Vocabulary development in preschool children: methods and techniques

Tags: Development, Speech development
The development of a child’s speech is an important area of ​​preschool and school education. And one of the criteria for success is a rich vocabulary (the number of words that a child can use during communication).

To avoid delayed speech development, it is necessary to enrich the baby’s vocabulary from the first year of life. Classes aimed at expanding and activating the vocabulary should be conducted not occasionally, but daily. Only with regular and systematic vocabulary work will you be able to raise an erudite and intellectually developed child.

Features of children's dictionary by year

1–3 years

A one-year-old baby knows and can use 5–9 one- or two-syllable words (“give”, “ma-ma”, “pa-pa”, “la-la”). In the next 2 years, his vocabulary quickly expands due to the words that his parents use in everyday communication, and reaches 800–1000 lexical units.

Thematic categories that a child aged 1–3 years operates with:

• names of family members, names of pets;
• names of toys, surrounding household items (dishes, furniture, food);
• names of 5–10 animals and plants;
• names of seasons and weather phenomena (“rain”, “snow”, “sun”).

The basis of a three-year-old's vocabulary is nouns with specific meanings and verbs. Adjectives and adverbs are not used at this age: the child cannot use words to describe an object or his emotional state.

4–5 years

During this period, a qualitative leap occurs: the child’s vocabulary is enriched with new thematic groups and reaches a volume of 1900–2200 words.

New thematic categories in a child’s dictionary at 4–5 years old:

• emotional experiences, feelings and emotions (“cheerful”, “angry”, “sad”, “offended”);
• qualitative characteristics of objects (“big”, “green”, “cold”);
• diminutive forms (“mommy”, “brother”);
• names of baby animals (“kitten”, “duckling”).

At 5 years old, a child learns the basics of word formation. Now he can create groups of words with the same root using prefixes and suffixes: “water” - “water”, “goose” - “gosling”, “table” - “table”. At the same time, he realizes not only the relatedness of such lexical units, but also their differences (“a goose is an adult bird, and a gosling is a baby”).

5–7 years

The child’s vocabulary increases approximately 2 times: now its volume is about 3000–4000 words.

Thematic groups that a child aged 5–7 years should use:

• time intervals (“minute”, “hour”, “year”), days of the week, months and seasons;
• spatial concepts (“top”, “bottom”, “left”, “right”);
• numerals (from 1 to 10, sometimes up to 100);
• first and last names of parents, close relatives, famous writers;
• some social science terms (“country”, “Motherland”, “people”, “labor”, “Russia”), names of city attractions and holidays (“New Year”, “Birthday”, “Christmas”);
• professions and sports, colors and shades, parts of the human body, natural phenomena;
• household items (clothing, shoes, hats, toys, dishes, furniture, hygiene products), vehicles (water, land, air);
• domestic and wild animals, plants, fruits, berries, vegetables, flowers;
• words with a general meaning (“animals”, “transport”, “dishes”);
• emotional-evaluative words with the meaning of a person’s feelings and experiences.

Before enrolling a child in first grade, almost all schools conduct testing, which includes an assessment of the child’s speech development. That is why it is so important to identify gaps in the knowledge of a future first-grader in advance and eliminate them in a timely manner.

ENRICHING THE DICTIONARY OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN DURING GAME ACTIVITIES

№19, 27.05.2019

Pedagogical Sciences

Sharova Vlada Vitalievna

Scientific supervisor:
Nurieva A.R., assistant, non-resident, Yelabuga Institute (branch) KFU. Key words: VOCABULARY; CHILDREN; PRESCHOOL AGE; A GAME; SPEECH DEVELOPMENT; LEXICON; CHILDREN OF PRESCHOOL AGE; GAME; SPEECH DEVELOPMENT.

Abstract: The article discusses the process of enriching the vocabulary of preschoolers, as well as the influence of games as one of the main means of forming and developing children's vocabulary.

One of the significant indicators of a child’s harmonious development is his vocabulary, which reflects the level of human intelligence development.

The development of speech directly depends on the child’s perception of the world around him, cognitive activity, the accumulation of ideas, intellectual development, the formation of his character of emotions, in the individual as a whole. In the work of a teacher, this is the main role during the entire period of a child’s stay in a preschool institution.

