Physiological assessment of school maturity of modern children. Definition of school maturity

School maturity is a level of development of a child’s abilities and health at which the requirements of systematic education, workload, and school routine will not be overly burdensome for the child and will not have a negative impact on his somatic and mental health. Determining school maturity is necessary to establish the optimal age for starting school, developing an individual approach to education, and timely identifying possible deviations in the development of the child.

Typically, school maturity is determined six months to a year before the child enters school. Based on the results obtained, the child’s parents receive advice on improving the child’s health and correcting possible deficiencies and omissions in the child’s development and preparation for school. A psychologist determines school maturity.

Most children are considered to reach school maturity between the ages of six and seven. It is at this age that, along with involuntary attention, the child develops voluntary attention. By older preschool age, the duration of engagement in the same activity increases by 2–2.5 times. By the end of the preschool period, along with visual-figurative thinking, verbal-logical or conceptual thinking begins to form (it begins because fully verbal-logical thinking is formed only by adolescence).

Among the factors that may delay the onset of school maturity, the following should be mentioned:

a) the child was born premature or weakened and, despite the efforts of doctors and parents, still has not caught up with his peers in psychomotor development;

b) the child was born full-term, but has some kind of neurological diagnosis (neuropathy, neurosis, MMD);

c) the child suffers from a chronic somatic or psychosomatic disease, due to exacerbations of which he was often in hospitals or in bed at home (asthma, severe diathesis, diabetes, nephrological disorders, etc.);

d) the child is healthy mentally and somatically, but he has never been taught, he is pedagogically neglected, and the level of his current knowledge does not correspond to his calendar age.

To determine school maturity, a psychologist, as a rule, uses a standard set of techniques to assess:

General awareness;

Level of perception;

Development of auditory and visual memory;

Development of thinking;

Psychosocial maturity;

Level of mental performance.

The child’s answers and the results of completing tasks are assessed in points or other conventional units. Then the scores are summed up and compared with the average data obtained by experimental psychologists through a study of a large and standardized sample of children of senior preschool age.

There are usually three levels of school maturity:

High level of school maturity means that the child is ready to study at any school (including an advanced level) and there are sufficient grounds to believe that with attention and adequate assistance from parents, he will successfully cope with any educational program offered to him.

Average level of school maturity means that the child is ready to study in the mass primary school program. Studying at a high-level school may be difficult for him, and if his parents do send him to such a school, then (at least at the beginning of his studies) they must provide their son or daughter with very significant assistance, carefully observe the daily routine, create a a child-friendly atmosphere, as far as possible devoid of severe stress. Otherwise, overstrain and exhaustion of the child’s body’s adaptation mechanisms may occur. In itself, such a life - overstrain at school and a gentle environment in the family - is not beneficial for the development and mental health of the child, and if the parents’ ambitions are not excessively great, then it is better not to create such a situation. It is better to finish primary school comfortably and well, at the end of it be tested again and, if the child’s abilities really turn out to be significantly above average (the child was unable to prove himself in the first test or during the three years of primary school there was significant progress in the development of the child’s abilities), take an exam for admission to some gymnasium.

Low level of school maturity means that mastering even a regular primary school curriculum will present significant difficulties for the child. If, despite this, a decision is made to go to school, then such a child needs special correctional classes to prepare for school. They can be carried out both by the psychologist observing the child, and by the parents themselves, with the help of appropriate aids and in close contact with the psychologist. As a rule, with a low level of school maturity, various functions of perception and thinking are developed unevenly. For example, with a good level of general awareness and psychosocial maturity, visual memory is very poor and voluntary attention is almost completely absent. Or - good auditory memory (the child easily memorizes long poems) and very low mental performance. The psychologist will tell parents which functions are most affected by their son or daughter, and will recommend appropriate exercises.

At very low level of school maturity a psychologist usually recommends postponing entry into school for a year and devoting this year to psychophysiological hardening and eliminating deficiencies in the child’s development.

You can prepare your child for school on your own (with the help of parents, grandparents), you can rely on a preschool institution (if the child attends kindergarten), or you can send it to special groups to prepare for school. The best results are, as usual, found in a combination of all three methods.

I would venture to propose the following algorithm for parents’ actions in their child’s pre-school year.

