Some believe that a child's development begins here. in question about his full maturity. Yes, but some features of the development of representatives of this show themselves quite well at primary school age. The child is already an adult. Yes, but he does not consider himself as such. This is thinking for developing people. Why? Yes, because he remembers himself as he was before. But he does not know what real adulthood is, he has not yet felt it.
Therefore, they still call the pinnacle of childhood. And this is not just so, because the main points that are present in childhood, younger students also have. For example, the tendency to fantasize. Although it is somewhat less than that of children who go to kindergarten, it is much more than even adolescents. The reason for this is the still undeveloped frontal lobes of the brain, which complete their formation only at the age of 12. Sometimes at a later age.
Difficulties in compiling a characteristic
general characteristics elementary school age is a bit of a thankless task. Each person shows himself in his own way at this age stage. Some can help their parents and even earn some money, while others continue to play in the sandbox. As for making money, it most often happens with the assistance of parents. For example, a child may be given money for good marks at school.
There is one moment. Jr school age happens different. Most often, money is given to a child already in the later stages of this period, since small children do not really need money. However, children are different. Someone begins to demand pocket money from their parents already at the age of seven, while for someone such an idea and ability comes only at adolescence. True, adolescence should be a stage when a person must somehow, but work. Yes, let the parents. But at the same time, the mechanism of its existence must be adult. Okay, we're getting off topic now.
Adds complexity to the compilation of a detailed psychological characterization of a given age stage and the fact that a child may belong to different nationalities, cultures, which complicates the process of systematization. Therefore, a general description of primary school age should concern only a particular culture. In countries post-Soviet space it's very similar, so that's a big plus. Let's look at the main points.
Education
The general characteristics of primary school age must necessarily include this important element. After all, education is one of fundamental features person. So, only by learning, the child can fully socialize. The school becomes the agent of learning in primary school age. Thanks to her, he can not only absorb information that is provided school curriculum, but also communicate with peers and the teacher, gaining more and more new knowledge.
For primary school age, good learning ability is usually characteristic. Thus, children tend to learn what they are told. There is also competition. This age period is characterized high competition. Then it will come to naught, since children of this and later stages are still characterized by the predominance of desires over necessity. So parents should develop willpower.
Yes, at primary school age, willpower training is a rather complicated process. After all, the frontal lobes are not yet sufficiently developed to perform arbitrary regulation actions. Nevertheless, the actions of representatives of primary school age are already more conscious.
The Question of Willpower
It can no longer be said that primary school age is a period of complete childhood. So, the child already knows what to say and what not to say in this situation. Of course, this does not happen in every situation and not with every child. However, what the child is doing is already becoming more meaningful. It is already easier for him to force himself to do what gives him psychological discomfort, and he takes it quite calmly. However, there is one point.
A general characteristic of primary school age, or rather, one of its frequently encountered points, most often speaks of the restlessness of children. This problem sometimes occurs in adults. It is from restlessness that laziness is taken. However, it can also be the result of laziness. But the experience of doing homework, not postponing for later, in children it can be positive. However, this does not always lead to this effect. Children quite often give priority to pleasure, and what needs to be done is often ignored.
Immoderation
Also, the general characteristic of primary school age includes such an item as immoderation. What does this mean? Immoderation is the inability to control the intensity of something, keep your emotions and perform actions at the level of the golden mean. For example, a child can walk all day and completely ignore homework.
Such a phenomenon as truancy schoolwork, in representatives of this - this is a rather rare occurrence. However, in school classes you can see a group of people who not only do not go to lessons from time to time, but also persuade other people to do so. It leads to negative influence school environment on the socialization of these children. Therefore, the average general characteristic of primary school age may not be very beautiful. Naturally, if it is compiled by an honest teacher.
Only in this age period, a child can eat a mountain of sweets, and then eat nothing. However, some remain this stage and continue to brazenly indulge their desires, which perform only a signal function, and are not the main motive for action. So it is necessary to eradicate in children attempts in any way to exceed the threshold of acceptable pleasure. It hasn't led to anything good yet.
Assimilation of educational material
Difficult - this is how primary school age can characterize the assimilation of educational material. The general characteristic includes such moments as difficulties in retelling texts in a short time. And here we are talking specifically about summary. Detailed retellings in children given age work out quite well, because this case no need to try to separate the main from the secondary.
This is still enough challenging task for representatives of this age category like primary school age. The general characteristic explains this by the fact that the frontal lobes, which are responsible for separating the main from the secondary, are not yet sufficiently formed. Yes, these are the same areas of the brain that are responsible for the willpower of the child and the control of desires. After all, it is directly related to the logical understanding of the situation. Still, children still tend to be led by emotions, but this can go away with time.
Relationship with parents
This question is already acquiring teenage features. The characteristic of primary school age indicates that children belonging to this age group love parents. But at the same time, they are already trying not to show it, and at times they even try to get the better of them. At the same time, the opinion of parents is still valuable, despite the fact that communication with peers is also important element socialization of the child.
That is why after some time there is a need to face a choice: either peers or parents. In this case, there may even be a rebellion of the child himself. Some say it happens during adolescence. But nothing of the sort. This could happen at any time. It's just that the motives are different. Although here they may be similar.
Cunning
The characteristic of primary school age also includes such important point like a trick. Children really at this stage tend to be cunning. And it can not be called a full-fledged deception. Just people from 6 to 10-11 years old resort to different kind tricks. For example, if they are sick, they can easily exaggerate how they really feel. Actually, the brains of the child develop, therefore, the tendency to wag the tail can also develop.