Play activities contribute to the development of the child; Through play, he learns about the world, prepares for adult life, expressing his desires, ideas, and feelings. Play is the basis for the creative development of a preschooler; in it, he finds expression of his needs for curiosity, independence, and active participation in the lives of adults, imitating them.

Vocabulary work is a purposeful pedagogical activity that ensures that the child learns new words.

Today there are four main tasks of working in kindergarten on speech development:

Enriching the vocabulary with new words that were unknown to the child.

Consolidating and clarifying words already known to the child.

Activation of the dictionary. After all, when working with children, it is important that a new word enters the active vocabulary. This happens only if it is fixed and reproduced by them in speech.

Elimination of non-literary words (dialectal, colloquial, slang). This is especially necessary when children are in a disadvantaged language environment. The teacher, using special techniques, ensures that children not only know and understand the meaning of the necessary words, but also often use them in their speech, so that they develop interest and attention to the word.

The purpose of this work is to study the influence of gaming activities on the formation of the vocabulary of preschool children with the help of exercises and didactic games.

The object of the study is the formation of the vocabulary of children of middle preschool age.

The subject of the study is gaming activity as a means of enriching the vocabulary of preschool children.

Research hypothesis: when carrying out systematic and targeted work on the formation and development of children’s vocabulary in a preschool educational institution, it will be effective if:

— the level of development of preschoolers’ vocabulary will be revealed. - use special games and exercises aimed at enriching children's vocabulary. — create a developmental environment that promotes the speech development of preschool children.

Based on this goal, we are given the following tasks:

1. Study psychological and pedagogical literature on the topic of the course work.
2. In a conversation with teachers in a preschool educational institution, identify how relevant the problem of forming the vocabulary of preschoolers is for their daily practice.
3. Identify indicators and criteria for the development of the vocabulary of preschool children.
4. Carry out work to enrich the vocabulary of preschool children in the process of organizing play activities.

To study the initial level of vocabulary development in preschool children, 20 children from the middle group were diagnosed.

To diagnose the vocabulary of these children, the recommendations and methods of O.S. Ushakova and E.M. Strunina were used to establish the level of development of the child’s speech.

Before classes with children, a certain emotional contact was established to establish mutual understanding between the adult and the child. After breakfast, I conducted diagnostics with each child individually. For diagnostics, materials and drawings that are well known to children were selected. In a friendly environment, each child received a task and gave answers to it. If the task was difficult to complete, the child was provided with the necessary assistance.

Research methodology according to Ushakova, Strunina, the results of which are divided into three levels of vocabulary development of children in the middle group.

As a result of this survey, the following features of the development of children's vocabulary were identified:

Diagram 1.

Initial level of children's vocabulary.

Fig.1. Results of a study to identify the initial level of speech development.

Based on the results of the diagnostics, it was revealed that the majority of children coped with the work - 13 people with an average level of speech development, which is 65%.

4 people with a high level of vocabulary development of 15% coped well with the tasks.

For 20% of children, completing tasks caused great difficulty.

Our findings indicate the need for more serious work to enrich and activate children’s vocabulary. Preschoolers have difficulty using some general words, find it difficult to name some objects, and experience certain difficulties when constructing sentences. The vocabulary of some children is poor and monotonous; many find it difficult to select synonyms and antonyms for words.

This led to the implementation of activities aimed at creating effective pedagogical conditions for the development of vocabulary through didactic games.

As part of the formative stage , we involved teachers with children in the work, conducted didactic games during classes, in independent activities, the children expanded their knowledge about the world around them, which led, although not to a significant, improvement in vocabulary.

In addition, methodological recommendations were given to parents on how to activate and expand their children’s vocabulary .

The purpose of the formative stage of the experiment: testing the developed methodology of games to enrich the vocabulary of children of middle preschool age (4-5 years).

The content of the work was based on data obtained as a result of an ascertaining experiment on the level of assimilation of natural history vocabulary by preschoolers:

— frequency of use of words in children’s speech; - thematic principle; - accessibility of words to children.

Work to enrich the vocabulary was carried out on the basis of children's gaming experience, taking into account the peculiarities of the development of ideas and concepts. Children mastered the ability to identify characteristic features of objects and phenomena, generalize, and build logical chains.