1. If your child has not attended any preschool institution before, be sure to send him to kindergarten. Otherwise, when entering school, your child will be faced with three types of stress at once: immunological (25 children in a class is the minimum, and one and a half thousand in high school), social (a child at home will have to try himself in all social roles, without having any prior preparation. “Training and development” doesn’t count, because everything happens there under the control of adults) and, finally, the educational itself. It is very reasonable to experience the first two types of stress before the child enters first grade.

2. Go to a psychologist and determine your child’s level of school maturity.

3. If the level turns out to be average and you are going to a “yard” school in the neighborhood, then everything is in order. It will be enough for you to follow the recommendations given by the psychologist at home and correctly orient your child towards classes to prepare for school in kindergarten. If you are aiming at some school with a “bias”, then the pre-school year for you is a year of intensive studies. It is you and this year that needs to send your child to the school preparation group. It is best if this is the same school where you want to study. Your child is not very flexible; he will be more comfortable if he gets used to school (and if he’s lucky, to the teacher) in advance. Complete all homework carefully and adapt your child’s daily routine to school in advance. It is in this case that the separation of different types of stress in time and space is simply vital. Your child simply won’t be able to handle everything at once, and even a special school to boot.

4. If your child’s level of school maturity turns out to be high or very high, then this is not a reason to rest on your laurels. A special school is quite affordable for you, but you should think carefully and weigh - where exactly should you send it? It is necessary to proceed solely from the individual characteristics of the child and your family as a whole. How to take this into account will be discussed in the next section. It is better to prepare a child with a high level of school maturity for school in appropriate courses. But here you can already choose those courses about which you know that they are interesting and they provide good and strong knowledge. These courses are not necessarily located at the school your child is going to attend. They can be in a club, in a Children's Art Center or in a special private preschool educational institution.

School maturity is the achievement of such a degree in development when the child becomes capable of taking part in school education, namely: mastering the skills, knowledge, abilities, motivation and other behavioral characteristics necessary for the optimal level of assimilation of the school curriculum.

A child’s readiness for schooling is a complex systemic education, which includes, in addition to subject-specific readiness, psychological readiness itself:

• Personal and social;
• Intellectual;
• Emotional-volitional readiness.

When determining personal and social maturity, the following indicators are taken into account:

• willingness to accept the student’s social position;
• communication skills;
• attitude towards oneself;
• attitude towards others;
• attitude towards adults;
• attitude towards educational activities.

A child’s intellectual readiness for school includes:

• speech (dialogue and monologue);
• thinking (visual-effective, visual-figurative, basics of verbal-logical thinking);
• perception;
• memory;
• attention;
• mastering the system of concepts.

Emotional-volitional readiness:

• organization of its activities;
• managing your behavior;
• the ability to subordinate the motives “I want” and “I need”;
• hard work;
• ability to work in a group.

Methodological materials used in determining the school maturity of children in the preparatory group for school:

*Psychological, medical and pedagogical examination of the child. A set of working materials./ Under the general editorship of M.M. Semago.; Library of a practicing psychologist/. ISBN 5-89415-038-8.

*Semago N.Ya., Semago M.M. Theory and practice of assessing a child’s mental development. Preschool and primary school age.-SPb.: Rech-.s.,-ill. ISBN 5-9268-0341-1.

Program for determining the school maturity of children 6.5-7 years old

The diagnostic program consists mainly of games and game tasks with rules, selected in such a way that a good result in them can be achieved provided that the child has sufficient experience in participating in such games, which indicates sufficient development of the studied mental processes within the game activity and allows determine the emergence of learning motivation. A set of games allows the child to demonstrate the level of motivational, intellectual and speech development that is necessary to start school.

Affective-need sphere (emotional-volitional readiness):

1. Methodology for determining the dominance of a cognitive or play motive in the affective-need sphere of a child.
2. Experimental conversation to identify a student’s internal position.

Voluntary sphere (personal and social readiness):

1. “House” technique (Gutkina N.I.)
2. Methodology “Yes” and “No” (Gutkina N.I.)

Intellectual and speech spheres (intellectual readiness for learning at school):

1. “Boots” technique (N.I. Gutkina).
2. Methodology “Sequence of Events” (N.I. Gutkina).
3. “Sound hide and seek” technique (N.I. Gutkina).

The procedure for determining psychological readiness for school.

The survey is carried out in April-May.

When determining school maturity, a child is given tasks with the aim of:

1. Identify the child’s ability to reproduce a model.
2. Ability to work according to rules.
3. Lay out a sequence of plot pictures and compose a story based on them.
4. The ability to distinguish individual sounds in words.
5. The examination is carried out in 2-3 stages (in the presence of the group teacher). Children are in familiar conditions, namely in a group room.

