Development of cognitive activity in preschool children
The image of the world is formed and exists in the process of origin, development and functioning of the cognitive sphere of a person from the moment of his birth. Any normal child is born with an innate cognitive orientation, which helps him adapt at first to new living conditions. Gradually, cognitive orientation turns into cognitive activity - a state of internal readiness for cognitive activity.
It manifests itself in search actions aimed at obtaining new impressions about the world around us. As the child grows and develops, his cognitive activity increasingly gravitates towards cognitive activity, which, like any activity, is characterized by a certain structure. Its elements (according to A. N. Leontyev) are: the incentive-motivational part (need, motives, goals), the subject of activity, the correspondence of the subject and motive of the activity and the means of its implementation (actions and operations).
According to the authors, the cognitive activity of a preschooler is manifested, first of all, in the child’s ability to accept from an adult and independently set a cognitive task, draw up an action plan, select means and methods for solving it using the most reliable techniques, perform certain actions and operations, obtain results and understand the need to check them. Thus, it turns out that cognitive activity is a volitional, purposeful action, and the process of cognitive activity is determined not by external (motor) activity, not by the child’s degree of employment, but mainly by the level of internal (mental) activity, which carries elements of creativity.
The prerequisite, the physiological basis of cognitive activity is the unconditioned orienting reflex “What is this?” However, this prerequisite can develop into a personality quality called cognitive activity only under certain conditions. The optimal conditions for the formation of this quality should be considered those that ensure, first of all, the formation of motives for educational activities, as well as the quality of knowledge and an emotionally positive background of learning.
The basis of cognitive activity is cognitive interest. Cognitive interest is a form of manifestation of cognitive needs that ensures that the individual is focused on understanding the goals of the activity and thereby promotes orientation, familiarization with new facts, and a more complete and profound reflection of reality.
In general, the cognitive interests of a preschooler child begin to manifest themselves very early. This first manifests itself in the form of children's questions with which the baby besieges parents from the age of 3-4. However, whether such children's curiosity will become a stable cognitive interest or whether it will disappear forever depends on the adults surrounding the child, primarily on his parents. Adults should encourage children's curiosity in every possible way, fostering a love and need for knowledge.
In preschool age, the development of a child’s cognitive interests should proceed in two main directions:
1. Gradually enriching the child’s experience, saturating this experience with new knowledge about various areas of reality. This causes cognitive activity in the preschooler. The more sides of the surrounding reality open to children, the wider the opportunities for the emergence and consolidation of stable cognitive interests in them.
2. Gradual expansion and deepening of cognitive interests within the same sphere of reality.
In order to successfully develop a child’s cognitive interests, parents must know what their child is interested in, and only then influence the formation of his interests. It should be noted that for the emergence of stable interests, it is not enough to simply introduce a child to a new sphere of reality. He should have a positive emotional attitude towards the new. This is facilitated by the inclusion of the preschooler in joint activities with adults.
An adult can ask a child to help him do something or, say, listen to his favorite record with him. The feeling of involvement in the world of adults that arises in the child in such situations creates a positive connotation of his activities and contributes to his interest in this activity. But in these situations, the child’s own creative activity should also be awakened; only then can the desired result be achieved in the development of his cognitive interests and in the assimilation of new knowledge. You need to ask your child questions that encourage active thinking.
A child who has different cognitive interests is characterized by cognitive activity, but its measure and direction are not the same. Therefore, in order to determine the measure of cognitive activity, E.I. Shcherbakova identifies its manifestations in preschoolers in accordance with how the child organizes and regulates the process of his acquaintance with the environment.
She believes that these provisions show: cognitive activity cannot be considered as a volitional, purposeful action, where the goal goes beyond the immediate situation. Shcherbakova E.I. emphasizes that in this case, cognitive activity is the mobilization of intellectual, moral, volitional and physical forces to achieve specific learning goals. She proceeds from the position that activity in the learning process is determined not by motor activity, not by the degree of employment, but by the level of mental activity, which carries elements of creativity.