In order to enrich the children's vocabulary, the following tasks were solved:

- activate the child’s existing vocabulary. Enrich the vocabulary by expanding, analyzing familiar objects, objects, natural phenomena and highlighting their properties in play activities; - learn to rely on different characteristics of objects for classification.

Work on enriching the vocabulary is organically included in the pedagogical process of a preschool educational institution. We tried not to ignore all types of activities that take place in a preschool educational institution (play, educational, work, household) without attention and guidance.

Table 1

Long-term plan for a project to develop children's speech through games in preschool settings

Diagram 2.

Control stage.

Fig.2. Results of the study on “Diagnostics of the level of speech development of children” in children of middle preschool age at the control stage of the experiment.

Thus, based on the results of the study at the control stage of the experiment, we can conclude that the project to familiarize children of senior preschool age with various types of games gives a positive result.

Diagram 3.

Comparative diagram (stating and control stage)

The results of our research allow us to say that if we use didactic games and exercises in the learning process aimed at expanding the vocabulary of preschool children, then the children’s speech will become more colorful and varied.

During my stay in kindergarten, no particular improvement was noticed, however, work to expand the vocabulary of children in MBDOU No. 11 will continue, and we hope for a more positive result.

Ways to develop vocabulary

There is a generally accepted formula that describes the mechanism for replenishing a child’s vocabulary:

1. the child hears the word;
2. understands its meaning;
3. remembers the word (sends it to the passive vocabulary);
4. learns to use it in speech (translates it into active vocabulary).

It is on this universal formula that exercises and activities should be built to help increase the baby’s vocabulary. If even one link is missing, the necessary word will not become part of the child's vocabulary.

Observation with comments

From the very birth of the baby, start talking to him: the baby must get used to the sound of human speech. Lesson options:

1. While walking, tell your baby everything you see. Try to make the story picturesque and figurative: use many adjectives, use synonyms. An example of a good description: “This is a tree. It is green, bright, with lush foliage. And how big, tall and majestic it is! This is a truly gigantic tree!” Try to comment on events emotionally: say how you feel from contemplating a rainbow or how you feel when a hot object touches your hand.
2. An eight-month-old child can already be taught about the structure of the body. Touch it and say: “This is a pen, your pen; little pink hand." Then show your hand and say: “This is my hand: look how big it is.” Remember to use as many adjectives as possible.
3. Organize a joint observation of something: a pet, an insect, a tree swaying in the wind, or something happening on the street. At the same time, comment on what is happening: “Look, a grasshopper is crawling along a leaf. Now he moved his paw. Funny, isn't it? Oh, that’s it, he galloped away.” If possible, let your child touch, smell, or even lick the observed object.
4. You can conduct several experiments with your child. Bring his hand to the cat’s fur and say: “This is a cat; It’s soft, warm and smooth.” Then invite the baby to hold a piece of ice and say: “This is cold, hard and wet ice.”
5. From the age of 2, you can purposefully introduce new lexical units into your child’s vocabulary. To do this, you must demonstrate the object to the child, say its name several times and make sure that the baby remembers it. Try to do it naturally. On a walk, as if by the way, show him a tree and say: “This is a spruce.” Point to another spruce and say again: “And this is a spruce.” Then, pointing to the tree, ask: “Do you think this is a spruce?” To make sure that your child remembers the word, point to the spruce and ask: “What kind of tree is this?”

Conversations

From the age of 3, the child already understands the meaning of the text and understands the content of poems and fairy tales that his mother reads to him. Therefore, you can discuss the books you read or the illustrations you viewed. Effective exercises:

• the child tells what is shown in the pictures and makes up stories based on them;
• the child answers questions based on the text he just listened to (good questions: who did you like best? what event do you remember? what would you do in the hero’s place? why?);
• the child describes an object in detail (parents can ask clarifying questions: what shape is it? what color?).

To learn the names of body parts and items of clothing, have your child describe himself or a doll.

Reading fiction

Be sure to read aloud to your child. After all, reading fiction is the most important way to enrich your vocabulary. Children who have loved books since childhood have more developed speech than their peers, are able to construct sentences correctly, and write essays better in school.

When reading a book to your child, try to pronounce words clearly, loudly and correctly, and avoid mistakes in articulation and emphasis. If there are unfamiliar words in the text, explain their meaning to the baby.

