Younger students actively respond to the impressions delivered to them by the senses. The visual aids used in the classroom always arouse an insatiable curiosity.

At primary school age, it is possible to successfully improve the child's speech and, on the basis of his curiosity, arouse cognitive interest in educational activities. The plasticity of the natural mechanism of speech assimilation allows younger students to easily master a second language as well. The ability to develop is fully realized by the child in the first 8-10 years of his life. According to Vygodsky L.S., convincing evidence suggests that bilingualism can be a factor that favors both the development of a child's native language and his general intellectual growth. For each of the two languages in the child's psyche, it is as if its own sphere of application is formed, a special kind of attitude that prevents the crossing of both language systems. However, when children's bilingualism develops spontaneously, outside the guiding influence of education, it can lead to negative results. "The pedagogical influence, the guiding role of education, nowhere acquires such decisive importance for the entire fate of children's speech and children's intellectual development, as in cases of bilingualism or multilingualism of the child population."

However, not all children of primary school age play a leading role. As Bozhovich L.I. notes, in order for this or that activity to become leading in the formation of the psyche, it is necessary that it constitute the main content of the life of the children themselves, be the center for them, around which their main interests and experiences are concentrated. Organized, systematic training and education - main form and the condition for the purposeful development of the child.

The development of attention, memory and imagination in children of primary school age children's school child

Attention selects relevant, personally significant signals from the set of all available to perception and, by limiting the field of perception, ensures concentration in this moment time on any object (subject, event, image, reasoning). Attention is the simplest kind of self-deepening, due to which a special state is achieved: the object or thought being contemplated begins to occupy the entire field of consciousness as a whole, displacing everything else from it. This ensures the stability of the process and creates optimal conditions for processing this object or thought “here and now”.

Educational activity requires a good development of voluntary attention. The child must be able to concentrate on a learning task, maintain intense (concentrated) attention on it for a long time, switch at a certain speed, flexibly moving from one task to another. However, the arbitrariness of cognitive processes in children of 6-8 and 9-11 years of age occurs only at the peak of volitional effort, when the child specially organizes himself under the pressure of circumstances or on his own impulse. Under normal circumstances, it is still difficult for him to organize his mental activity in this way.

An age-related feature of younger schoolchildren is the relative weakness of voluntary attention. Their involuntary attention is much better developed. Everything new, unexpected, bright, interesting in itself attracts the attention of students without any effort on their part. Children may miss essential details in learning material and pay attention to non-essential ones just because they attract attention. In addition to the predominance of involuntary attention, its relatively low stability also belongs to the age peculiarity. First graders and, to some extent, second graders still do not know how to concentrate on work for a long time, especially if it is uninteresting and monotonous; their attention is easily distracted. As a result, children may not complete the task on time, lose the pace and rhythm of activities, skip letters in a word and words in a sentence. Only by the third grade can attention be maintained continuously throughout the entire lesson.

The weakness of voluntary attention is one of the main causes of school difficulties: academic failure and poor discipline. In this regard, it is important to consider how this type of attention is formed and with the help of what methods it can be developed and corrected. It is shown that, unlike involuntary attention, voluntary attention is not a product of the maturation of the organism, but the result of a child's communication with adults and is formed in social contact. When the mother names an object and points to it to the child, thereby highlighting it from the environment, a restructuring of attention occurs. It ceases to respond only to the natural orienting reactions of the child, which are controlled either by novelty or by the strength of the stimulus, and begins to obey the speech or gesture of the adult interacting with him.

For example, a child who is learning to write first moves his whole arm, eyes, head, part of his body, and tongue. Training consists in strengthening only one part of the movements, coordinating them into groups and eliminating unnecessary movements. Arbitrary attention is directed to the inhibition of unnecessary movements.

In its development, voluntary attention goes through certain stages. Exploring the environment, the child at first singles out only a number of furnishings. Then he gives a holistic description of the situation and, finally, an interpretation of what happened. At the same time, at first, the development of voluntary attention in children ensures the realization of only those goals that adults set for them, and then those that are set by the children themselves.