Additionally, the observation method and the method of independent expert assessments are used.

Data on the results of determining school maturity are not subject to disclosure. At the request of the parents, in the process of individual consultation, the psychologist advises the child’s parents and answers all the parents’ questions. A stamp is placed in the child’s medical record and a record is made of readiness to study at school and compliance of the level of psychological development with the age norm.

This method is most often used for an approximate assessment of the level of development of school-necessary functions. It includes 3 tasks : drawing a human figure from an idea, graphically copying a phrase from written letters and drawing points in a certain spatial position (Fig. 8.1).

Rice. 8.1. Indicative test for determining “school maturity” by A. Kern, modified by I. Irasek

First the task makes it possible to identify the relationship between visual activity and the development of the second signaling system, abstract thinking, and integration in mental activity. Consequently, this subtest allows for an indicative assessment of general mental development.

Performance second And third The test task is related to the level of development of the child’s ability to voluntarily behave (he must show volitional effort, follow instructions in unattractive work for the required time), which is an important prerequisite for successful learning. When reproducing written letters and geometric figures, which are exclusively abstract forms for children in preschool age, it is determined whether the child has reached such a level of mental development that he can understand the principle of the “imitation of a model” task and master it. In addition, the test tasks give an idea of ​​the development of small muscles of the hand and the severity of fine motor coordination necessary for developing writing skills and improving drawing.

If the test is carried out in a group, then the child’s ability to submit to work in a group setting, as required in school, is also tested.

Instructions for using the indicative test of “school maturity” by A. Kern, modified by I.Iraseka

The child (group of children) is given a sheet of paper, on the front side of which the child’s first and last name, his date of birth are written down, and a space is left for completing the first task. The pencil is placed in front of the child so that it is equally convenient for him to take it with his right and left hand.

Instructions are given to perform first tasks: “Here (everyone is shown where) draw some guy. The way you know how." No further explanation, assistance or warning regarding errors or deficiencies in the drawing is permitted. When some talkative child starts asking in more detail, you should try to answer: “Draw the way you know how.” You can encourage your child when he starts drawing as follows: “See how well you started. Keep drawing." When asked whether it is possible to draw an aunt, it is necessary to explain that everyone draws an uncle, so let him (s) draw an uncle. If the child begins to draw a female figure, you can allow him to finish drawing it, and then ask him to draw a male figure next to it.

When the drawing is completed, the children are asked to turn over a piece of paper, on the back of which a sample phrase (2nd task) and a configuration of 10 dots (3rd task) are written in advance, which the child must repeat.

Second the task is formulated as follows: “Look, something is written here. You don’t know how to write yet, but try, you could (could) write this. Take a good look at how it’s written, and write the same thing next to it.” If one of the children does not calculate the length of the column, and the third word does not fit, you need to tell the child that it can be written lower or higher.

Third the task is given in the following way: “Dots are drawn here. Try to draw them the same way next to each other.” In this case, it is necessary to indicate where you can draw, as some children may have reduced attention. Children should be observed at all times and brief notes taken on their behavior. First of all, it is necessary to pay attention to which hand the future student writes with, and whether he transfers the pencil from one hand to the other while working. It is also necessary to note whether the child is spinning, whether his pencil is falling, whether he needs to be constantly praised while working, to check whether he has begun to trace the sample, etc.

Evaluation of results

Each task is graded from 1 (best grade) to 5 (worst). Below are the criteria for assessing each task using a five-point system. Samples of completing tasks are presented in Fig. 8.1.

Exercise 1. Drawing a male figure.

1 point – the drawn figure must have a head, torso, and limbs. The head is connected to the body by the neck (it should not be larger than the body). On the head - hair (possibly a cap or hat), ears, on the face - eyes, nose, mouth. The upper limbs end in a hand with five fingers. Signs of men's clothing. The drawing was made using the so-called synthetic method, i.e., a contour image in compliance with proportions.

2 points – fulfillment of all requirements, as in score 1, except for the synthetic image method. There are 3 possible missing body parts: neck, hair, 1 finger, but no part of the face should be missing.

3 points – the figure in the drawing must have a head, torso, limbs, arms, and legs drawn with two lines. Missing: ears, hair, clothes, fingers, feet.

4 points – primitive drawing of a head and body. The limbs (only one pair is enough) are depicted as one line.

5 points – there is no clear image of the torso and limbs. Scribble.