Shcherbakova E.I. proposed indicators of cognitive activity of preschool children:
1. Passion for studying the material (concentration, attention).
2. A clearly expressed desire to perform a variety of, especially complex tasks.
3. The desire to continue the activity (often such children themselves are the initiators of the game, joint cognitive activity with adults.
4. Demonstration of independence in selecting means, methods of action, achieving results, and exercising control.
5. Use of knowledge in independent activities (game, work, construction).
6. Contacting the teacher with questions aimed at cognitive interest.
7. Quality of knowledge and skills.
In such cases, children achieve the goal not intuitively, but consciously, and are able to explain how they performed the action and why it did so.
To identify and characterize a child’s cognitive activity means to determine its level of development. Godovikova D.B. suggests for this, firstly, to determine the area of objects to which it is aimed (content), and secondly, the nature of the organization of searches.
Godovikova D.B., who believes that cognitive activity is the desire to gain knowledge about the phenomena of the surrounding world, this is both a cognitive need and the cognitive activity stimulated by it. Cognitive activity, in her opinion, has distinct external manifestations, based on which one can judge the nature of its organization.
What a child is interested in, what is the intensity of his desire to get acquainted with certain phenomena, can be judged by 4 indicators:
1. Attention and special interest in subjects;
2. Emotional attitude towards objects (surprise, bewilderment, slyness, that is, a variety of emotions caused by this object);
3. Actions aimed at the recognition devices of an object, understanding its functional purpose. The total number of these actions is evidence of the intensity of the survey. But the quality of actions is especially important, first of all their variety and the replacement of some types by others, pauses during which the child thinks about this subject.
4. Constant desire for an object, even when it is not there.
Thus, Godovikova D.B. Identifies manifestations of cognitive activity in accordance with how the child carries out the process of his acquaintance with the environment, which, in her opinion, indicates a readiness to overcome difficulties and obstacles on the way to recognizing the essence of the subject.
Thus, cognitive activity during preschool age goes through a complex path of development from simple orientations, which are caused by the novelty of the subject, to the desire to resolve the contradiction between established knowledge and skills that arise in the process of children’s activities.
In order to develop cognitive activity, a child will ideally need to determine typical attitudes - the development of knowledge and cognitive schemes; protecting existing knowledge and cognitive schemas; degree of inclusion in educational activities/
In preschool pedagogy, cognitive activity has been repeatedly considered from the point of view of cognitive interest (Nechaeva V.G., Zakharevich L.F., Manevscheva M.M., Postnikova N.K.) and mathematical abilities (Krutetsky V.A.) or the development of thinking (Poddyakov N.I., Proskurova E.V.), quality of learning in general (Nepomnyashchaya N.I., Vyatkina L.A., Gracheva Z.A.).
There is another approach to determining the manifestations of cognitive activity. E.I. Shcherbakova, based on psychological and pedagogical literature, and more specifically, approaches to the problem of optimizing the cognitive activity of students (Yu.K. Babansky, M.A. Danilov, I.Ya. Lerner, T.I. Shamova, etc.) identifies the following manifestations of cognitive activities:
1. The ability to see and independently set a cognitive task.
2. Draw up a plan and select ways to solve the problem using the most reliable and effective techniques.
3. Achieve results and understand the need to verify them.
Thus, E.I. Shcherbakova identifies manifestations of cognitive activity in accordance with how the child organizes and regulates the process of his acquaintance with the environment. She believes that these provisions show: cognitive activity cannot be considered as a volitional, purposeful action, where the goal goes beyond the immediate situation. E. Shcherbakova emphasizes that in this case, cognitive activity is the mobilization of intellectual, moral-volitional and physical forces to achieve specific learning goals. She proceeds from the position that activity in the learning process is determined not by motor activity, not by the degree of employment, but by the level of mental activity, which carries elements of creativity.