The development of the stability of voluntary attention is studied by determining the maximum time that children can spend concentrating on one game. If the maximum duration of one game for a six-month-old child is only 14 minutes, then by the age of 6-7 it increases to 1.5-3 hours. Just as long, the child can be focused on productive activities (drawing, designing, making crafts). However, such results of focusing attention are achievable only if there is interest in this activity. The child will languish, be distracted and feel completely unhappy if it is necessary to be attentive to those activities that he is indifferent to or does not like at all. The concentration of attention develops in the same way. If at 3 years old in 10 minutes of play the child is distracted from it on average 4 times, then at 6 years old - only once. This is one of the key indicators of a child's readiness for schooling.

In the early phases of development, voluntary attention is divided between two people, an adult and a child. An adult singles out an object from the environment by pointing to it with a gesture or a word; the child responds to this signal by fixing the named object with his eyes or by picking it up. Pointing to an object with a gesture or word organizes the child's attention, forcibly changing its direction. Thus, the given object stands out for the child from the external field. When a child develops his own speech, he can name the object himself and, thus, arbitrarily distinguish it from the rest of the environment. The function of analyzing the environment, which was previously divided between an adult and a child, becomes internal for the child and is performed by him independently. From what has been said it is clear how closely voluntary attention is connected with speech. At first, it manifests itself in the subordination of one's behavior to the verbal instructions of adults (“Children, open notebooks!”), And then in the subordination of one's behavior to one's own verbal instruction.

Voluntary attention is fully developed by the age of 12-16. Thus, despite some ability of children primary school arbitrarily control their behavior, involuntary attention still prevails in them. Because of this, it is difficult for younger students to focus on monotonous and unattractive work for them or on work that is interesting, but requires mental effort. This leads to the need to include elements of the game in the learning process and quite often change the forms of activity.

Memory is the process of capturing, preserving and reproducing traces of past experience. In preschoolers, memory is considered the leading mental process. At this age, memorization occurs mainly involuntarily, which is due to an underdeveloped ability to comprehend the material, less ability to use associations, and insufficient experience and unfamiliarity with memorization techniques. If the events had an emotional significance for the child and made an impression on him, involuntary memorization is particularly accurate and stable. It is known that preschool children easily memorize meaningless material (for example, counting rhymes) or objectively meaningful, but insufficiently understood or completely incomprehensible words, phrases, poems. The reasons underlying such memorization are the interest that is aroused in children by the sound side of this material, a special emotional attitude towards it, inclusion in gaming activities. In addition, the very incomprehensibility of information can stimulate the child's curiosity and draw special attention to it.

Preschool age is considered a period that frees children from the amnesia of infancy and early childhood. The preschooler's memory already stores representations that are interpreted as "generalized memories". According to L. S. Vygotsky, such “generalized memories” are able to tear the subject of thought out of the specific temporal and spatial situation in which it is included, and establish between general ideas a connection of an order that had not yet been experienced by the child.

The leading types of memory in younger students are emotional and figurative. Children quickly and firmly remember everything bright, interesting, everything that causes an emotional response. At the same time, emotional memory is not always accompanied by an attitude to a revived feeling, as to a memory of something previously experienced. So, a child frightened by a dentist or a school principal is frightened at every meeting with them, but does not always realize what this feeling is connected with, since arbitrary reproduction of feelings is almost impossible. Thus, despite the fact that emotional memory provides a quick and durable memorization of information, it is not always possible to rely on the accuracy of its storage. Moreover, if in ordinary, calm conditions, an increase in the strength and brightness of an impression increases the clarity and strength of memorization, then in extreme situations (for example, on a control) a strong shock weakens or even completely drowns out what was reproduced.

Figurative memory also has its limitations. Children, indeed, better retain in memory specific persons, objects and events than definitions, descriptions, explanations. However, during the period of retention in memory, the image may undergo a certain transformation. Typical changes that occur with the visual image in the process of its storage are: simplification (omitting details), some exaggeration of individual elements, leading to the transformation of the figure and its transformation into a more uniform one.

Thus, images that include an emotional component are most reliably reproduced: unexpected and rarely encountered.

One day, the children were asked to make drawings on the theme: "So interesting, it's even amazing." Attention was drawn to an "unexpected", from our point of view, and really one-of-a-kind plot: "The cat ate cockroaches." However, the first-grader's answer to the question: "What is so surprising about this?", asked in a neutral tone, turned out to be even more unexpected for us. The girl was literally “indignant” at the misunderstanding of adults: “But this is indecent - there are cockroaches!”.