Moreover, it is important to understand that not every child can be cunning. Everyone tries to do this, but not every person succeeds. This sometimes leads to the fact that education in the spirit of honesty really works. But in some cases, the child can really be very good at cunning, or the parents can also turn a blind eye to this. In this case, this can lead to duplicity of character in the future, which can make it very difficult to communicate with other people.
industriousness
What about industriousness? Are there any moments? It all depends on how the child feels at work. No one likes to do uninteresting work, which at the same time undermines a person's self-esteem. Therefore, such activities will not be successful with your child. Therefore, his attempts to learn a certain business should be encouraged. For example, if he wants to learn how to program (and this is a fairly common desire among children at the present time), then this should be encouraged.
In general, any attempt by a child to acquire a skill should be approved. After all, there are no useless skills. And if they are applied in a complex, then you can achieve even more best results. Here is such a hardworking characteristic of primary school age. In short, diligence is finding yourself, your vocation and further following it. Therefore, if you encourage these attempts in your child, it will be very good.
Primary school age - general characteristics: child psychology
Highly importance has the psychology of a child. After all, the general psychological characteristics of primary school age is the most controversial one you can think of. A lot has been said about adolescence, for example. There are painted strategies for education, which, in fact, is not so much education as ordinary learning.
Children of the age category we are considering still need to be educated. Although this should not be done as intensively as during adolescence. You can still punish, but recent times it is believed that it is much more effective to show the natural consequences of what the child does wrong. Indeed, in the psychology of the child there is already resistance to parents. It often happens that a child loves his parents. Yes, of course. How could it be otherwise. But the children are afraid to show this, they are embarrassed for the reason that it seems to them that if they do this, they will not be so mature. In general, this age period is characterized by a large number of cockroaches. But in adolescence, there will be even more of them. Get ready.
General characteristics of the development of a child of primary school age
The age stage can be called a period of active development of the child. Just at the beginning of primary school age, a physiological crisis falls. The child may feel tired, irritable, and uncommunicative. Yes, childhood is difficult period, there's nothing you can do about it. At the same time, it is important to note that this physiological crisis, despite such compound word, is a favorable moment that contributes to the socialization and learning of the child. This is, so to speak, a positive crisis.
However, one should take into account the irritability that the child has and understand that this feature is not too scary. You just need to simulate the natural consequences of his behavior. Do not scold, but it would be better if you show him what certain actions of his can lead to. This will teach him to take responsibility for his own actions, which will become the basis of his adulthood.
And now the general characteristics of primary school age briefly:
- The child is already beginning to feel like a full-fledged subject of social relations, which lays the foundation for his development. It is believed that it is necessary to support the child's beginnings in adulthood as early as adolescence, but it is advisable to start this earlier in order to at least begin to develop the correct model of behavior in oneself before the transition period.
- At this age, the frontal lobes of the brain are actively developing, which provokes a removal from fantasies (gradual) and an active interest in the realities of life. It is important for a parent to remember that these realities should be shown pointwise to a child of this age so as not to shock or injure him.
- A general developmental characteristic during early childhood implies that the child may be somewhat irritable. Work with the problem, not the effect. Develop in him a sense of responsibility.
These are the main points to be gleaned from this article. The general characteristics of children of primary school age are much more complicated, and you can only feel some of the theses from your own experience. It should be approached rationally, some issues need to be considered generally from an individual position. Despite the fact that the characteristic of primary school age is actively used, psychology is much further than templates. And you need to understand this.
Question 45. Psychological characteristic primary school age.
Psychological characteristics of primary school age
Primary school age is determined by an important external circumstance in a child's life - admission to school.
New social situation introduces the child into a strictly normalized world of relationships and requires him to organize arbitrariness, responsibility for discipline, for the development of performing actions associated with the acquisition of skills learning activities as well as mental development.
General sensitivity to the impact of environmental conditions of life, characteristic of childhood, contributes to the development of adaptive forms of behavior, reflection and mental functions.
the main task of this age - to teach children to learn without spending extra effort.
the emergence and consolidation of a very important personal characteristic, which becomes quite stable (the motivation to achieve success or the motive to avoid failures); sense of competence; arbitrariness, productivity, stability become common characteristics of all cognitive processes; self-regulation, self-control, goal-setting; inner plan actions; reflection; verbally - logical thinking(based on visibility); analyzing perception; the appearance of synthesizing perception (at the end of the period); arbitrary semantic memory, producing attention; adequate self-esteem; generalization of experiences; the logic of feelings.
Leading activity- educational activity. - (this is the type of activity that determines the greatest success in the development of cognitive processes).
Social sit development - the social status of the student (learning situation) -(this is a specific system of relations in the environment of reality, reflected in experiences and realized in joint activities with other people)
Communication features: the “child-adult” system is differentiated into “child-parents” and “child-teacher”, a child of primary school age is in great emotional dependence on the teacher, who is a significant adult for him;
the necessary abstinence from situational impulsive desires and mandatory self-regulation initially create in the child a feeling of loneliness, alienation from loved ones; communication among peers (in the classroom) becomes a special school social relations the means of effective communication acquired and used by the child determine the attitude of those around him; communication with peers is built from complete indifference. Through the ratio of rivalry (especially for the attention of the teacher) to the relationship of cooperation (comradely motives appear), the ability to emotional decentration is formed.
Features of the cognitive sphere: All activities contribute to the development of the cognitive sphere. Attention, memory, imagination, perception acquire the character of greater arbitrariness, the child learns ways to control them independently, which is helped by progress in speech development. Mentally mastered the classification. Comparisons, analytical-synthetic type of activity, modeling actions, which become prerequisites for the formation of formal-logical thinking in the future.
