Peculiarities of thinking of preschoolers
Psychologists distinguish three types of thinking characteristic of preschool children:
1. Visually effective . Involves studying a subject through direct interaction with it. It develops in a child very first, by the age of 2-3 years. Thinking at this age is based on the principle: “action - observing the results - trying to understand what is happening.” The baby is not yet thinking and practically does not refer to previous experience.
2. Visual-figurative . Appears from 3-6 years of age. Here, previously acquired experience plays an important role. At this age, a child does not have to perform certain actions if he knows their result. He can imagine a familiar object (its image) and even perform certain mental actions with it with the help of memories and imagination.
For example, a 2-year-old child needs both a doll and a spoon to “feed” a doll, and at 5 years old a child calmly operates with an invisible spoon, conducting an active dialogue with the doll, which also sometimes exists only in his imagination.
3. Verbal-logical . Typical for children of older preschool age. This is the most developed stage of thinking. Here, not only actions and images are involved in the process of cognition - the child uses mental operations and reasoning. At this stage of thinking, speech is actively used.
Of course, even at this age, visual material is of great importance, but the child is already able to analyze the situation, predict its development based on previous experience, generalize, and draw conclusions. They say that at the age of 5-7 years, a child’s “logic turns on.”
“Logic” literally translated from Greek means “the science of correct thinking” or “the ability to reason.” That is, in order to develop logical thinking in a preschooler, you need to teach him to think and reason correctly.
It must be remembered that a child’s logical thinking must be based on a certain level of knowledge. Therefore, it is important not only to develop the child’s thinking apparatus, but also to provide him with information about the world around him.