When we note the good figurative memory of children, we must bear in mind that figurative memory (both visual and auditory) is difficult to voluntarily control, and remembering distinctly only the special, the extraordinary does not yet mean having a good memory. Good memory is traditionally associated with memory for words, and when memorizing verbal information in younger students, especially in the first two grades, there is a tendency to mechanical imprinting, without awareness of the semantic connections within the memorized material. This is due to the common way in which student efforts are assessed. The reproduction of the educational task close to the text, from the point of view of adults, indicates the conscientious performance of homework by children and is usually rated with a high score. This encourages the child to answer as close to the text as possible. In addition, children still do not know how to use different methods of generalization. Not owning a detailed speech, children still cannot freely, in their own words, express the content of what they have read. Therefore, fearing to admit inaccuracy, they resort to literal reproduction.

The main direction of memory development in primary school age is the stimulation of verbal-logical memorization. Verbal-logical (symbolic) memory is divided into verbal and logical. Verbal memory is associated with speech and is fully formed only by 10-13 years. Her hallmarks are fidelity and great dependence on the will. A feature of logical memory is memorizing only the meaning of the text. In the process of its isolation, information is processed in more generalized terms, so logical memory is most closely connected with thinking. One of the methods of logical memorization is the semantic grouping of material in the process of memorization. Younger schoolchildren do not yet resort to this technique on their own, because they still do not analyze the text well, they do not know how to single out the main and essential. However, if children are specially taught the semantic grouping of the text, then even first-graders will be able to successfully cope with this task.

Gradually, arbitrary memory becomes the function on which all the educational activity of the child is based. Its advantages are in reliability and reduction in the number of errors during playback. It relies on the creation of an attitude towards memorization, i.e., on a change in the motivation for this activity. Active motivation, as well as an attitude that refines activity, put voluntary memorization in a more favorable position compared to involuntary. The teacher organizes the installation, gives the child instructions on how to remember and reproduce what should be learned. Together with the children, he discusses the content and volume of the material, distributes it into parts (in terms of meaning, according to the difficulty of memorization), teaches to control the process of memorization, reinforces it. A necessary condition for memorization is understanding - the teacher fixes the child's attention on the need to understand what needs to be remembered, gives motivation for memorization: to remember in order to preserve knowledge, to acquire skills not only for solving school tasks, but for the rest of life.

Imagination is the process of transforming images in memory in order to create new ones that have never been perceived by a person before. In a child, the imagination is formed in the game and at first is inseparable from the perception of objects and the performance of game actions with them. In children of 6-7 years of age, the imagination can already rely on such objects that are not at all similar to the ones being replaced. Parents and, especially, grandparents, who love to give their grandchildren big bears and huge dolls, often unwittingly hinder their development. They deprive them of the joy of independent discoveries in games. Most children do not like very naturalistic toys, preferring symbolic, home-made, imaginative toys. Children, as a rule, like small and inexpressive toys - they are easier to adapt to different games. Large or “just like real” dolls and animals do little to stimulate the imagination. Children develop more intensively and get much more pleasure if the same stick plays the role of a gun, the role of a horse, and many other functions in various games. L. Kassil's book "Konduit and Shvambrania" gives a vivid description of the attitude of children to toys: "Turned lacquered figures represented unlimited possibilities for using them for the most diverse and tempting games ... Both queens were especially comfortable: the blonde and the brunette. Each queen could work for a Christmas tree, a cab driver, a Chinese pagoda, a flower pot on a stand, and a bishop.”

Gradually, the need for an external support (even in a symbolic figure) disappears and internalization occurs - a transition to a game action with an object that does not really exist, to a game transformation of an object, to giving it a new meaning and representing actions with it in the mind, without real action. . This is the origin of imagination as a special mental process.

A feature of the imagination of younger schoolchildren, manifested in educational activities, at first is also a reliance on perception (primary image), and not on representation (secondary image). For example, a teacher offers a task to children in a lesson that requires them to imagine a situation. It can be such a task: “A barge was sailing along the Volga and carried in holds ... kg of watermelons. There was pitching, and ... kg of watermelons burst. How many watermelons are left? Of course, such tasks start the process of imagination, but they need special tools (real objects, graphic images, layouts, diagrams), otherwise the child finds it difficult to advance in arbitrary actions of the imagination. In order to understand what happened in the watermelon holds, it is useful to give a sectional drawing of a barge.

