The importance of play in the life of a preschooler
Definition 1
Game is an important component in organizing education and leisure for people of different ages.
Play is the main activity of a preschool child. It is in the process of play that a preschooler develops physical and spiritual strength, memory, attention, discipline and dexterity. In addition, the game helps children acquire the necessary social and public experience.
Play activities are of great importance for the development of preschool children. This is due to the fact that the game seems to be a kind of experimental platform for the child, on which he can analyze his own experience, existing information about the world around him, as well as expand and deepen it.
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The significance of gaming activities for the education, training and development of a preschool child is as follows:
- Providing the child with sovereignty, independence and independence in choosing actions.
- Experimentation is an opportunity to test one’s own previously accumulated social experience.
- Play is one of the most important stages in learning about life.
Note 1
Thus, play activity for preschool children is a vital necessity, one of the conditions for their successful development. During the game, children learn and explore the world around them, learn to interact with society.
Comparison of traditional and modern games for preschool children
Recently, the repertoire of games for preschool children has undergone significant changes. Traditional games have practically disappeared from everyday life, and children’s attitude towards toys has also changed. The changes affected the play set of a modern preschooler and the general principles of organizing the play environment around him.
Finished works on a similar topic
Course work Features of the play activities of modern preschoolers 440 ₽ Abstract Features of the play activities of modern preschoolers 270 ₽ Examination Features of the play activities of modern preschoolers 190 ₽
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The changes are due to the fact that the physical space for organizing games in the city, and sometimes in rural areas, has been significantly reduced. This leads not only to territorial separation of children, but also to a gap between generations.
The children's subculture is also subject to deformation, which is marked by an impoverishment of the repertoire of children's folklore, the loss of oral texts and a significant change in the play repertoire.
Traditional games are aimed at uniting the children’s team; they provide for variability in the child’s behavior “from individual to collective.” This allows children to learn the rules of behavior in society. In addition, in traditional games, children initially choose a leader (leader), that is, they learn status behavior. This combination of simultaneous equality (team) and subordination (leader) develops in children a sense of respect for other people’s opinions, freedom, responsibility, independence and understanding of their own actions.
However, it should be noted that traditional games are being replaced by modern games, often these are a variety of computer games. Unlike traditional ones, they carry a significant load on the child’s eyes, his musculoskeletal system (prolonged immobile posture), emotional overload, lack of fresh air and “live” communication.
Note 2
Thus, adults’ lack of understanding of the significance of the pedagogical influence of traditional games on a child’s development and their neglect leads to the fact that children are more and more immersed in the world of modern computer games. The result of their impact does not guarantee the desired positive educational result.
Psychological and pedagogical characteristics of play activity and its development in preschool age
The formation of a harmoniously developed personality, the education of its social orientation is an important task of child psychology and preschool pedagogy. In relation to preschoolers, one of the most natural ways to form a full-fledged personality is play as a leading activity at this age. However, play is not the only activity that affects a child’s mental development. Let us list the types of activities of a child in preschool age: household and work activities (construction, modeling, drawing); musical activity; communication.
Each of these types of activities has its own characteristics, requires mastery of special methods of action and has its own specific impact on the development of the child. But let's focus on gaming activities.
In play activity, from the very beginning of its appearance, the child’s ideas about the world around him are reflected - about the world of things and the world of people and human relationships; A child's play is social from the very beginning.
In experimental psychological and pedagogical studies, children's play was examined from various points of view. First of all, the subject of many studies was joint role-playing play, typical for middle and senior preschool age, the essence of which is the recreation of human relationships between adults and the child’s relationship with adults.
In relation to younger preschool age, we studied the development of objective actions in the game, the emergence of primary game generalizations, the transfer of meanings from one object to another, the inclusion of substitute objects in the game, generalization and reduction of real actions in a game situation. In one form or another, these problems are reflected in almost all works concerning the development of a preschooler and the characteristics of his upbringing. L. S. Vygotsky, A. V. Zaporozhets, D. B. Elkonin - the founders of Russian child psychology - developed the theory of preschool play, which was specified and supplemented as teachers (A. P. Usova, F. I. Fradkina, D. V. Mendzheritskaya, R. I. Zhukovskaya, N. Ya. Mikhailenko, E. V. Zvorygina, V. Ya. Voronova), and psychologists (L. A. Wenger, S. L. Novoselova, N. S. Pantina, L. S. Slavina, M. I. Lisina).