Such a variety of approaches to determining the essence and content of cognitive activity causes some difficulty in accurately isolating it from the child’s general activity. It is known that cognitive activity begins with living contemplation in a broad sense - with sensations and perception. Thus, in teaching children the elements of mathematics, this is associated with specific practical and cognitive actions: children observe, listen, examine, apply, apply, count, measure, etc.
Already this stage of learning is characterized by activity. However, in these cases, relying on the position of E.I. Shcherbakova, it would be more correct to talk about general mental activity. VC. Kotyrlo and T.V. Dutkevich proposes to judge the cognitive activity of children by their ability to transform the situation, which is expressed in the fact that in older preschoolers the “reaction to novelty” develops greatly, it turns into the ability to see and note the known and the unknown, the known and the new, the ordinary and the unusual. VC. Kotyrlo and T.V. Dutkevich note that children with different cognitive activity can qualify the same situation as familiar or highlight the specifics of its specific conditions.
They emphasize that even under normal conditions, a cognitively active child, thanks to his imagination and interest, transforms the environment, revealing its new sides and nuances, enriching his cognitive experience. Transformations are expressed in changing the conditions of the situation, introducing new elements and finding their new combinations or unusual possibilities of functioning.
This rather important indicator of cognitive activity should be taken into account along with the indicators of cognitive activity proposed by E.I. Shcherbakova:
1. Passion for studying the material (concentration, attention).
2. A clearly expressed desire to perform a variety of, especially complex tasks.
3. The desire to continue the activity (often such children themselves are the initiators of games and joint cognitive activities with adults).
4. Demonstration of independence in selecting means, methods of action, achieving results, and exercising control.
5. Use of knowledge in independent activities (play, work, constructive)
6. Contacting the teacher with questions aimed at cognitive interests.
7. Quality of knowledge and skills. In such cases, children achieve the goal not intuitively, but consciously, and are able to explain how they performed the action and why it did so.
Researchers note that every child is characterized by cognitive activity, but its measure and direction are not the same. To identify and characterize a child’s cognitive activity means to determine its level of development. D.B. Godovikova proposes to do this, firstly, to determine the area of objects to which it is directed (content), and secondly, the nature of the organization of the child’s search activity in a difficult cognitive situation for him.
Based on this, D.B Godovikova identifies three levels of cognitive activity:
1. Children strive for toys that have bright perceptual properties (large, colorful, sonorous), as well as those that are familiar in their functional purpose (telephone, dishes, etc.); there is no interest in objects of unclear purpose. Search regulation is external; objects dominate activity (the level of interest in the external properties of an object is determined by the object itself).
2. Its essence is the content of the cognitive need and the level of self-organization. Children strive to become familiar with toys and other objects that have certain functions. The possibility of using them in different ways and testing their functional properties is attractive; the desire to penetrate into the hidden properties of an object is expressed. However, the regulation of search is subject to emotions (the level of interest in the functional qualities of an object and the regulation of search are determined with the help of an adult).
3. Its essence is new content. Interest and activity are aroused by the hidden, internal properties of an object, the so-called secrets, and to a greater extent by internal, conceptual formations. Activity is guided by the goal of achieving the desired result. The goal may not be achieved, but the desire for success remains for a long time. Behavior is guided by one's own intention.
The combination of all signs of behavior is not always so clearly uniform, emphasizes D.B. Godovikov, but characteristic and stable enough to serve as the norm.
Thus, cognitive activity during preschool age goes through a complex path of development from simple indicative reactions that are caused by the novelty of the subject, to the desire to resolve the contradictions between existing knowledge and new cognitive tasks that arise in the practical activities of children.
What factors ensure the transition from one level of development of cognitive activity to a higher one, what is the source of the formation and manifestation of cognitive activity? Modern studies studying the characteristics of cognitive activity do not give a clear answer to this question.
M.S. Yakimansky believes that cognitive activity depends on the experience of the child himself, which provides him not only with the conscious assimilation of new material, but also with its transformation.