Physical development: weight increases, the skeleton undergoes ossification, development muscular systems s, small muscles of the hand develop.
Personality elementary school student: developing elements social feelings; social behavior skills are formed (mutual assistance,
collectivism); moral qualities are formed.
Speech: By the time the child enters school vocabulary the child is enlarged so much that he can freely communicate with another person on any occasion related to everyday life and within the scope of his interests. The child's vocabulary consists of nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, numerals and connective conjunctions. At this age, the child masters reading and writing. Freeing himself from the tension associated with mastering the performing actions of writing, the child begins to master written speech itself.
Thinking. The main types of thinking: visual-figurative, visual-effective and verbal-logical.
But over the period from the beginning of schooling to the transition to the next age stage, in conjunction with speech, thinking develops from
visual-figurative to abstract-logical.
Attention. Cognitive activity of the child, aimed at examination the world around, organizes his attention on the objects under study for quite a long time, until his interest dries up. The child can play or engage in productive activities for several hours.
activity. However, he will languish, be distracted if you need to be attentive in those activities that are not interesting to him or require mental stress. Thus, although children of primary school age can arbitrarily regulate their behavior, involuntary attention prevails.
Memory has a visual-figurative character, unmistakably remembers interesting, vivid, specific material. The child masters the techniques of productive memorization. Arbitrary memory becomes a function on which educational activity is based.
Psychology of development in primary school age.
Thinking becomes the dominant function in primary school age. Thanks to this, they intensively develop and rebuild themselves thought processes and, on the other hand, the development of other mental functions. By the age of nine, the outlined transition from visual-figurative to verbal-logical thinking is completed. The child develops logically correct reasoning: when reasoning, he uses operations.
School education is structured in such a way that verbal-logical thinking is predominantly developed. If in the first two years of study (7-8 years) children work a lot with visual samples, then by the third grade, i.e. by the age of 9, the volume of such activities is reduced.
At the end of primary school age appear individual differences: among children there are groups of "theorists" or "thinkers" who easily solve learning objectives verbally, "practitioners" who need reliance on visualization and practical actions, and "artists" with vivid imaginative thinking. In most children, there is a relative balance between different types of thinking.
By the age of 9, in the process of learning, a normally developing child develops scientific concepts. Mastering the system of scientific concepts in the learning process makes it possible to talk about the development in children by the end of primary school age of the foundations of conceptual or theoretical thinking.
At the beginning of primary school age, the perception of the child is not yet sufficiently differentiated. Because of this, the child sometimes confuses letters and numbers that are the same in spelling (for example, 6 and 9). By the age of nine, with appropriate training, synthesizing perception is formed in children. Developing intellect allows you to capture the connections between the elements of the perceived. This can be easily seen when children describe the picture.
Memory develops in two directions - arbitrariness and meaningfulness. Children involuntarily memorize material that arouses their interest, presented in game form associated with vivid visual aids or images-memories. But a nine-year-old child is able to purposefully memorize material that is not interesting to him. At this age, learning is increasingly based on arbitrary memory. At the age of 9, children, like younger schoolchildren, have a good mechanical memory. Many of them mechanically memorize educational texts, which leads to significant difficulties in the middle grades of the school.
Voluntary attention develops in early childhood. The child's voluntary attention continues to develop in the process of learning activity. Initially following the instructions of the teacher, working under his constant supervision, by the end elementary school the child gradually acquires the ability to perform tasks independently - he sets a goal and controls his actions. Control over the process of one's activity is, in fact, the student's voluntary attention. If at 6-7 years old a child can do one thing for 10-20 minutes, then at 9-10 years old - already 30-40 minutes.
The basis for the formation of the personality of a 9-year-old child is his involvement in the socially significant activity of learning, the results of which are highly or poorly evaluated by adults. The development of a student's personality depends directly on school grade him as a bad or good student. First of all, educational activity affects the development of the motivational sphere of children. By the age of nine, i.e., approximately the third grade of school, significant differences are found in the motivational development of children. The motivation of underachieving schoolchildren is specific, it differs from the motivation of their prosperous peers. If there is a strong motive for getting a mark and approval, the circle of their social motives (such as duty, responsibility, getting an education, etc.) is narrowed, which impoverishes motivation in general. Broad social motives correspond to the values that children take from adults, mainly learn in the family.
By the age of 9-10, a certain level of aspirations of the child is also formed. Children with a high level of aspirations and prestigious motivation count only on success and experience the "four" as a tragedy. Children with low level claims do not claim much either in the present or in the future. They do not set high goals for themselves and constantly doubt their abilities, quickly come to terms with the level of progress that develops at the beginning of their studies.
Mental characteristics of primary school age.
Junior school age covers from 6-7 to 9-11 years. An important circumstance in a child's life is going to school.
The main task of this age is to teach children to learn without spending extra effort.
The new social situation introduces the child into a strictly normalized schedule of relationships and requires him to be organized arbitrariness, responsibility for discipline, for the development of performing actions associated with acquiring the skills of an educational school, as well as for mental development. A new structure of relations arises at school: “child – adult”, “child – teacher”, “child – parent”.
the main task – to teach children to learn without spending extra effort. The new social situation of development requires a special d-ti from the child - educational.
Educational faculty - a form of individual activity of a younger student. It includes:
1) learning situation - (task) - what the student must master.
2) educational actions - changes in the educational material necessary for its development by the student, what the student must do in order to discover the properties of the subject that he is studying.