MAGAZINE Preschooler.RF

Medvedeva Natalia Vasilievna

Nizhny Tagil State Social Pedagogical Institute (branch) of the Russian State Vocational Pedagogical University

Abstract: the article describes how a fairy tale influences the replenishment and enrichment of the vocabulary of children of senior preschool age.

Preschool age is an important period for the development of a child's speech. During its development, children's speech is closely related to the nature of their activities and communication. The development of speech goes in several directions: its practical use in communication with other people is improved, at the same time speech becomes the basis for the restructuring of mental processes, a tool of thinking. Currently, the issue of speech development of preschool children is especially relevant among teachers. The problem of developing the vocabulary of preschool children is especially relevant, because preschool childhood is the most favorable time for the development of vocabulary. If sufficient work in this direction is not carried out in preschool institutions and at home, most children at the time of entering school, not having a sufficient vocabulary, experience difficulties in communication, and this in turn is one of the reasons for school failure. Preschool age is an important period for the development of a child's speech. During its development, children's speech is closely related to the nature of their activities and communication. The development of speech goes in several directions: its practical use in communication with other people is improved, at the same time speech becomes the basis for the restructuring of mental processes, a tool of thinking.

It is in kindergarten that the most favorable conditions are created for the formation of children's oral speech. According to the Federal State Educational Standard for Additional Education, the educational field of “speech development” is the basis - a necessary condition and companion in the development of other areas. Without oral speech, it is impossible to understand the world around us, to fully communicate with peers and adults, as well as to develop the personality as a whole. The widespread and active introduction of computers, tablets, and smartphones into a child’s everyday life only aggravates speech disorders - speech is intonationally inexpressive, the vocabulary is poor, there is no coherent speech, and grammatical structure is impaired. The combination of these phenomena is a big problem in modern society.

In the teacher’s arsenal there are many methods and techniques aimed at understanding, expanding and activating the vocabulary of preschoolers, their application occurs systematically and continuously. A special role in this issue is given to the use of children's fiction, namely fairy tales. When using a fairy tale in the development of speech, the communicative orientation of each word and statement of the child is created, the lexical and grammatical means of language, the sound side of speech in the sphere of pronunciation, perception and expressiveness are improved, the development of dialogic and monologue speech occurs, and the relationship between the visual, auditory and motor analyzers arises. Reading children's fiction, namely fairy tales, allows you to implement the following tasks to enrich the vocabulary of preschool children:

1. Enriching the vocabulary with new words, children learning previously unknown words, as well as new meanings for a number of words already in their vocabulary.
2. Consolidation and clarification of vocabulary.
3. Activation of the dictionary.

The Russian folk tale, being understandable to a child of senior preschool age, is a powerful means of shaping speech imagery.

It is in the Russian folk tale that all the necessary elements of imagery are present; the fairy tale has a great educational and teaching influence on the child. Russian folk tales are easily perceived by children; on its basis, children develop thinking and imagination.

The concreteness and imagery of the depiction of the heroes, the organic connection between their appearance and character and behavior determine the artistic value of the Russian folk tale. The appearance of positive heroes is characterized by a short traditional formula - “the hero is so beautiful that “it cannot be said in a fairy tale, nor described with a pen . The narration often repeats the expressions “the morning is wiser than the evening , “the fairy tale is soon told, but the deed is not done soon,” and others. The same means of poetic language are used, for example constant epithets - “blue sea” , “dense forest” and so on. A child, constantly hearing similar expressions in the text of a fairy tale, makes them part of his own speech.

Fairy tales are unusually rich in phraseological units. They make fairy tales more imaginative, emotional, and colorful. Figurative expressions penetrate from fairy tales, are separated from them, and are born in “living” colloquial speech. For example, “black horse” , “crackling frost” , “well done Sagittarius” , “visibly and invisibly” , “jack of all trades” and many others figuratively characterize human behavior and natural phenomena.

Russian folk tales are also rich in comparisons, metaphors, and words with diminutive suffixes. Thus, the language of Russian folk tales is full of figurative words and expressions.