The development of a child’s play activity is currently being studied both in pedagogy and in child psychology. Psychologists study play as the leading activity of a preschooler from the point of view of its structure and dynamics of development from primary forms to the development of role-playing play. Pedagogy considers various possibilities for using gaming activities to develop various knowledge, skills and abilities in a child, forms of organizing play in a kindergarten group in order to develop practical recommendations for educators and parents, taking into account age characteristics.
From a psychologist’s point of view, play is a special type of human activity. It arises in response to the social need to prepare the younger generation for life.
Play affects all aspects of mental development, which has been repeatedly emphasized by both teachers and psychologists. Thus, A. S. Makarenko wrote: “Play is important in the life of a child, it has the same meaning as activity, work, service for an adult. What a child is like at play, so in many ways he will be at work when he grows up. Therefore, the education of a future leader occurs primarily in play. And the whole history of an individual as an actor or worker can be represented in the development of play and in its gradual transition into work.”
In accordance with the currently available scientific data, the sequence of development of children’s play activities has been determined in accordance with their age characteristics. The child’s play activity originates and develops against the background of objective-practical activity, which occupies a leading position at an early age (second or third year of life). Knowledge of the properties and qualities of surrounding objects, assimilation of methods of acting with them are determined at this stage of development of actions with toys, i.e. characteristic actions - initial play skills, objective and orientation activities with toys outside of any plot in a free sequence.
Play with elements of an imaginary situation is preceded by two types of infant play: familiarization and display. Displayive object-play actions are typical for a child from 5–6 months to 1 year 6 months.
In the second half of the second year of life, the baby’s sphere of interaction with others expands. The child’s need for joint activities with adults is growing. Closely observing the world of adults, the baby highlights their actions. The experience gained in actions with toys and in everyday life gives the child the opportunity to display the actions of people with objects in accordance with the purpose accepted in society (for example, the process of feeding, treatment). At this age, actions are directed not at obtaining results, but at fulfilling a goal that is clear from past experience. That is, the action becomes conditional, and its result becomes not real, but imaginary. The child moves on to the plot-display stage of play development.
Gradually, indicative-exploratory and object-manipulative actions are replaced by slightly different, so-called object-effective actions (typical for children from 2 years to 2 years 6 months). In other words, the child acts with the toy in exactly the way that the specifics of the toy are designed for: he drinks from a toy cup, gives water to a doll from it, drives a car. With careful guidance from adult teachers and parents, the child can connect some of these game actions into chains that display some kind of elementary plot (“the doll is having lunch,” “the bear is sleeping,” “the bunny is coming to visit in a car”), like would reflect in play actions with toys some of the actions of elders with real objects. That is why this level is often called the display level.
In the third year of life, the baby begins to strive to realize the play goal, so these actions acquire a certain meaning: he feeds the doll in order to give her lunch. The actions are gradually generalized and become conditional: the child brings the spoon to the doll several times and, believing that lunch is over, moves on to another play action. The child constantly compares his actions with the actions of an adult. Let us emphasize that the emergence of play goals is possible if the child has formed an image of an adult and his actions.
By the end of the third year in primary preschool age, play actions are often determined by some simple plot: the connection between actions is realized, their meaning in the displayed situation, their correct sequence, the selection of toys and attributes becomes purposeful. Now the associated plot role-playing actions are also highlighted. This level of game development is plot-representative.
In a plot-based game, children convey not only individual actions, but also elements of adult behavior in real life. In games, a “role in action” appears. The child performs the function of a mother-hairdresser without identifying himself in accordance with this function. And to the adult’s question: “Who are you?” answers: “I am Yulia (Lena, Andryusha).” In such games, actions with plot-shaped toys are at first very similar to real practical actions with objects and gradually become generalized, turning into conventional ones.