3) self-control actions - an indication of whether the student performed the action correctly.
4) the action of self-assessment - determining whether the student has achieved the result or not.
Neoplasms of primary school age:
1) the emergence and consolidation of a very important personal characteristic, which becomes quite stable (the motivation to achieve success, the motive to avoid failures).
2) arbitrariness, productivity, stability become common characteristics of all cognitive processes.
3) self-regulation, self-control, goal setting.
4) an internal plan of action.
Communication features:
1) the necessary abstinence from situational impulsive desires and mandatory self-regulation create in the child a feeling of loneliness, alienation from loved ones.
2) communication among peers becomes a special school of social relations, the means of effective communication acquired and used by the child determine the attitude of those around him.
3) a child of primary school age is in great emotional dependence on a teacher who is a significant adult for him.
The leading activity is educational activity.
Physical development:
The weight increases
The skeleton undergoes ossification
Development of the muscular system
Development of the small muscles of the hand.
Junior student personality:
Development of elementary social feelings,
SPEECH:
By the time the child enters school, the child's vocabulary increases so much that he can freely communicate with another person on any occasion related to everyday life and within the scope of his interests.
The vocabulary of the child consists of: nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, numerals, connecting conjunctions.
At this age, the child masters reading and writing.
Features of cognitive d-ty:
The cognitive faculty of the younger schoolchild is aimed at understanding the principles of science, the intellectual cognitive sphere of the psyche is mainly developing.
Thinking :
Visual-figurative, visual-effective, verbal-logical predominates, hence it follows that with the development of speech, thinking develops into abstract-logical.
Attention:
The cognitive activity of the child, aimed at exploring the world around him, organizes his attention on the objects being examined for a rather long time, until interest dries up. The child can play or engage in productive activities for several hours. Also, the child will be distracted if the activity is not interesting to him or requires mental stress.
Children of primary school age can arbitrarily regulate their behavior, involuntary attention prevails.
Memory :
Characterized by involuntary
The child masters the techniques of memorization, meaningful memorization.
Visually - effective memorization is better than verbal.
The second most important school for a younger student is labor (self-service, making crafts).
Personality of a junior student :
Elements of social feelings develop,
Skills of social behavior are formed (mutual assistance, collectivism),
Moral qualities are formed.
Communication child: the system "child - adult", child - parents, child - teacher. communication with peers - complete indifference, or rivalry
General psychological characteristics of children of primary school age
Primary school age covers the period of life from 6 to 11 years and is determined by the most important circumstance in a child's life - his admission to school. At this time, there is an intensive biological development of the child's body (central and autonomic nervous systems, bone and muscle systems, the activity of internal organs). At the heart of such a restructuring (it is also called the second physiological crisis) is a distinct endocrine shift - the "new" endocrine glands are activated and the "old" glands cease to operate. Although the physiological essence of this crisis has not yet been fully determined, according to a number of scientists, at about the age of 7 years, the active activity of the thymus gland stops, as a result of which the brake is removed from the activity of the sex and a number of other endocrine glands, for example, the pituitary gland and the adrenal cortex, which gives rise to production of sex hormones such as androgens and estrogens. Such a physiological restructuring requires a lot of stress from the child's body in order to mobilize all the reserves. During this period, increased mobility nervous processes, excitation processes predominate, and this determines such characteristics younger schoolchildren, as increased emotional excitability and restlessness. By the age of 7, the frontal regions are morphologically mature hemispheres of the brain, which creates the basis for a greater harmony of the processes of excitation and inhibition than for preschoolers, which is necessary for the development of purposeful voluntary behavior. Since muscle development and methods of controlling it do not go synchronously, children of this age have features in the organization of movement. The development of large muscles is ahead of the development of small ones, and therefore children are better at performing strong and sweeping movements than small ones that require precision (for example, when writing). At the same time, growing physical endurance, increased efficiency are relative, and in general, increased fatigue and neuropsychic vulnerability remain characteristic of children. This is manifested in the fact that their performance usually drops sharply 25-30 minutes after the start of the lesson and after the second lesson. Children get tired when visiting a group extended day, as well as with increased emotional saturation of lessons and events. Physiological transformations cause great changes in mental life child. To the center mental development the formation of arbitrariness (planning, implementation of action programs and control) is put forward. There is an improvement in cognitive processes (perception, memory, attention), the formation of higher mental functions (speech, writing, reading, counting), which allows a child of primary school age to perform more complex mental operations compared to a preschooler. With favorable learning conditions and sufficient level mental development on this basis, there are prerequisites for the development of theoretical thinking and consciousness. Under the guidance of a teacher, children begin to assimilate the content of the main forms of human culture (science, art, morality) and learn to act in accordance with the traditions and new social expectations of people. It is at this age that the child for the first time clearly begins to realize the relationship between him and others, to understand the social motives of behavior, moral assessments, significance conflict situations, that is, gradually enters the conscious phase of personality formation. With the advent of school, the emotional sphere of the child changes. On the one hand, younger schoolchildren, especially first-graders, retain to a large extent the property characteristic of preschoolers to react violently to individual events and situations that affect them. Children are sensitive to the influences of the surrounding conditions of life, impressionable and emotionally responsive. They perceive, first of all, those objects or properties of objects that evoke a direct emotional response, an emotional attitude. Visual, bright, lively is perceived best of all. On the other hand, going to school gives rise to new, specific emotional experiences, since the freedom of preschool age is replaced by dependence and submission to the new rules of life. Situation school life introduces the child into a strictly normalized world of relationships, requiring him to be organized, responsible, disciplined, and perform well. Toughening the living conditions, the new social situation in each child who enters school increases mental tension. This affects both the health of younger students and their behavior. Entering school is such an event in the life of a child, in which two defining motives of his behavior necessarily come into conflict: the motive of desire (“I want”) and the motive of obligation (“I must”). If the motive of desire always comes from the child himself, then the motive of obligation is more often initiated by adults. In the book “As for Me... Doubts and Worries of the Youngest Schoolchildren”, we tried to trace how children can resolve this conflict between “I want” and “need”, what ways out of the situation they can choose. According to the logic that has been used more than once in Russian fairy tales, these paths can be at least four: forward, backward, left and right.