Reading Russian folklore reveals to children the inexhaustible wealth of the Russian language. At the same time, sensitivity to the expressive means of artistic speech and the ability to reproduce these means in one’s creativity develops. The more often children hear them, the more they absorb the harmony of the word, because fairy tales have an impact on the child’s language. Working with a fairy tale is not limited to reading, the content of what is read is discussed and analyzed in detail, conclusions are always drawn, questions are asked, thanks to which the child’s degree of understanding of the text is revealed. During this activity, speech is not only saturated with new words, but also the understanding of their meanings increases. To completely immerse a child in the atmosphere of a fairy tale, there is often a need to visualize what he hears - to act it out, to dramatize it, this process trains the child in retelling. Children get involved with great pleasure in the process of reading and listening to a fairy tale; a quiz, illustrations, hero costumes and much more can be used as motivation. Preschoolers can be asked to independently develop part of the plot or to compose the entire fairy tale, which undoubtedly contributes to the development of fantasy and imagination. With the correct selection of fairy tales, taking into account the age characteristics of children, fairy tales can have a huge educational impact on the child, develop the sphere of feelings, awaken complicity, compassion, form moral ideas, and develop various abilities of children. While reading a fairy tale and having a conversation about its content, a very strong emotional connection arises between the teacher and the students, which in turn has a beneficial effect on the assimilation of the moral values ​​embedded in the work.

Children need to read even when they can already read on their own, because they have a need to simply listen to a work. Be sure to talk with your children about the work you read, ask questions about what you heard, clarify, find out what the child understood and learned. This will teach preschoolers to analyze the meaning of the text, help the development of coherent speech, retelling, children will be able to learn to characterize the characters of the work, as well as express their opinion and attitude to what is happening in the work and, in the end, such a conversation will consolidate new words in the child’s dictionary and activate them . As a result, by school the child will have the necessary level of vocabulary development, and will also begin to understand the grammatical forms of his native language.

A fairy tale involves children, providing an opportunity to fantasize, imagine, and perhaps even the child will want to redo something in the fairy tale, thereby composing his own new work.

Thanks to the versatility of the fairy tale, the development of preschool children occurs comprehensively: in addition to enriching the spiritual and moral world of the child, the vocabulary expands and becomes more active. The child’s speech is filled with rich figurative expressions, forms of auditory and visual Russian literary language. Thought processes are improved, which contributes to the construction of verbal logical conclusions between phenomena and objects. Speech activity increases during retelling, as well as the expressiveness of speech.

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Vocabulary games

1. “Name the animal (plant, name, etc.).” Take the ball and place the children in front of you in a semicircle. Throw the ball to the children one by one: the child who caught the ball must name a word from a given thematic group and throw the ball back. The kid who couldn’t remember the word is eliminated from the game. The winner is the child who was able to stay in the game.
2. "Edible - inedible." The presenter says any word and throws the ball to the child. If the word denotes an edible object, the child catches the ball; if it is inedible, he throws it away. The exercise helps to understand how correctly the child has mastered the meaning of words. For example, if a child claims that a plate belongs to the group of edible objects, there is reason to think about it.
3. "Big small". The rules are the same as in the previous game. The presenter pronounces one word from a pair (“chair” or “high chair”, “table” or “little table”, “spoon” or “spoon”). If the child believes that the leader named a small object, he catches the ball, if it is large, he throws it away.
4. "Package". Each player receives a “package” with some item. The child must describe his subject in detail so that others understand what he is talking about.
5. "Analogies". Write the “equation” on the card: “A pigeon is a bird, a cat is a ?” The child must understand which thematic group the second word belongs to. This exercise helps you learn words with specific and general meanings.

Bibliography

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3. Levshina N.I.Modern approaches to the methods of speech development of preschoolers//Fundamental Research.-M.: 2015.-40 p.
4. Nevskaya V.P. Speech games and exercises: a manual for teachers and speech therapists, educators and parents. M.: Sphere shopping center, 2021. -64 p.
5. Rybakova E.V. Speech development of children: domestic and foreign experience. — M.: Sphere shopping center, 2021 -140 p.

Formation of active and passive vocabulary

It happens that a child knows a word, but does not use it. The reason often lies in the fact that the baby is not sure of its meaning. He just doesn't know in what context it can be used. The task of parents is to identify these “dead” lexical units and try to transfer them to the active stock (explain their meaning and show an example of use in speech).

Choose a variety of methods to build your child's vocabulary. Active and active children will enjoy playing with a ball: they will diligently remember the words, as long as the game continues. But calm children prefer listening to books and doing exercises with descriptions. And remember! A developed vocabulary is a guarantee of successful learning at school.

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