Task 2. Imitation of written text.

3 points – the letters must be divided into 2 groups, you can read at least 4 letters.

4 points – at least 2 letters are similar to the sample. The whole group still has the appearance of a “letter”.

5 points – doodles.

Task 3. Drawing a group of points.

1 point – exact reproduction of the sample. One point may extend beyond the frames of a column or row. Reduction of the sample is allowed no more than one and a half times.

2 points – the number and composition of points must correspond to the sample. You can omit 3 dots and 0.5 spaces between lines or columns.

3 points – general impression – similar to the sample. The height and width differs no more than 2 times compared to the sample. There should be no more than 20 points and no less than 7. Some rearrangements in the location of points up to 180 o are possible.

4 points – the drawing only resembles a sample, but still it is made of dots. The size and number of points are not significant. Other images, such as lines, are not acceptable.

5 points – doodles.

Evaluation of the results obtained. Children with a score of 15 points should be recommended for further medical and pedagogical examination. “School-mature” are considered children who received a total of 3–5 points for completing three tasks of this test, “medium-mature” – 6–9 points and “immature” – 10 and more points.

How can you make sure that your child learns easily, goes to school with pleasure, and is a good (or even the best) student in the class? During this period, parental ambitions lead to a paradoxical situation when the child begins to be perceived through the prism of success in school. How legitimate is this position of moms and dads? Is there a criterion that allows us to adequately assess the degree to which a child is prepared for school life? There is such a criterion, and in psychology it is called "school maturity" , or psychological readiness of the child for schooling

. School maturity is understood as the child reaching a level of mental development when he is able to take part in school education.

What ensures the successful development of a new social role for a schoolchild?

Most parents think that they have prepared their child for school if they taught him, for example, to read. Is it so? Imagine a situation where both reading and non-reading children gathered in one class.

Children who cannot read will actively develop reading skills, but what can those who can read do?

So, reading, writing, counting and other skills belong to general educational skills, but, despite their importance, they do not determine a child’s readiness for school.

By the time the senior preschooler started school, he had already come a long way in his mental development. We can distinguish three main areas of a child’s psychological readiness for school, based on the study of which we can draw a conclusion about school maturity: psychophysiological, intellectual and personal.

Psychophysiological features. By the age of seven, the structure and functions of the brain are sufficiently formed, close in a number of indicators to the brain of an adult. Thus, the weight of the brain of children during this period is 90 percent of the weight of the adult brain.

This maturation of the brain provides the opportunity to assimilate complex relationships in the world around us and contributes to solving more difficult intellectual problems.

By the beginning of schooling, the cerebral hemispheres and especially the frontal lobes, associated with the activity of the second signaling system, which is responsible for the development of speech, have sufficiently developed. This process is reflected in the speech of children. The number of generalizing words in it sharply increases.

If you ask four- to five-year-old children how to name pear, plum, apple and apricot in one word, you can observe that some children generally find it difficult to find such a word or it takes them a lot of time to search. A seven-year-old child can easily find the appropriate word (“fruit”).

By the age of seven, the asymmetry of the left and right hemispheres is quite pronounced.

At this age, children grasp the rhythm and tempo of movements well. However, the child’s movements are not dexterous, accurate and coordinated enough.

All of these changes in the physiological processes of the nervous system allow the child to participate in school education.

Further psychophysiological development of the child is associated with the improvement of the anatomical and physiological apparatus, the development of physical characteristics (weight, height, etc.), the improvement of the motor sphere, the development of conditioned reflexes, the relationship between the processes of excitation and inhibition.

Cognitive sphere. By the age of six or seven, all the analyzers of the cerebral cortex are relatively formed, on the basis of which different types of sensitivity develop. By this age, visual acuity, accuracy and subtlety of color discrimination improve. The child knows the primary colors and their shades. Sound-pitch discrimination sensitivity increases, the child can more correctly distinguish the heaviness of objects, and makes fewer mistakes when identifying odors.

By the beginning of school, the child has formed spatial relations . He can correctly determine the position of an object in space: below - above, in front - behind, left - right, above - below. The most difficult to master are the spatial relationships “left - right”. Children first make connections between direction and parts of their body. They distinguish between the right and left hands, paired organs and sides of their body as a whole. The child determines the location of something to the right or left only of himself. Then, already at primary school age, children move on to the perception of the relativity of directions and the possibility of transferring their definition to other objects. This is due to the fact that children can mentally take into account a 180-degree rotation and understand what it means to the right or left of other objects.