In lessons with children, we often offer children tasks to develop their imagination. However, the material used in educational process, must be applied in a strictly specified way. For example, with the help of numbers, we suggest imagining anything. To do this, it is enough to ask the children the question: “What does the unit look like?”. And immediately get answers: “On a person who gives flowers”, “On a crocodile standing on its hind legs”. And also - on a springboard, an airplane, a giraffe, a snake ... This task gives children the opportunity to see that the same numbers can be very strict, obeying mathematical rules(the line “must”, “the same for everyone”, “correct”), and at the same time alive, creating their own opportunities (the line “I want”, “not like everyone else”, “great”). Such games with numbers or other educational material not only stimulate the development of the imagination, but also serve as a kind of bridge between two types of thinking, abstract-logical and figurative.

The most vivid and free manifestation of the imagination of younger students can be observed in the game, in drawing, writing stories and fairy tales. In children's creativity, the manifestations of the imagination are diverse: some recreate reality, others create new fantastic images and situations. When writing stories, children can borrow plots known to them, stanzas of poems, graphic images, sometimes without noticing it at all. However, they often deliberately combine well-known plots, create new images, exaggerating certain aspects and qualities of their characters. The tireless work of the imagination -- effective method knowledge and assimilation of the world around the child, the ability to go beyond personal practical experience, the most important psychological prerequisite for the development of a creative approach to the world. Often the activity of the imagination underlies the formation personal qualities relevant to a particular child.

Often in their imagination, children create dangerous, scary situations. Experiencing negative tension in the process of creating and deploying images of the imagination, managing the plot, interrupting images and returning to them not only trains the child’s imagination as an arbitrary creative activity, but also contains a therapeutic effect. However, experiencing difficulties in real life, children, as a protection, can go into an imaginary world, expressing doubts and experiences in dreams and fantasies.

Bibliography

1. Vardanyan A.U., Vardanyan G.A. The essence of educational activity in the formation of creative thinking of students // Formation of creative thinking of schoolchildren in educational activity. Ufa, 1985.

2. Vygotsky L.S. Pedagogical psychology. M., 1996.

3. Gabay T.V. Educational activity and its means. M., 1988.

4. Galperin P.Ya. Teaching methods and mental development of the child. M., 1985.

5. Davydov V.V. Problems of developing education: The experience of theoretical and experimental psychological research. M., 1986.

6. Ilyasov I.I. The structure of the learning process. M., 1986.

7. Leontiev A.N. Lectures on General Psychology. M., 2001.

8. Markova A.K., Matis T.A., Orlov A.B. Formation of learning motivation. M., 1990.

9. Psychological features of personality formation in the pedagogical process / Ed. A. Kossakovski, I. Lompshera and others: Per. with him. M., 1981.

10. Rubinshtein S. L. Fundamentals of general psychology. SPb., 1999.

11. Elkonin D.B. Psychology of teaching younger students. M., 1974.

12. Elkonin D.B. Psychology of development: Proc. allowance for students. higher textbook establishments. M., 2001.

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Primary school age usually refers to the period from 6-7 to 10-11 years. During this period, there are significant changes in the functioning of the child's brain. This leads to the fact that the child is more and more independently and voluntarily able to control his behavior and activities. In the same period, the dominant manifestation of one or another hemisphere begins, depending on whether the child is right-handed or left-handed. In children of this age, growth is accelerated, and milk teeth are also replaced by permanent ones. somatic school training

At this time, the child begins to go to school, and regardless of age, getting used to, adapting to new living conditions. This process takes place individually. Each child has different difficulties, regardless of whether he is psychologically ready to start learning activities or not, and such difficulties are expressed in different ways. However, most people experience some form of stress response. According to B.A. Sosnovsky, basically the adaptation of a first grader to school comes down to adaptation to the teacher, to his manner of communication, methods of influence and requirements. The latter are for the most part the objective requirements of the actual schooling, but there are also those that embody the preferences or habits of the teacher. For a child, all of them are equally important and immutable.

The period of time required to adjust to a new situation ranges from 3-4 weeks to 3-4 months. Otherwise, psychologists are already talking about school maladaptation.

The relationship of the child with adults and peers before entering school and after is significantly different. When a child begins to go to school, according to L. F. Obukhova, the system of his relations with adults splits into two: “the child is the teacher” and “the child is the parents”, and the first becomes dominant, defining both the relationship of the child with parents, and his relationships with peers.