The first path, “must”, is a direct road “forward” to adult life with its norms, requirements and obligations.
The second way, “I want”, is a kind of retreat “back”, a defensive regression to early childhood forms of behavior.
The third way, “to the left”, is used by the so-called “rational” children, who are trying with all their might to transform the school situation in such a way that instead of adults “needs”, children’s “wants” are in charge. Such children openly doubt the very content of adult norms and requirements, they always offer something, change the original rules, protest and quickly turn off work if they are not followed and they are not obeyed. These children are rather inconvenient for adults, as they always have their own opinion and tend to contradict adults (conflict).
The fourth way, “to the right”, is the most interesting for us. A child who chooses this path strives with all his might to comply with all the “needs” that follow from a particular situation. But he is not entirely satisfied with how he does it. As a result, he withdraws into himself and experiences everything very deeply. He has bright, emotionally colored states. He is torn apart by contradictions between the most diverse aspirations, desires and desires. The child cannot accept himself in the situation and therefore, more or less consciously, seeks to transform not the outer, but his inner mental world, to somehow relieve internal tension and discomfort, that is, to defend himself with the help of psychological mechanisms. And here something he succeeds, but something does not. And if some experiences remain poorly conscious and unreacted, they can turn into psychological complexes, which we often observe in adults.
Whatever strategy the child chooses, the inability to meet the new norms and requirements of adults inevitably makes him doubt and worry. A child who enters school becomes extremely dependent on the opinions, assessments and attitudes of the people around him. Awareness of critical remarks addressed to him affects his well-being and leads to a change in self-esteem. If before school some individual characteristics of the child could not interfere with his natural development, were accepted and taken into account by adults, then at school standardization of living conditions takes place, resulting in emotional and behavioral deviations. personality traits become especially noticeable. First of all, hyperexcitability, hypersensitivity, poor self-control, misunderstanding of the norms and rules of adults reveal themselves. The dependence of the younger student is growing more and more not only on the opinions of adults (parents and teachers), but also on the opinions of their peers. This leads to the fact that he begins to experience fears of a special kind: that he will be considered ridiculous, a coward, a deceiver, or weak-willed. As A. I. Zakharov notes, if in preschool age If fears predominate due to the instinct of self-preservation, then in primary school age social fears prevail as a threat to the well-being of the individual in the context of his relations with other people. In most cases, the child adapts himself to the new life situation, and in this he is helped by various forms of protective behavior. In new relationships with adults and peers, the child continues to develop reflection on himself and others. At the same time, achieving success or failing, he can, according to the figurative expression of V. S. Mukhina, fall into the “trap of accompanying negative formations”, experiencing a sense of superiority over others or envy. At the same time, the developing ability to identify with others helps to relieve the pressure of negative formations and develop accepted positive forms of communication. Thus, entering school leads not only to the formation of the need for knowledge and recognition, but also to the development of a sense of personality. The child begins to occupy a new place within family relationships: he is a student, he is a responsible person, he is consulted and considered. The assimilation of the norms of behavior developed by society allows the child to gradually turn them into his own, internal, requirements for himself.
Primary school age is called the pinnacle of childhood. In the modern periodization of mental development, it covers the period from 6-7 to 9-11 years. At this age, there is a change in the image and style of life: new requirements, new social role student, fundamentally the new kind activities - learning activities. At school, he acquires not only new knowledge and skills, but also a certain social status. The perception of one's place in the system of relations is changing. The interests, values of the child, his whole way of life are changing. The child is on the border of a new age period. From a physiological point of view, this is the time of physical growth, when children quickly reach up, there is disharmony in physical development, it is ahead of the neuropsychic development of the child, which affects the temporary weakening nervous system. Increased fatigue, anxiety, increased need for movement are manifested.
The leading activity in primary school age is educational activity. Its characteristics: effectiveness, commitment, arbitrariness.
The foundations of educational activity are laid in the first years of study. On the one hand, it should be built taking into account age-related capabilities, and on the other hand, it should provide them with the amount of knowledge necessary for their subsequent development. Schooling is distinguished not only by the special social significance of the child's activity, but also by the mediation of relations with adult models and assessments, by following the rules common to all, and by acquiring scientific concepts. As a result of educational activity, mental neoplasms arise: arbitrariness mental processes, reflection (personal, intellectual), internal plan of action (planning in the mind, the ability to analyze).
The vocabulary increases to 7 thousand words. Shows his own active position to the language. Easy to master when learning sound analysis words. The child listens to the sound of the word. The need for communication of younger students determines the development of speech. Contextual speech is an indicator of the level of development of the child. AT writing distinguish between correct spelling correct writing words), grammatical (construction of sentences, education morphological forms) and punctuation (punctuation).