P.A. Pobirchenko draws attention to the fact that activity is especially noticeable when there is an opportunity to explore, transform, engage in new connections and relationships, pose new problems, and discover new things.
L.I. Bozovic notes that one cannot expect activity in a child who is deprived of independence.
A.M. Matyushkin believes that the basis for the development of cognitive activity is those principles of personality education and the development of thinking, which include stimulation and encouragement of the very acts of cognitive activity on the part of another person. That is why, according to A.M. Matyushkin, the most significant situations in the occurrence of acts of cognitive activity are situations of communication, various types of interpersonal interaction, games, and learning. Thus, he assigns decisive importance in the development of cognitive activity to the leading type of activity and communication with adults.
From the point of view of M.I. Lisina, the main factor in the development and formation of cognitive activity should be considered the communication of a child with an adult, during which the child learns, on the one hand, an active and interested attitude towards phenomena and objects, on the other hand, ways to manage his behavior, overcomes the difficulties of orientation in new situations.
E.I. Shcherbakova points out that the prerequisite, the physiological basis of cognitive activity is the orienting reflex “What is this?” But this prerequisite can develop into a quality called cognitive activity only under favorable conditions. The main task of pedagogy, in her opinion, is to create such conditions.
Conditions conducive to the activation and development of cognitive activity, proposed by T.I. Babaeva, in our opinion, generally take into account the characteristics of the cognitive activity of preschool children:
1. The development of cognitive activity is facilitated by such an organization of learning in which the child is involved in the process of independent search and discovery of new knowledge and solving problems of a problematic nature.
2. The child’s intellectual and practical activities in the classroom should be varied. The monotony of information and methods of action quickly causes boredom and reduces activity.
3. It is necessary to constantly change the forms of questions and tasks, stimulate the search activity of children, creating an atmosphere of intense teamwork.
4. The content of the classes should be difficult, but feasible. Material that is too simple or complex does not arouse interest, does not create the joy of intellectual victory, problem solving, or supporting cognitive activity.
5. The more new material is related to the existing experience of preschoolers, the more interesting it is for them.
6. The teacher’s emotionality, his ability to support and direct interest in the content of the lesson stimulates the cognitive activity of children.
Thus, we see that cognitive activity is formed mainly in cognitive activity, which is associated with the purposeful actions of children. Pedagogically correctly organized activities contribute most effectively to its formation. N.N. Poddyakov believes that the basis of such activity should be the provision that, simultaneously with the formation of clear, distinct knowledge, there remains a zone of uncertain knowledge, appearing in the form of guesses, assumptions, and questions from children, so that satisfaction with the new acquired knowledge at the end of the next lesson is combined with the impatience to learn that The next one will be so that children do not wait for explanations from adults, but rather clarify what is unclear to them, make predictions, and make guesses.
It is this peculiar problem in the form of uncertainty of knowledge that is a powerful stimulus for children’s cognitive activity. Based on this situation, in the mid-80s a basic strategy for problem-based learning for preschool children was developed. Research by A.V. Zaporozhets, A.N. Leontyeva, L.A. Venger, N.N. Poddyakov convincingly reveal that problem-based learning should be built as an independent creative search, only then learning is not a reproductive, but a creative activity, then it contains everything that can captivate, interest, and awaken a thirst for knowledge. At the same time, being formed in the process of activity, cognitive activity at the same time affects the quality of this activity, acting as a means and condition for achieving the goal.
Cognition is the process of reflecting and reproducing reality in human thinking, conditioned by the development of social historical practice. The result of which is new knowledge about the world. Specially organized cognition constitutes the essence of the educational process.
Mental development is a complex dynamic system of quantitative and qualitative changes that occur in a person’s intellectual activity as a result of his mastering experiences that correspond to the social and rhetorical conditions in which he lives, the age and individual characteristics of his psyche.
Abilities are individual psychological characteristics of a person, which are a condition for the successful implementation of one or another productive activity.