Children solve eye problems well in the case of large differences between objects; they can identify such relationships as “wider - narrower”, “bigger - smaller”, “shorter - longer”. A preschooler can correctly arrange the sticks, focusing on their length: find the longest, the shortest, arrange the sticks as their length increases or decreases.

Perception of time an older preschooler still differs significantly from the perception of an adult. Children understand that time cannot be stopped, returned, accelerated or slowed down, that it does not depend on the desire and will of a person. In time space, a child of senior preschool age is focused on the present “here and now.” Further development is associated with interest in the past and future. At seven or eight years old, children begin to be interested in what happened “before them,” in the history of their parents. At eight or nine years old, they “make plans” for the future (“I will be a doctor,” “I will get married,” etc.).

Perception is closely related to the content of the perceived object. The child perceives a familiar object (object, phenomenon, image) as a single whole, and an unfamiliar one as consisting of parts. Children six or seven years old prefer pictures with entertaining, resourceful, cheerful characters; they are able to grasp humor, irony, give an aesthetic assessment of the plot depicted in the picture, and determine the mood.

Perceiving form objects, the child tries to objectify it. For example, looking at an oval, he can say that it is a watch, a cucumber, a plate, etc. The child first focuses on color and then on shape. If a child is given the task of sorting shapes into groups: triangles, rectangles, squares, ovals, circles of different colors, then he will combine them based on color (for example, one group will include a triangle and a green circle). But if you objectify the figures, for example, give the table, chair, apple, cucumber depicted in the pictures, then, regardless of color, the child will combine the pictures into groups based on the shape. That is, all cucumbers, regardless of color (red, yellow, green), will be in the same group.

Sensory development in preschool age includes:

Development of sense organs;
- mastery of sensory standards (color, shape, size, texture),
- mastering methods of examining objects (perceiving the object as a whole, identifying main parts, small details and relationships between them, finding distinctive features).

By the beginning of school, the child has a sufficiently developed random memory . Improving this type of memory is associated with developing the ability to set a goal to remember something and apply methods of memorization.

In senior preschool and primary school age, well developed motor And emotional memory , and rote . A six- to seven-year-old child reproduces 4-8 well-known words and 1-2 unfamiliar words after an adult pronounces them.

By the age of six or seven, a child has a fairly large vocabulary - about 14,000 words. The child’s speech is distinguished by the use of words associated with movement and activity. There are very few adjectives in children's speech.

At six or seven years old, the number of generalizing words increases. At the age of six, the child uses situational words less and less often. speech

("But yesterday we went with him. And then there was a knock. I was scared. Then it was so fun. And he gave me a lollipop. Everyone laughed, and so did I." It turns out that the child went with his dad to the circus, where he performed a clown with a dog. The dog jumped onto the side of the arena and scared him, as he was sitting in the first row; then the clown came up and gave him a lollipop). Contextual speech appears, associated with the message about situations and phenomena that the child is not currently observing. Gradually, the child’s speech becomes coherent, detailed, logical, and understandable to the listener. By the age of six, it gradually develops voluntary attention

, which is expressed in the ability to do something according to a rule or instruction for a certain time. Six-year-old children can be productive in the same activity for 10-15 minutes. True, such properties of attention as distribution (focusing on several significant objects at once) and switching (the ability to quickly focus on another object or task) are not yet sufficiently developed. By the beginning of school, the child has developed horizon

.

The child uses example as the main form of evidence in the first stages of learning in preschool and primary school. When explaining something, everything comes down to the familiar, the particular, the known.

IN thinking The following features can be distinguished for a preschooler. Firstly, children are characterized by animism (animation of inanimate nature, celestial bodies, mythical creatures). Secondly, syncretism (insensitivity to contradictions, linking everything with everything, inability to separate cause and effect). Thirdly, egocentrism (inability to look at oneself from the outside). Fourthly, phenomenality (the tendency to rely not on knowledge of the true relationships of things, but on their apparent relationships).

The peculiarity of children's thinking is to spiritualize nature, to attribute to inanimate things the ability to think, feel, do - Jean Piaget called animism(from Latin animus - soul).

Where does this amazing property of a preschooler’s thinking come from - to see living things where, from the point of view of an adult, they cannot exist? Many found the reason for children's animism in the unique vision of the world that a child develops by the beginning of preschool age.