Thinking at primary school age becomes the dominant function, the transition from visual-figurative to verbal-logical thinking, which has been outlined at preschool age, is completed. By the end of primary school age, individual differences in thinking appear (theorists, thinkers, artists). Scientific concepts (the foundations of theoretical thinking) are formed in the learning process.
Memory develops in two directions - arbitrariness and meaningfulness. All types of memory develop in educational activities: long-term, short-term and operational. The development of memory is associated with the need to memorize educational material. Voluntary memorization is actively formed.
Perception is also characterized by involuntariness, although elements of arbitrary perception are found already in preschool age. Perception is characterized by weak differentiation (objects and their properties are confused). At primary school age, the orientation towards sensory standards of form, color, and time increases.
Self-awareness develops intensively. The formation of self-esteem of a younger student depends on the progress and characteristics of the teacher's communication with the class. Great importance has style family education values accepted in the family. High achievers and some well-performing children develop inflated self-esteem. For underachieving and extremely weak students, systematic failures and low grades reduce self-confidence, in their abilities. They have compensatory motivation. Children begin to establish themselves in another area - in sports, music.
Value orientations to the name are becoming the norm of life. It is important that the child accepts another type of address to him - by last name. This gives the child the feeling dignity, self confidence.
The need for self-assertion. The authority of adults is of great importance. The place that the child occupies in the family is essential.
This period covers the age range from 6-7 to 11-13 years. It is not possible to attribute clearer time limits to this age period, since the individual variation in maturation rates at this age is very large.
Girls, as a rule, enter puberty 1-1.5 years earlier than boys. This is very milestone in the life of a child, which is characterized by accelerated processes of mental development against the background of ongoing morphofunctional rearrangements of the body.
Growth rate. By the early school age, the structural differentiation of tissues has already been completed, and there is a further increase in the mass of organs and the whole body. Boys are increasingly different from girls in terms of growth, maturation and the formation of their characteristic physique. This period of a child's life is characterized by the lowest growth rates of body length and weight. Up to 1112 years, the body weight of boys (including muscle mass) is somewhat greater than that of girls. Such motor qualities as speed, agility, strength, endurance develop. Complex coordination movements of small muscles also develop rapidly, which makes it possible to successfully master the fine movements of the hands necessary for writing, needlework, etc.
In terms of body proportions, a child of this age is already very similar to an adult, although his legs are still relatively shorter, boys have narrower shoulders, and girls have hips, in comparison with fully formed boys and girls.
motor development. Development motor qualities(muscle strength, speed, endurance, flexibility, dexterity) depends on the functional state of the body. So, for the development of endurance, reliable activity of the cardiovascular system, economical expenditure of energy are necessary. In developing strength certain role plays the formation of bone and muscle systems. Mobility in the joints, ligamentous apparatus, the speed of switching of nervous processes, their coordination - decisive factors to develop flexibility and dexterity.
At younger school age, shortcomings in physical development, asthenia are most often detected. Classes at school significantly restrict movement, often the body is fixed in the wrong position for a long time, which, with insufficient provision of hygienic conditions and physical education leads to postural and visual disturbances.
At the same time, physiologists consider the period from 8 to 11 years to be the most calm in development. Big specific gravity in morbidity and mortality at this age is traumatism.
Entering the primary school age, the child acquires the internal position of the student, educational motivation. Educational activity becomes the leading one for him. During this period, the child develops theoretical thinking; he receives new knowledge, skills, skills - creates the necessary basis for all his subsequent training. But the significance of educational activity is not exhausted by this: the development of the personality of a junior schoolchild directly depends on its effectiveness. School performance is important criterion assessment of the child as a person by adults and peers. Successful studies, awareness of their abilities and skills to perform qualitatively various tasks lead to the formation of a sense of competence - a new aspect of self-consciousness, which, along with theoretical reflective thinking, can be considered the central neoplasm of primary school age. If a sense of competence in educational activities is not formed, the child's self-esteem decreases and a feeling of inferiority arises; compensatory self-esteem and motivation may develop.
At primary school age, the child retains many childish qualities (frivolity, naivety, looking at an adult from the bottom up). But he is already beginning to lose his childish spontaneity in behavior, he has a different logic of thinking. Teaching for him is a significant activity. At school, he acquires not only new knowledge and skills, but also a certain social status. The interests, values of the child, the whole way of his life are changing.
A child really becomes a schoolboy when he acquires an appropriate inner position. He is included in the educational activity as the most significant for him and socially valuable.
The loss of interest in the game and the formation of learning motives are also associated with the developmental features of the game activity itself. In games according to the rules, typical for senior preschool and primary school age, the one who has mastered the game better wins. In game motivation, the emphasis is shifted from the process to the result; in addition, achievement motivation develops. The very course of development of children's play leads to the fact that game motivation gradually gives way to educational motivation, in which actions are performed for the sake of specific knowledge and skills. And this, in turn, makes it possible to obtain approval, recognition from adults and peers, a special status.
So, in elementary school educational activity becomes the leader. This is an unusually difficult activity, which will be given a lot of time and effort. One of the components of learning activity is motivation. Educational activity is stimulated and directed by various educational motives. Among them there are motives that are most adequate to educational tasks. The educational and cognitive motives are based on the cognitive need and the need for self-development (interest in the content side of educational activity, in what is being studied, and interest in the process of activity). The child must be motivated not only by the result, but also by the process of learning activities.
The second component of learning activity is the learning task (a system of tasks during which the child learns the most common ways of acting). Developmental learning involves the joint "discovery" and formulation of children and the teacher general way solving a whole class of problems. In this case, the general method is assimilated as a model and is more easily transferred to other tasks of this class, educational work becomes more productive, and errors are less common and disappear faster.