The cognitive development of a preschooler implies mastery of the means of cognition, mastery of means and methods of describing the world around him, the development of intellectual emotions, familiarity with various spheres of reality, the expansion of cognitive activity and independence.
Means of cognition - standards, models, speech, etc.
Methods of cognition - observation, examination, comparison, classification, seriation, analysis, synthesis, inference, evaluation, experimentation.
The concepts of curiosity and cognitive interest have a common basis - a cognitive attitude towards the environment. Differences in the volume and depth of this relationship, in the degree of activity and independence
Curiosity is the general direction of a positive attitude towards a wide range of phenomena.
Cognitive interest is manifested in the desire to find out what is unclear about objects and phenomena, in the desire to delve into the essence, to find connections and relationships. The basis of cognitive interests is active mental activity.
Cognitive interest differs from curiosity in its breadth of coverage of objects, depth of knowledge, and selectivity. Reflected in drawings, stories, games and other types of creative activities.
Cognitive interest is most often directed at a certain aspect of life, at one or another phenomenon or object. Cognitive interest includes intellectual activity in combination with an emotional attitude and volitional efforts. Characteristic features of cognitive interest: versatility, depth, stability, dynamism, effectiveness.
Cognitive activity is an active state of the individual, which is characterized by the desire to learn, mental stress and the manifestation of volitional efforts in the process of acquiring knowledge. 3 levels – reproducing, interpreting, creative.
Definition
From Latin activus - energetic, active. An enhanced and prolonged active state, initiative, enterprise, independence - what parent would not want to see these qualities in their child? Cognitive activity is the main task of education and training. There are many definitions in the literature. First of all, this is the activity of a child living in a new world around him as an active subject, which shows his individuality, directs his energy, will, and forces him to work to achieve a positive result.
The most necessary personality trait is cognitive activity. This is an attitude to action, a constant state of readiness for it, the assimilation of social experience, the accumulation of knowledge, methods of action, skills and abilities previously acquired by humanity. This is something without which action will not be successful: the ability to perceive and think. There are many ways to recognize this ability in children.
Independence
This is the foundation on which the rest of life will be built - a palace or a hut, depending on the strength of the foundation. Everyone understands this. But, nevertheless, the activity of cognitive activity is steadily and significantly decreasing, as evidenced by tests of children studying in schools.
Independence in cognition is not sufficiently formed, and most importantly, the need for independent research is becoming less and less, children are much more willing to use ready-made formulas, which they also accept with little interest, without much desire to clarify something, expand and deepen knowledge, use independent search, show creation.
"The fascist flew by"
Elementary analysis in preschoolers is the starting point for a more complex, completely causal analysis, which examines the connections and dependencies between various signs of a particular phenomenon. In the eighth grade there was a regular lesson on speech culture. The teacher presented a reproduction of A. Plastov’s painting “The Fascist Flew” and asked to tell what the students saw in the painting. For some unknown reason, the class faded away. When the pause became unbearable, the very first excellent student raised her hand and said uncertainly: “The boy, apparently, is a Nazi. Most likely, something didn’t work out for him, it didn’t stick together, he was upset. He lies in khaki, in his berets, and cries. And the dog howls at him and takes pity on him.”
It is clear that modern children are completely victims of jargon. Who is a fascist for today's schoolchildren? Nationalist, skinhead. What action does the verb “fly by” now mean? I didn’t calculate, I made a mistake. Why did the cows lie down there? So who knows, they walk wherever they want. No one noticed the plane taking off. And the year the picture was created did not remind the children of anything. Although everyone answered the question about when the Great Patriotic War began. Cognitive activity in the classroom does not always bring the desired results. The students did not connect the information fragments together and did not synthesize them. Because they did not receive enough knowledge and skills in preschool age, when they should have been taught comparisons by contrast, by similarity, by similarity in elementary subjects.
Characteristics
The activity of cognitive processes is characterized by the following features.