The development of the plot of the games was studied by N. Mikhailenko, N. Pantina. First, plots describe the actions of one character with certain objects in one or successively changing situations. Characters, objects and actions with them are strictly fixed and repeated as if according to the same pattern: for example, a girl cooks dinner, feeds a bear. The plots then involve multiple characters with a set of specific connections. The connection of the characters is established through their inclusion in the general situation of the role through a consistent exchange of actions. There are three possible options here. The first involves two fixed characters, one of which is the object of the other's action, for example, the driver and passengers. In the third, the characters exchange actions: the buyer chooses the product, and the seller weighs it. By the end of the third year of life, plots are observed in which, along with a set of actions, certain relationships between the characters are specified. For example, the relationship of leadership and subordination in the game “kindergarten”, when the teacher leads the lesson and the children listen. Or a combination of leadership and submission with an equal exchange of actions, when in the same game the music director replaces the teacher, and then the parents take the children.
In the third year of life, children’s relationships in play develop. At first they arise for non-game reasons - places or toys that attract the child. Then children who continue to play alone develop the ability to play with toys, show interest in the activities of their peers and imitate their actions. Relationships also arise for non-game reasons. The child complains if one of the children interferes with his play or takes away a toy. The baby protests against the interference of another child in his play. He can take away the toy he needs for play, not give it up, share the joy of owning it, his small achievements in the game (he dressed up the doll beautifully).
The next stage in the development of relationships in the game is associated with the formation of children’s own play interaction based on the general place of the game, the action performed simultaneously (one builds, the other hands out bricks). Children join a peer playing nearby, rejoice in joint efforts, understand when one of the children does not perform a common action, and express complaints about its quality. At the end of the third year of life, interaction with peers arises regarding role activities, quality of performance, and achieved results.
Thus, the prerequisites for a role-playing game are being formed, which will develop intensively in preschool childhood.
In middle and senior preschool age, the level of plot-role-playing joint play is reached. At this stage, it is determined by the plot agreed upon by the participants, the distribution of roles, and game actions in accordance with the accepted roles. Role-playing speech and sequence of actions correspond to the rules of behavior and the logic of real life.
In early childhood, a child masters actions with objects in his immediate environment. The growing desire for independence and the need to act like an adult leads to the fact that the child strives to imitate adults in everything. It is no longer enough for him to perform only everyday actions. He wants to drive a car, treat people, sell food. But this is impossible to do in real life. The created contradiction between the desired and the possible leads to the emergence of a role-playing game, where the child takes on the role of an adult, performing his functions for fun. The outstanding psychologist A. N. Leontiev emphasized: “... Mastery by a child of a wider, directly inaccessible circle of reality can only be accomplished in play.” The child, modeling the activities of adults in the game, expands the sphere in which he can act.
A.V. Zaporozhets wrote: “The game allows you to recreate in an active, visually effective form immeasurably wider spheres of reality, far beyond the limits of the child’s personal practice. In the game, the preschooler, with the help of his movements and actions with toys, actively recreates the work and life of the adults around him, the events of their lives, the relationships between them, etc. Thus, the necessary conditions are created for the child to understand new areas of reality, and at the same time for the development relevant areas of ability.
Role-playing play is of a social nature and is built on the child’s ever-expanding understanding of the life of adults. A new sphere of reality that a preschooler masters in this game is the motives, meanings of life and activities of adults. The child’s behavior in the game is mediated by the image of another person. The preschooler takes the point of view of different people and enters into relationships with other players that reflect the real interaction of adults. According to psychologist E. Gasparova, role-playing game is a recreation of social relationships between people, the relationships of people to each other.
Of course, this was noted by D.B. Elkonin, children do not realize this and when playing in relationships, they do not notice them at all, since relationships are obscured by actions, especially role behavior.
D. B. Elkonin, having examined the structure of a role-playing game, showed that its central component is a role - a way of behavior of people in various situations that corresponds to accepted social norms and rules.
Fulfilling a role puts the child in front of the need to act not as he wants, but as prescribed by the role, obeying social norms and rules of behavior. The preschooler takes the position of another person, and not just one, but different ones. Within one plot, the child “looks” at the situation through the eyes of several people. Today the girl plays the role of a mother, and tomorrow the role of a daughter. She understands how important it is for a mother to take care of her children, and how necessary it is for her daughter to be obedient. Thus, not only the rules of behavior are revealed to the child, but also their importance for establishing and maintaining positive relationships with other people. The need to follow the rules is realized, i.e. conscious obedience to them is formed.