Learning operations are part of the mode of action and are the third component of learning activity. Operations and the learning task are considered to be the main link in the structure of learning activity. Each training operation must be worked out. The fourth component is control, ending with evaluation. The child, controlling his work, must learn and adequately evaluate it.
Educational activity, having a complex structure, goes through a long path of formation. Its development will continue throughout the years of school life, but the foundations are laid in the first years of study. A child, becoming a junior schoolchild, despite prior training, more or less experience of training sessions, finds himself in fundamentally new conditions. School education is distinguished not only by the special social significance of the child's activity, but also by the mediation of relations with adult models and assessments, by following the rules common to all, and by the acquisition of scientific concepts. These moments, as well as the specifics of the child's educational activity itself, affect the development of his mental functions, personal formations and arbitrary behavior.
The development of the cognitive sphere.
The dominant function in primary school age becomes thinking . Due to this, the mental processes themselves are intensively developed, rebuilt, and, on the other hand, the development of other mental functions depends on the intellect. The transition from visual-figurative to verbal-logical thinking, which was outlined in preschool age, is being completed. The child develops logically correct reasoning: when reasoning, he uses operations. However, these are not yet formal-logical operations; a junior schoolchild cannot yet reason hypothetically. J. Piaget called operations characteristic of a given age specific, since they can only be used on specific, visual material.
School education is structured in such a way that verbal-logical thinking is predominantly developed. If at the beginning of training children work a lot with visual samples, then in next grades the volume of such activities is reduced. The figurative beginning is becoming less and less necessary in educational activity, in any case, when mastering the basic school disciplines. This corresponds to the age tendencies of the development of children's thinking, but, at the same time, impoverishes the child's intellect. Only in schools with a humanitarian and aesthetic bias in the classroom develop visual-figurative thinking to no lesser extent than verbal-logical. At the end of primary school age, individual differences begin to appear. Among the children, there are groups of children who easily solve learning problems verbally, who need reliance on visualization and practical actions, and children with vivid imaginative thinking. Most children show a relative balance between different types thinking.
In the process of learning, scientific concepts are formed in younger students. They are based on ideas acquired during preschool age and continue to emerge outside of school, based on each child's own experience. Mastering the system of scientific concepts in the learning process makes it possible to talk about the development of the fundamentals of conceptual or theoretical thinking in younger students. Theoretical thinking allows the student to solve problems, focusing not on external, visual signs and connections of objects, but on internal, essential properties and relationships. The development of theoretical thinking depends on how and what the child is taught, i.e. on the type of training.
The development of other mental functions largely depends on the development of thinking. At the beginning of primary school age perception insufficiently differentiated. Because of this, the child sometimes confuses letters and numbers that are similar in spelling (for example, 9 and 6). As well as in preschool age, they are distinguished by the most striking, obvious properties (color, shape, size).
If preschoolers were characterized by analyzing perception, then by the end of primary school age, with appropriate training, a synthesizing perception appears. Developing intellect creates an opportunity to establish connections between the elements of the perceived.
Despite the fact that during this period visual-figurative thinking is of great importance, directly perceived by the child no longer prevents him from reasoning and drawing correct conclusions, intellectual operations allow him to judge things without rigid dependence on the visual situation.
Memory develops in the direction of arbitrariness and meaningfulness. Children involuntarily memorize educational material that arouses their interest, presented in a playful way, associated with bright visual aids or memory images, but now they are capable of purposeful, arbitrary memorization of material that is not interesting to them. Every year, more and more training is based on arbitrary memory.
Younger students have a good mechanical memory. Many of them mechanically memorize educational texts throughout their education in elementary school, which leads to significant difficulties in the middle classes, when the material becomes more complex and larger in volume. They tend to verbatim what they remember. Improving semantic memory at this age makes it possible to master a fairly wide range of rational ways of memorization. It should be noted that a younger student can successfully memorize and reproduce a text that is incomprehensible to him. Therefore, adults should control not only the result (the accuracy of the answer, the correctness of the retelling), but also the ways in which the student remembered it.
Develops during early childhood Attention. Children develop the ability to focus on uninteresting activities. But involuntary attention still predominates in them, since external impressions remain a strong distraction. In addition, it is difficult for them to focus on incomprehensible complex material. The attention of a younger student is characterized by a small volume and low stability. They can concentrate on one thing for 10-20 minutes, it is difficult to distribute and switch attention from one educational task to another. In educational activities, the child's voluntary attention develops. Initially, following the instructions of the teacher, working under his constant supervision, he gradually acquires the ability to set a goal himself and control his actions.
Personal development
Personal development, which began in preschool childhood in connection with the subordination of motives and the formation of self-awareness, continues at primary school age. But the junior schoolchild is in other conditions - he is included in socially significant educational activities, the results of which are highly or poorly evaluated by close adults. From school performance, evaluation of the child as a good or bad student, the development of his personality during this period directly depends.
At the beginning of his school life, having the inner position of a schoolboy, the child wants to study and study well. Among the various social motives of learning, the main place is occupied by the motive of getting high marks, which are a source of other rewards, a guarantee of emotional well-being, and a source of pride. Moreover, in a classroom where the teacher's opinion is highly authoritative and respected by all, high grades provide appropriate status.