- Activities aimed at cognition appeared from the moment of birth; they develop intensively throughout childhood, accumulating ways of understanding the world around the child.
- The cognitive activity of younger schoolchildren is manifested in all types of activities, without being focused on a separate area.
- Preschoolers learn to compare, experiment, solve their own and other people’s problems, ask, think, learning more and more new phenomena and objects.
- A child’s curiosity has a comprehensive scope; he not only learns about individual phenomena or objects, but tries to recognize certain devices, purposes, reasons, methods of use, purposes, and so on.
Thus, it becomes clear that the most important thing for studying the world around us is experience.
Questions and answers
At the end of a school lesson or kindergarten class, it is quite appropriate to leave a little time so that children can ask questions that have accumulated and get answers to them. If such work is carried out systematically, the curiosity of the class or group only grows.
A smart teacher responds to questions quickly, but wisely: he answers some immediately, makes others the topic of the next lesson, and for others asks to find the answer in certain books or encyclopedias, and even organizes a competition to see whose answer is better. Independent search for information is absolutely necessary. Of course, in everything a measure is needed so as not to extinguish curiosity and children's interest in an object or phenomenon.
Manifestation
Cognitive activity is an ability that is difficult to develop and impossible to hide. By simply observing a child’s activities, you can determine how active he is and whether he strives for new knowledge. The presence of cognitive activity of preschoolers is shown by the following facts.
- The child is captivated by the activity, subject or story.
- He has a pronounced desire to complete a wide variety of, even complex, tasks; he does not want to stop and finish his actions.
- He shows independence, choosing means and methods of action, achieves the result himself and controls himself, this means that cognitive activity is at its best.
- When communicating with adults, he asks questions that satisfy his cognitive interest.
- He is very emotional about what he does.
The level, of course, varies greatly. The cognitive activity of preschoolers manifests itself differently in different children. If a child approaches his activities creatively, knows how to find non-standard solutions, thinks creatively, and uses previously acquired knowledge, this is a high level.
Analysis and synthesis
Children already at preschool age should have the ability to perform mental operations, analyze and synthesize acquired knowledge. There are all kinds of teaching methods for this, but you need to choose from those that rely on children receiving the widest possible information field. The formation of cognitive activity goes something like this. Preschoolers are shown a picture of a house under construction and asked to describe the person depicted, identifying his profession.
Here the most significant connections and relationships are analyzed: why does a builder have, for example, a trowel in his hand, why is there such a high crane, why is the house so huge, who needs it at all and why. If children learn to identify internal relationships, delve into the essence of phenomena, and draw correct conclusions, then perhaps by the eighth grade of school they will not have such an unpleasant curiosity as happened recently in a Moscow school.
Facilities
Cognitive activity requires constant growth and persistence of interests, then experience will accumulate quickly and knowledge will become stable. The methods of transferring knowledge from an adult to a child can be very different, and the means should be as simple but exciting as possible. The process of forming an attitude towards the world around us is the unity of the emotional and intellectual in the knowledge of reality.
By the end of preschool age, the child acquires independence, some self-regulation and self-control in his activities, knows how to set a goal and achieve it by finding a suitable way. Moreover, he can already evaluate the result himself. He almost stops copying the actions of adults, sometimes even deviates from the requirements presented, shows initiative and volitional efforts aimed at achieving results. He must regulate his own behavior.
Goals
The development of children's cognitive activity is necessary for all their subsequent life activities. In the process of learning, a child must be a full-fledged personality for an adult, capable of both determining his own activity and creatively approaching the task at hand, realizing not only interests and needs, but also will. Further schooling depends entirely on how developed these abilities are in kindergarten.
The cognitive activity of schoolchildren is already a manifestation of the child in his own activities, independently building relationships with teachers and classmates. At the age of four or five years, the transformative initiative in cognitive activity should fully manifest itself. He is already aware of his own capabilities, which encourages initiative, new desires, and creativity.