When a child comes to school, he immediately becomes part of the system of social relations, where he has his own rights and obligations, which he must independently fulfill. The teacher becomes the standard of all norms and rules. He also monitors their implementation, and also checks and evaluates them. Children begin to literally copy the teacher's behavior, and their attitude towards peers comes from how they behave in accordance with the standards introduced by the teacher and in relation to the teacher. At this initial stage, the child is not yet able to single out more or less significant demands that the teacher makes. In addition, the teacher can make demands not only on students, but also on their parents.

Leading activity is a learning activity. It is she who determines the relationship between the child and the teacher and between the child and his peers.

Studying the age characteristics of a person, B. A. Sosnovsky determines learning activities as an activity directly aimed at the assimilation of science and culture accumulated by mankind. However, the subjects of science and culture are special subjects, they are abstract, theoretical, it is necessary to learn how to use them effectively.

According to D.B. Elkonin and V.V. Davydov, the main task of primary school age is the formation of a full-fledged educational activity in a child.

From a psychological point of view the subject of educational activity it is the subject himself, that is, the child, who changes in the process of learning activity, becoming smarter and more competent. At the same time, a certain contradiction is noted: subjectively, the child's activity is aimed at the generalized experience of mankind, differentiated into separate sciences, while objectively, changes must occur in the subject himself.

According to B.A. Sosnovsky, to track such changes, it is necessary reflexivity the ability to observe one's own internal changes: changes occurring in the internal plan of the subject itself. A child entering school (even after the age of seven) is, as a rule, not capable of such reflection. Therefore, at present, with different methods of teaching younger students, there are different ways of dividing the components of educational activity between its participants. The process of development of educational activity is the process of transferring all more its links to the student himself.

During the period of primary school age, there is a significant increase in cognitive development: the formation of theoretical thinking and an internal plan of action is observed. By the end of fourth grade, a junior student should be able to learn. B. A. Sosnovsky explains this as follows: the child should form his own educational activity, including a theoretical, cognitive attitude to reality, the ability to formulate cognitive tasks, that is, at least to distinguish the known from the unknown, which is already the beginning of reflection.

By the end of elementary school, the transition from visual-figurative thinking to verbal-logical thinking should be completed. Children are already able to independently make the simplest conclusions. They are now not so subject to the visual field.

According to J. Piaget, the thinking of younger schoolchildren is at the stage of concrete operations, that is, reversible mental actions. They are quite far from the operations performed by adults; they are fragmented and often need external support, but they already speak of the presence in children of an internal plan of action, of their ability to operate with certain ideas "in the mind", and, consequently, of the rudiments of abstract theoretical thinking. All mental processes become under the control of the child himself and become intellectualized. Thus, memory, attention and perception become arbitrary mediated processes. Children learn to systematically observe objects and phenomena, first following the instructions of the teacher, and then only keeping the goal set. Performing more and more complex educational tasks with gradually weakening control from adults, the child learns to control his own actions. This is how it is formed Attention.

As noted by L.S. Vygotsky, at the age of seven, a child begins to treat himself in a generalized way. At the same time, the peculiarity of this period also lies in the fact that the child lives in two systems of relations, respectively, in two assessment systems, where the criteria are different. At school, both the teacher and classmates are evaluated primarily the results of educational activities. Parents still treat him as their child, unique and inimitable, but they also react to his success or failure at school. The latter, in turn, significantly affect both mental and personal development. The reason is that younger students are not yet able to adequately evaluate themselves. In this regard, they perceive the teacher's assessment as the only true one and transfer it from school to all other spheres of life. In addition, other students and their parents treat the teacher's assessment in the same way. Subsequently, this affects the attitude of others towards the child. That is why academic performance in the primary school period plays a big role in the development of normal child self-esteem.

When a younger student successfully completes school assignments, he naturally arouses the disposition of the teacher first, and then his peers. Parents of such children praise and have no demands or claims to them. Therefore, by the end of the fourth grade, children with high academic performance have adequate self-esteem, they are confident in themselves and their abilities, are able to overcome difficulties and go all the way to the goal. If such children do not receive constructive criticism or achieve academic success too easily, then very often self-esteem becomes overestimated, which causes many problems both in this and in subsequent periods of life.