Other broad social motives of learning - duty, responsibility, the need to get an education ("to be literate", as children say, etc.) give a certain meaning to their academic work but much less understood by students. The concept of duty, which is abstract for a junior schoolchild, or the distant prospect of continuing education at a university, cannot directly encourage him to study. The motivation of underachieving schoolchildren differs from the motivation of their prosperous peers. In the presence of a strong motive for getting a mark and approval, the circle of their social motives for teaching is narrowed, which impoverishes motivation as a whole. Some social motives appear only by the 3rd grade.
At the same time, starting their school life, children have not yet acquired "adult" values, they are not guided by the essential aspects of education.
No less striking differences are observed in the field of cognitive interests. Deep interest in the study of any academic subject in primary school rare, usually associated with early development special abilities. There are not many such children who are considered gifted. Most of the younger students have cognitive interests of a not too high level. They are situational different lessons, when studying different educational material, they give bursts of interest, upsurges in intellectual activity.
An important aspect of cognitive motivation is educational and cognitive motives, motives for self-improvement. If a child in the process of learning begins to rejoice that he has learned something, understood something, learned something, it means that he develops motivation that is adequate to the structure of educational activity. Unfortunately, even among well-performing students, there are very few children who have educational and cognitive motives.
Achievement motivation in primary school often becomes dominant. Children with high academic performance have a pronounced motivation for achieving success: the desire to do well, to do the task correctly, to get desired result. And although it is usually combined with the motive of getting a high assessment of one's work (marks and approval from adults), it still orients the child to the quality and effectiveness of learning activities, regardless of this external assessment, thereby contributing to the formation of self-regulation. The motivation to achieve success, along with cognitive interests, is the most valuable motive, it should be distinguished from prestigious motivation.
Prestigious motivation, less common than achievement motivation, is typical for children with high self-esteem and leadership inclinations. It encourages the student to study better than classmates, to stand out among them, to be the first. If the prestige motivation is matched enough developed abilities, it becomes a powerful engine for the development of an excellent student, who will achieve the best educational results at the limit of his efficiency and diligence. Individualism, constant rivalry with capable peers, and neglect of others distort the moral orientation of the personality of such children. In addition, growing up, they achieve high productivity of activity, but are not capable of creativity: the desire to do everything better and faster than others deprives them of the possibility of creative searches, deepening in the process of solving a problematic task. As experiments with high school students have shown, true creativity, non-standard solutions with rivalry are practically incompatible.
If prestigious motivation is combined with average abilities, deep self-doubt, usually not realized by the child, along with an overestimated level of claims, lead to affective reactions in situations of failure.
Underachieving students do not develop prestigious motivation. The motivation to achieve success, as well as the motive for getting a high grade, are typical for starting school. But even at this time, the second tendency is clearly manifested in the achievement motivation - the motivation to avoid failure. Children try to avoid the "deuce" and the consequences that a low mark entails (teacher's dissatisfaction, parents' sanctions). This motivational tendency develops intensively throughout the entire unsuccessful education in the primary grades, and by the end of primary school, lagging behind students most often lose the motive for achieving success and the motive for getting a high mark (although they continue to rely on praise), and the motivation for avoiding failure acquires significant strength. It is accompanied by anxiety, fear in evaluative situations and gives educational activity a negative emotional coloring. Almost a quarter of underachieving third-graders have a negative attitude towards learning due to the fact that this motive prevails in them. By this time, in case of failure, a special compensatory motivation arises. These are secondary motives in relation to educational activities that allow one to establish themselves in another area (going in for sports, music, drawing, caring for younger family members, etc.). When the need for self-affirmation is satisfied in some other area of activity, poor academic performance does not become a source of difficult experiences for the child.
Problems of school performance, evaluation of the results of educational work of children are central in primary school age. The development of learning motivation depends on the assessment, it is on this basis that in some cases there are difficult experiences and school maladaptation. School assessment directly affects the formation of self-esteem. Assessment of progress at the beginning of schooling is, in essence, an assessment of the personality as a whole and determines the social status of the child.
For the development of adequate self-esteem and a sense of competence in children, it is necessary to create psychological comfort and support (evaluating only specific work, but not the individual as a whole, do not compare children with each other, do not call on everyone to imitate excellent students, focus students on individual achievements). Of great importance is the style of family education, the values accepted in the family. Children with high self-esteem are brought up on the principle of the idol of the family, in an atmosphere of non-criticality and early realize their exclusivity. In families where children grow up with high, but not overestimated self-esteem, attention to the child's personality (his interests, tastes, relationships with friends) is combined with sufficient demands. Here they do not resort to humiliating punishments and willingly praise when the child deserves it. Children with low (not necessarily very low) self-esteem enjoy more freedom at home, but this freedom, in fact, is lack of control, a consequence of the indifference of parents to children and to each other. The parents of such children are included in their lives when specific problems arise, in particular with academic performance, and usually they are little interested in their activities and experiences.
The attitude towards oneself as a student is largely determined by family values. In a child, those qualities that parents are most concerned about come to the fore: maintaining prestige (conversations at home revolve around the question: “Who else in the class got an A?”), obedience (“Were you scolded today?”), etc. d. Emphasis shifts in the self-consciousness of a small schoolchild when parents are concerned not with educational, but with everyday moments of his school life (“Is it not blowing from the windows in the classroom?” “What did they give you for breakfast?”). A rather indifferent question: “What happened at school today?” - sooner or later will lead to the corresponding answer: “Normal”, “Nothing special”. As shown by G.A. Zuckerman, the values of the teachings of children and their parents completely coincide in grade 1 and diverge by grade 4.
Questions for self-control:
What is the social situation of the development of a younger student?
How is the process of becoming the leading activity of a junior schoolchild?
Describe the main tendencies in the development of the mental processes of a younger student.