For an adult, the whole world is orderly. In the consciousness of an adult, there is a clear line between living and nonliving, active and passive objects.

There are no such strict boundaries for a child. The child proceeds from the fact that living things are everything that moves. The river is alive because it moves, and the clouds are alive for the same reason. The mountain is not alive because it stands.

From the moment of his birth, a preschooler has heard an adult’s speech directed at him, full of animistic constructions: “The doll wants to eat,” “The bear has gone to bed,” etc. In addition, he hears expressions such as “It’s raining,” “The sun has risen.” . The metaphorical context of our speech is hidden from the child - hence the animism of the preschooler's thinking. In a special, animate world, a preschooler easily and simply masters the connections between phenomena and acquires a large stock of knowledge. A game and a fairy tale, in which even a stone breathes and talks, is a special way of mastering the world, allowing a preschooler in a specific form to assimilate, understand and in his own way systematize the flow of information that befalls him..

Syncretism is the replacement of objective cause-and-effect relationships with subjective ones that exist in perception. In his experiments, J. Piaget asked children questions regarding causal relationships in the world around them. "Why doesn't the sun fall? Why doesn't the moon fall?" In their answers, the children indicated various properties of the object: size, location, functions, etc., connected in perception into one whole. "The sun doesn't fall because it's big. The moon doesn't fall because the stars. The sun doesn't fall because it shines. The wind doesn't fall because the trees sway." Let us give an example of syncretism in the story of a six-year-old child. “Little Red Riding Hood is walking through the forest, a fox meets her: “Why are you crying, Little Red Riding Hood?” And she answers: “How can I not cry?!” The wolf ate me!"

The next feature of children's thinking is the child's inability to look at an object from the position of another and is called egocentrism.

The child does not fall into the sphere of his own reflection (does not see himself from the outside), he is closed in his own point of view. Phenomenal

Children's thinking is manifested in the fact that children rely on the relationships of things that seem to them, and not on what actually exists.
Thus, it seems to a preschooler that there is a lot of milk in a tall and narrow glass, but if it is poured into a short but wide glass, it will become less.

He does not have the concept of conservation of quantity of a substance, that is, the understanding that the quantity of milk remains the same despite the change in the shape of the vessel. In the process of schooling and as he masters counting and develops the ability to establish one-to-one correspondence between objects in the external world, the child begins to understand that a certain transformation

does not change the basic qualities of objects. From the first day of school, children are expected to understand the complex social rules that govern relationships in the classroom. Relationships with classmates consist of finding a balance between cooperation and competition; relationships with teachers consist of a compromise between independence and obedience. associated with the formation of the regulatory function of the psyche. During the age period under consideration, children are prone to strong experiences; due to the plasticity of nervous processes, a rapid change of feelings occurs. In children, feelings associated with learning activities and the process of cognition begin to acquire special significance. They are no longer satisfied with just gaming activities.

Moral feelings are further developed, on the basis of which such qualities as responsibility, hard work, honesty, and partnership are formed.

By the beginning of schooling in a child, the processes of excitation prevail over the processes of inhibition. The regulatory function of the will is manifested in the activation and inhibition of the child’s activities. A preschool-age child should develop concepts such as “necessary,” “possible,” and “impossible.” It is necessary to put away toys, brush teeth, make the bed, etc. - all this is a motivating, activating function of the will. You cannot throw things around, watch TV after 9 pm, etc. - these verbal influences from parents are aimed at inhibiting the child’s motor activity. “You can” forms in the mind of a preschooler the rules of behavior, on the basis of which the formation of such important personality traits as discipline and responsibility occurs: “You can go for a walk after you put away the toys (in primary school age - you learn your homework),” etc. Many preschoolers have formed strong-willed qualities

, which allow them to successfully perform various tasks. Children are able to set a goal, make a decision, outline a plan of action, make a certain effort to overcome an obstacle, and evaluate the result of their action. In order for a child to develop volitional qualities, an adult must organize his activities, remembering that volitional action directly depends on the difficulty of the task and the time allotted for its completion. In children of senior preschool age, the circle expands needs

. New needs appear related to the desire to go to school and gain the status of a school student. The child wants to learn new information no longer through play, but in communication with the teacher and other children, begins to realize his needs, however, often the needs and interests are aimed at the external, most attractive side of schooling (buying a backpack, school supplies, allocating a place in the house for completing homework, etc.). in preschool children it is generally overestimated. And one of the difficulties of schooling will be associated with the formation of adequate self-esteem