Underachieving children of the primary school period face a lot of problems. At first they cannot earn the respect of the teacher or receive approval and praise, then classmates draw the appropriate conclusions, the proportion of sympathy for this child decreases. Often the situation worsens as the parents are unable to provide the much-needed support to their child. Most parents unsuccessfully try to stimulate the child by creating external motivation or limiting the child in some way. However, this is unsuccessful only because the child has not yet learned to cope with difficulties. Moreover, very often parents bring even greater emotional discomfort. If parents blame the teacher and other circumstances for the poor progress of their child, while justifying the child himself, they deprive him of the opportunity to live and develop normally, functioning freely in society. All this leads to the appearance of low or low self-esteem of children. The motivation to learn and be successful becomes weaker, interest in learning and communication with peers disappears. Children often withdraw into themselves. However, it also happens that they reveal their potential in other areas. But nevertheless, this is deviant behavior, therefore, at the next stage of development, these adolescents are already characterized by low self-esteem and lack of confidence in their abilities and their own significance.

As already mentioned, school entry plays a significant role in the development of the emotional sphere of children. The number of objects that evoke an even wider range of emotions is increasing. The emotional sphere of a younger student is greatly influenced by the results of educational activities, as well as the attitude of others around them.

Despite the pronounced emotional reactions of children of this age, over time they learn to show only those that they want or need to show. Thus, they have the ability to manage their emotions, i.e. improve emotional self-regulation skills.

Exploring the characteristics of younger students, O.O. Gonina notes that the emotional sphere is characterized by a slight emotional responsiveness to ongoing events and emotional coloring of perception, imagination, thinking, mental and physical activity; immediacy and frankness of manifestation of their emotional experiences: joy, sadness, fear, pleasure or displeasure; varying degrees of readiness to experience the emotion of fear in the process of learning activities as a premonition of troubles, failures, lack of confidence in one’s abilities, inability to cope with learning task; feeling a threat to their status in the class, family; high emotional instability, frequent change of emotional states against the general background of cheerfulness, cheerfulness, cheerfulness, carelessness; a tendency to short-term and intense emotional reactions; intense emotional response to games and communication with peers, academic achievements and assessment of their progress by the teacher and classmates; imperfect understanding and awareness of one's own and others' emotions and feelings; often misperception and interpretation of facial expressions and other expressions of emotional states by others (with the exception of the basic emotions of fear and joy, in relation to which children have formed clear ideas that they can express verbally, naming synonymous words denoting these emotions), which causes inadequate responses younger students.

During the period of primary school age, children do not always understand what emotion they themselves or others are experiencing; it is still difficult for them to differentiate between certain emotions. They usually find it much easier to experience and express their emotional states in already experienced or similar circumstances, but they still have difficulty in describing their emotional experience. Since at preschool age children perceive only positive emotions, it is still much easier for them to identify emotions of joy even at primary school age, while it is difficult for them to identify many other emotions, for example, amazement, dislike or guilt. However, now they become more susceptible to oppressive circumstances and can empathize with others. Since younger students have not yet fully mastered the whole range of emotions and feelings, as well as their manifestations, it is not uncommon that in their behavior they are very similar to their relatives or teachers.

During the period of primary school age, children are still at the stage of development of emotional self-regulation, so they are not always able to control the manifestation of certain emotions. For this reason, it is still difficult for them to observe complete silence and order during the lesson. Nevertheless, very soon they become able to control themselves and show or not show their feelings and experiences in accordance with a particular situation. The level of ability to manage your emotions gradually increases and improves.

Fine emotional condition a child of primary school age should be joyful and positive. During this period, there is a manifestation individual features when certain emotions arise.

Psychologist O.O. Gonina identifies emotionally stable children, children with increased emotional sensitivity, emotionally excitable, anxious and children with a weak expression of emotions. Both emotional stability and anxiety significantly affect the child's attitude to learning activities, the teacher and peers.

Younger students begin to experience more complex feelings that arise as a result of the process of socialization. At school, children develop such highly moral feelings as love for the Fatherland, friendship, empathy; intellectual feelings: such as curiosity, a sense of confidence in the correctness of one's decision, satisfaction from intellectual work; aesthetic feelings: love for the beautiful, a sense of the beautiful and the ugly, a sense of harmony. The emotions of a younger student change for the most part due to a more active social life: relationships with parents and peers change, and the teacher plays an active role. It becomes important for the child to be respected both in the family and at school.