Thematic role-playing game allows the child to understand the motives of the work of adults and reveals its social meaning. If initially the main place in choosing a role is occupied by its external attractiveness: a cap, a phonendoscope, shoulder straps, then during the game its social benefits are revealed. Now the child understands that the teacher raises children, the doctor treats them.
An important point in the development of role behavior is associated with the designation of the assumed role with the word: “I am a salesman, a hairdresser.”
For older preschoolers, the number of roles played expands to about 10, of which 2–3 become favorites. Role behavior is governed by rules that form the central core of the role. The child does not act as he wants, but as he should. While playing a role, he restrains his immediate impulses, sacrifices personal desires and demonstrates a socially approved pattern of behavior and expresses moral assessments.
Compliance with the rules and the child’s conscious attitude towards them shows how deeply he has mastered the sphere of social reality reflected in the game. It is the role that gives the rule meaning, clearly shows the preschooler the need to follow and creates opportunities to control this process. Failure to follow the rules leads to the collapse of the game. Moreover, the rules are observed more successfully in group games, since peers monitor how partners fulfill them. A child’s attitude towards rules changes throughout preschool age. At first, the baby easily breaks the rules and does not notice when others do this, because he does not understand the meaning of the rules. Then he records the violation of the rules by his comrades and opposes it. He explains the need to follow the rules, relying on the logic of everyday connections: this does not happen. And only then do they become conscious and open. The child consciously follows the rules, explaining that following them is necessary. This is how he learns to control his behavior. “The game is a school of morality, but not morality in performance, but morality in action,” wrote D. B. Elkonin.
The fulfillment of the role occurs through certain game actions. So, the girl, acting as a mother, feeds, bathes, dresses, and puts her “daughter” to bed. As the child grows up, play actions are more and more generalized, acquiring a conditional character, often being replaced by the words: “The laundry has already been washed,” “You have already come from school,” “You have already recovered.” Mastering a variety of game actions allows the preschooler to most fully and accurately realize the role. Games in the imaginary plane gradually appear, when the child moves from playing with real game objects to playing with imaginary ones.
A.V. Zaporozhets wrote: “Of particular importance are the mental changes that occur in play, which consist not in the transition of individual actions from the material to the ideal, mental plane, but in the formation of this mental plane in the child on the basis of external play activity, in the development the ability to create systems of generalized, typical images of surrounding objects and phenomena and then make various mental transformations of them, similar to those that actually happened with material objects.”
In play, the child uses a variety of game items: toys, attributes, substitute items. The last group deserves special mention. Substitution arises in a problematic situation: what to do when the doll wants to eat, but there is no spoon? With the help of an adult, the child finds a suitable object - a stick instead of a spoon. True substitution occurs only when the child names a substitute object in accordance with its new function, that is, consciously gives it a new meaning. The natural question is: where are the boundaries of substitution? Can everything be everyone in a children's game? It turns out not. The main condition is that with the substitute object one can perform the same function as with the one being replaced. Therefore, a spoon can be a stick, a pencil, even a thermometer. But the ball cannot be used instead of a spoon, as it will not scoop up food. The use of substitute objects enriches children's play, expands the possibilities of modeling reality and contributes to the development of the sign-symbolic function of consciousness.
Thus, in a role-playing game, the child performs symbolization (substitution) of two types. Firstly, it transfers action from one object to another by renaming the object, which acts as a means of modeling human actions. Secondly, he takes on the role of an adult in reproducing the meaning of human activity through generalized and abbreviated actions that acquire the character of figurative gestures, which acts as a means of modeling social relations.
The older the child, the greater independence he shows in the selection and use of substitute objects, the less importance external similarity plays for substitution, and the greater the importance of functional similarity, and the wider the range of objects that he replaces. More often, material that is not substantively designed acts as substitute objects, since its function is not fixed: pebbles, shreds, sticks, scraps of paper.
Attribute objects are of no small importance for gaming activities. They help the child take on a role, plan and develop a plot, and create a game situation. They seem to provide external conditions for the implementation of the role, making it easier for the child to behave in a role. It is easier for a child to play the role of a doctor when he is in a white coat and cap. In older preschool age, the child needs external attributes less and less, because ideas about the function of adults become such a support.