Since the younger student learns to control and manage his emotional states, they gradually become more stable, more stable. Children are already forming stronger friendships than they were in preschool age. They have different, but quite long-term interests, increased craving and love for knowledge. At this time, there is an active development of both the intellectual sphere and emotional intelligence. By definition, K.S. Kuznetsova, the concept of emotional intelligence means an interconnected set of cognitive, reflective, behavioral, and communicative abilities that have an intrapersonal and interpersonal orientation. It is expressed in an internal positive attitude, empathic attitude towards others, identification, control and reflection of emotional states and actions, the use of emotional information in communicating with others, the choice of ways to achieve a goal and is evaluated by cognitive, reflective, behavioral, communicative criteria in accordance with elementary, sufficient, optimal levels of its formation.

During the period of primary school age, complex changes occur that have a strong influence on the development of the child's personality. It is assumed that by the end of this period, the child will learn to differentiate his own and other people's emotions, to show them in a stable and balanced way, both non-verbally and verbally, to adequately interpret them, and will also be capable of empathy.

In order to support the adequate development of younger schoolchildren, help them maintain a normal emotional state for their age, i.e. joyful and positive, it is important to study ways to correct the emotional sphere of children of primary school age suffering from various somatic diseases, one of which is relaxation training.

Primary school age is a rather significant period of life, since at this time the foundations of character and behavior are laid, temperament is manifested, as well as the desire to take a certain place in society. Acquiring new qualities and skills, the student learns to act independently in different life circumstances, due to which personal responsibility for his actions and deeds falls on his shoulders. All this leads to the fact that the child's worldview changes and the level of intellectual development increases.

As in any life period, it has its own psychological characteristics, knowing which, primary school age can be used as a bookmark for the main child, as well as acquiring positive qualities. It should be borne in mind that sometimes at this time frequent fatigue may occur, which is associated with the intensive physical growth of the child, which is ahead of his psycho-emotional development.

The main task of children in this period is aimed at mastering new knowledge and the ability to perceive new information. That is why the following happens at this time:

Visual-figurative thinking is replaced by verbal-logical;

The dominant motivation is the achievement of knowledge and getting good grades as a reward;

The psychological characteristics of children of primary school age also include the appearance of some aggression, which should not be taken very seriously. The fact is that the child is only learning to manage his feelings, and if some already know how to cope with surging emotions, then others are still in complete submission to them. This feature should be taken into account when raising children at this time.

Among other things, primary school age is characterized by the desire of children to various types creative activity, therefore, it is at this time that it is necessary to send your child to various hobby groups that will be of invaluable benefit to him. When raising a child, every adult, whether a parent or a teacher, must take into account his opinion and make every effort to become his friend. In this case, the confidence of the little person will be ensured, as well as the opportunity to carry out his proper upbringing.

Junior school age - an emerging personality from 6-7 to 10-11 years old, characterized by increased impressionability, suggestibility, arbitrariness, an internal plan of action, self-control and reflection.

Junior school age covers the period of life from 6 to 11 years and is determined by the most important circumstance in the life of the child - his admission to school.

- MOTIVATION OF LEARNING - the system of motives that makes the child learn, gives meaning to learning activities.

Learning task, i.e. a system of tasks during which the child masters the most common methods of action;

Learning actions, those with the help of which the learning task is learned, i.e. all those actions that the student does in the lesson (specific for each subject and general);

Control actions - those actions with the help of which the progress of mastering the learning task is controlled;

Evaluation action - those actions with the help of which we evaluate the success of mastering the learning task.

The development of mental functions in primary school age:

The dominant function in primary school age becomes - thinking.

Thinking acquires a more generalized character, initially thinking - concretely, i.e. children understand any phenomenon literally.

The transition, outlined in preschool age, from visual-figurative to verbal-logical thinking is being completed. School education is structured in such a way that verbal-logical thinking is predominantly developed. If in the first two years of study, children work a lot with visual samples, then in the next classes, the volume of this kind of training is reduced.

At the end of primary school age (and later), individual differences appear: among children, psychologists distinguish:

Groups of "theorists" or "thinkers" who easily solve learning problems verbally;

- "practitioners" who need reliance on visibility and practical actions;

- "artists", with bright, imaginative thinking.