The game involves the creation of an imaginary situation, which is its plot and content. The plot is the area of activity that is modeled by children in the game. Consequently, the choice of plot is always based on certain knowledge. That is why, throughout preschool age, “family” games are favorites for children, since they themselves are involved in such relationships every day, and therefore have the most complete understanding of them.
Gradually, preschoolers begin to introduce stories from their favorite fairy tales and films into their games. This feature becomes especially noticeable from the age of 4. The games intertwine real and fairy-tale plots, and the reconstructed sphere of reality continues to expand as the child is included in more complex social relations. Everyday stories are joined by professional ones, and then social ones. The richness and variety of plots is closely related to the richness of children's imagination. At the same time, creating game plots stimulates the development of children's imagination and creative activity.
For the youngest children, the plot is suggested by a toy or attribute that came into their field of vision and attracted their attention. The children's play does not last long, the plots are very unstable and monotonous. They usually consist of one, or less often two, storylines. For example, a mother and daughter are cleaning the house or washing the dishes.
In middle preschool age, children begin to plan the plot before the game begins in accordance with their interests.
Throughout the game, several storylines can be traced: the mother not only takes care of her daughter, but also takes her to the theater, kindergarten, and sews her a dress. Children begin to combine games with different themes, for example, a toy workshop, a store and a kindergarten. Game activity gradually moves away from real reliance on objects and practical actions and becomes imaginary. Now it is no longer the object that is the basis of the plot, but it is in accordance with the plot that the objects necessary to organize the game are selected. The content of the game means what is highlighted and reproduced by children as the main point of reality and relations between adults in their work and social life. With age, a preschooler increasingly discovers hidden social relationships behind external actions and attributes.
In role-playing games, role-playing and real-life relationships develop between children. The former determine the choice and distribution of roles and are manifested in various remarks, comments, and demands that regulate the course of the game. The distribution of roles is an important point in the emergence of a game. Often, a child leader imposes uninteresting roles on his comrades, while he himself takes on the most attractive one, regardless of the wishes of others. If the children fail to agree on the distribution of roles, then the game falls apart or one of the children leaves it. The older the child, the more pronounced his desire to play together with his peers, the more inclined he is to agree to perform an unattractive role just for the sake of joining a play group. He restrains his personal desires and submits to the demands of other children.
When choosing partners for joint games, preschoolers rely on their sympathies, highlight moral qualities and gaming skills that are valued in their peers. It is of no small importance that a peer has attractive play moments.
Real relationships in a role-playing game also take place when the child temporarily steps out of the role and gives instructions to the other regarding the further course of the game and compliance with the rules.
The second type of relationships that arise in the game are real relationships. Real relationships often contradict game ones. The older the child, the more often the conflict between role and real relationships is resolved in favor of the latter. Real relationships in the game are no less important than role-playing ones. The need to play together with peers, which grows with age, confronts the child with the need to choose a plot, assign roles, and control the role behavior of a partner, which leads to the development of communication skills.
The value of a joint role-playing game is that it has a tremendous impact on the process of formation of individual mental functions, such as thinking, speech, memory, attention, certain types of activities (constructive, visual), communication activities, imagination, cognitive activity, and personality development the child as a whole. Therefore, it is joint role-playing play as an activity leading in preschool age that has become a means by which children develop various skills and abilities, various actions and activities. It is often considered not only as a later and highly developed stage in the development of gaming activity, but also as the highest feature of the game.
However, children's play activity is not limited to role-playing games, although they are most typical for preschoolers. A variety of role-playing games are construction games and dramatization games. This group of games is sometimes called creative. In them, children do not simply copy certain aspects of the lives of adults, but creatively comprehend them, reproducing them with the help of roles and play actions. Another group of games are games with rules, specially created by adults for educational purposes. These include didactic and outdoor games. The basis of these games is clearly defined program content and didactic tasks. An adult teaches children such games, and only then do they play them on their own.
Along with the stages under consideration, there are other equally important areas of development of the game. According to the candidate of psychological sciences, Research Institute of Preschool Education E. Gasparova, individual play can be identified as one of the most important areas of children's play activity. Indeed, in early and early preschool age, play is almost exclusively individual in nature, during which the child first learns how to operate with objects and practices the correct sequence of play actions.