In most children, there is a relative balance between different types of thinking. An important condition for the formation of theoretical thinking is the formation of scientific concepts. Theoretical thinking allows the student to solve problems, focusing not on external, visual signs and connections of objects, but on internal, essential properties and relationships.

At the beginning of primary school age, perception is not sufficiently differentiated . Because of this, the child sometimes confuses letters and numbers that are similar in spelling. Although he can purposefully examine objects and drawings, he is distinguished, as well as at preschool age, by the most striking "conspicuous" properties - mainly color, shape and size. In order for the student to more subtly analyze the qualities of objects, the teacher must carry out special work, teaching him to observe.

Memory- acquires a pronounced cognitive character, the child begins to realize the mnemonic task (the task of remembering), but memory is involuntary. Emotions affect the longevity of memories.

Memory develops in two directions - arbitrariness and meaningfulness. Children involuntarily memorize material that arouses their interest, presented in a playful way, associated with bright visual aids. But, unlike preschoolers, they are able to purposefully, arbitrarily memorize material that is not interesting to them. Every year, more and more, training is based on arbitrary memory. Younger schoolchildren, like preschoolers, have a good mechanical memory.

Many of them, throughout their education in elementary school, mechanically memorize educational texts, which leads to significant difficulties in the middle classes, when the material becomes more complex and larger in volume. Improving semantic memory at this age will make it possible to master a fairly wide range of mnemonic techniques, that is, rational ways of memorizing (dividing a text into parts).

Attention develops in early childhood . Without sufficient formation of this mental function, the learning process is impossible. At the lesson, the teacher draws the attention of students to the educational material, holds it for a long time. A younger student can concentrate on one thing for 10-20 minutes. The properties of attention are not sufficiently developed: distribution, stability. The ability to voluntary attention 10-15 minutes.

Personality features of a younger student:

The emotional sphere of a younger student is determined:

1) coloring of perception, imagination, intellectual and physical activity with emotions;

2) immediacy and frankness in expressing feelings;

3) great emotional instability, frequent mood swings;

4) a tendency to short-term and violent affects.

Will sphere: students perform volitional actions, mainly at the direction of adults. By the third grade, they acquire the ability to perform volitional acts in accordance with their own motives. Younger students may be persistent in learning activities. Over time, they develop endurance, impulsiveness weakens. Pupils show strong-willed qualities, mainly only in order to be good executors of the will of others, in order to earn the favor of adults.

At this age there is the emergence of an important neoplasm - voluntary behavior. The child becomes independent, he chooses how to act in certain situations. At the heart of this type of behavior are moral motives that are formed at this age. The child absorbs moral values, tries to follow certain rules and laws. That is, their behavior in one way or another is connected with the main motive that dominates at this age - the motive for achieving success.

Such neoplasms are closely related to the formation of voluntary behavior in younger schoolchildren. , as planning the results of action and reflection. The child is able to evaluate his act in terms of its results and thereby change his behavior, plan it accordingly. A semantic and orienting basis appears in actions, this is closely connected with the differentiation of inner and outer life.

Personal development junior schoolchild depends on school performance, assessment of the child by adults. As I said, a child at this age is very susceptible to external influence. At primary school age, there is an increase in the desire of children to achieve. Therefore, the main motive for the activity of a child at this age is the motive for achieving success. Sometimes there is another kind of this motive - the motive of avoiding failure. In the mind of the child certain moral ideals, patterns of behavior. The child begins to understand their value and necessity. But in order for the formation of the child's personality to be most productive, the attention and assessment of an adult is important.

At primary school age the child develops a focus on other people, which is expressed in prosocial behavior taking into account their interests. Prosocial behavior is very important for developed personality. The ability to empathize develops in the conditions of schooling because the child is involved in new business relationships, involuntarily he is forced to compare himself with other children - with their successes, achievements, behavior, and the child is simply forced to learn to develop his abilities and qualities.

In this way, Primary school age is the most important stage of school childhood. The main achievements of this age are due to the leading nature of educational activities and are largely decisive for subsequent years of study: by the end of primary school age, the child should want to learn, be able to learn and believe in himself.

Full living of this age, its positive acquisitions are the necessary basis on which the further development of the child is built as an active subject of knowledge and activity. The main task of adults in working with children of primary school age is to create optimal conditions for the disclosure and realization of the capabilities of children, taking into account the individuality of each child.