Playful communication and joint play skills develop in parallel with individual play with toys. Individual play is a special form of child activity, which gives him the opportunity to actualize his social experience with the help of gaming skills. Moreover, the absence of a partner does not require such a high level of communication development.
As in every game, there is a social plot, which is a reflection of the child’s direct and indirect social experience. Actually, these are the relationships and actions of others (adults and children) that the child observes in everyday life - in the family, in kindergarten, in the yard, in the store, in transport.
It is noteworthy: a child can not only enter into these relationships, perceive them accordingly and evaluate them as if from the inside, but also observe from the outside. In both cases, they are assimilated and constitute his direct social experience, which underlies almost all the plots of individual games, especially in the games of children of early and early preschool age.
Indirect social experience - knowledge and ideas about people’s relationships obtained from books read, fairy tales, cartoons watched, TV shows, etc. - manifests itself in children’s play from the end of an early age and, gradually expanding, forms the basis for the plots of individual games. throughout preschool and primary school. As a rule, such an experience is realized in a game with various, sometimes significant, deviations from the original - a fairy tale, a short story, a cartoon.
Association is a typical feature of individual play. In such a game, the child does not have a preliminary game plan or a ready-made plot; he only roughly imagines the theme. The existing social experience, both mediated and direct, intertwining, determines the development of the plot, but does not impose an invariable sequence of events.
Hence the complexity of the action, which requires the inclusion of many characters in the game. Their roles are played by toys - dolls, animals or any objects that replace social objects. Thus, the child receives complete freedom in choosing a plot, in the distribution of roles and in their interpretation; Moreover, it can direct the actions of these unique partners without interference. Indeed, in a joint game with friends you have to take into account at least four positions: first, your own, personal; secondly, the role assumed; thirdly, the partner’s position and fourthly, his role position.
When dolls act as partners, it is easier for the baby to comprehend the events taking place in the game: he himself organizes the situation, reacts to the relationships between the characters and motivates their actions. At the same time, he gradually learns to take into account the possible points of view of other characters, since he can understand and lose certain relationships only when he mentally puts himself in their place. This skill is necessary for the development of role-playing games. And as the child masters it, he creates increasingly complex play situations, sometimes with many toy participants. However, this is what is characteristic: the child does not take on any permanent role, but, regulating the relationships of the characters, organizes the game like a director. This unique position allows us to call games of this type director’s.
Director's games are typical for preschoolers of all ages, but they are mainly played by children from four and a half years old to seven and older, that is, those who already have the skills of joint and individual play, ideas about various forms of relationships between people (social experience). If, in addition, the child is deprived of the opportunity to participate in joint role-playing games, then director’s individual play predominates, sometimes almost the only type of role-playing game available to the child.
Based on all this, we can say that the role of play in the mental development of a child is very great. In play activities, the mental qualities and personal characteristics of the child are most intensively formed. The game develops other types of activities, which then acquire independent meaning. Gaming activity influences the formation of arbitrariness of mental processes. In play, children begin to develop voluntary attention and voluntary memory, mental activity and imagination, speech and reflexive thinking.
Within the gaming activity, educational activity also begins to take shape, which later becomes the leading activity. The teaching is introduced by the adult, it does not arise directly from the game. But a preschooler begins to learn by playing - he treats learning as a kind of role-playing game with certain rules. However, by following these rules, the child unnoticeably masters basic learning activities. The attitude of adults towards learning, which is fundamentally different from that towards play, gradually, gradually changes the child’s attitude towards it. He also develops the initial ability to learn.
Literature:
1. Uruntaeva G. A. Preschool psychology. Tutorial. - M., ed. Center Academy.-1999
2. Gasparova E. Leading activity of preschool age //Preschool education.-1987.-7. P.45–50
- Leontiev A.N. Psychological foundations of preschool play.//Favorites. psychologist. works: In 2-kht.-M., 1983.- t 1.-P.303–323.
- Psychology and pedagogy of preschooler play/.Ed. Zaporozhets A.V., Usovoy A.P.-M., 1966
- Elkonin D. B. Psychology of play. - M., 1971.
