5. MAIN DIRECTIONS OF THE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD

Child development is a process that is implemented in any situation of a child’s interaction with the outside world, with parents, teachers, adults, other children. As S.V. Malanov states in his book “Development of skills and abilities in children of preschool age. Theoretical and methodological materials ”, if joint processes and ways of jointly performing various actions play a central role in learning processes, then in the processes of personal development, samples, means and methods of communication and organization of interpersonal interactions play a central role. In Russian psychology, the following series of mental neoplasms, which are formed at preschool age, are distinguished as the most important by the authors (this is what L. F. Obukhova says in the study “Child psychology: theories, facts, problems”):

1) the emergence of a solid children's worldview;

2) the emergence of primary ethical authorities;

3) the emergence of the subordination of motives;

4) the occurrence of arbitrary behavior;

5) the emergence of an internal plan of mental action;

6) the emergence of personal consciousness.

As the main lines of development of the child, determining its inclusion in the new activity - learning activities, it is customary to indicate:

1) the formation of arbitrary behavior;

2) mastering the means and standards of cognitive activity;

3) the transition from egocentrism to decentration (the ability to see the world from the point of view of another person, to take into account the interests of other people);

4) the motivational development of cognitive activity.

It is believed that these lines of development of the child determine his readiness for schooling.

Researchers identify a number of areas of educational activities and skills that are an indicator of the development of children of preschool and primary school age:

1) the development of skills to engage in decent forms of communication and interaction with other people, as well as the ability to reckon with the interests of other people.

2) the development of speech skills and abilities:

a) phonemic and grammatical skills:

- the ability to differentiate the sound composition of speech;

- the ability to harmonize words in sentences;

- set the meaning of words;

b) regulatory functions of speech :

- performing actions on verbal instructions;

- organization of the actions of another person with the help of speech;

- performance of actions based on independent speech planning;

- the ability to obey the rules and follow it;

c) speech communicative functions :

- speech description of any items;

- the ability to convey the content of any impressions, events, fairy tales;

- joint action planning in verbal communication;

- understanding the meaning of messages;

d) communicative-personal and reflexive functions of speech:

- the ability to talk about the behavior of another and explain it;

- the ability to talk about the experiences of another and explain them;

- the ability to talk about their behavior, experiences and explain their reasons;

3) the formation and development of skills to perform sign-symbolic actions and skills to perform actions in the inner mental space:

a) the ability to designate and replace phenomena, processes and events with different signs;

b) the ability to dilute the designated content and means of designation;

c) the ability to “fill” conventional sign schemes and models with content;

d) the ability to perform simple schematization and modeling actions;

e) the ability to objectify representations;

e) the ability to use speech as a means of transforming the external form of orientation into mental action;

4) the development of simple logical and mathematical skills and abilities - the differentiation of qualitative and quantitative characteristics of objects:

a) the ability to compare multiple items;

b) the ability to identify and classify the properties and characteristics of objects for various reasons;

c) the use of measurement standards in order to compare objects and their quantity;

d) the ability to use simple mathematical signs;

d) the ability to perform a sequence of mathematical actions on speech instructions.

5) The development of motor skills and abilities:

a) the ability to perform actions that require the orientation of the body in space;

b) the ability to orient locomotor actions in external space;

c) the ability to perform accurate, "sighting" actions in a spatial field with objects;

d) the ability to change, maintain and arbitrarily regulate muscle tone;

e) development of “fine motor skills” of manipulative actions;

e) the ability to be aware of the actions performed (to tell about the actions being performed);

g) the ability to perform sequences of actions in accordance with the speech instruction and the outlined plan;

6) the development of artistic skills and abilities. Skills related to the technique of using tools of artistic and visual activities:

a) the ability to use a pencil;

b) the ability to use a brush and paints;

7) skills related to image building techniques:

a) the ability to navigate in the space of a sheet of paper;

b) the ability to transmit the image in color;

c) the ability to observe the proportions between the objects depicted and use the "depth".

8) the ability to talk about the concept of the future image and transfer it to the external plan of the picture:

a) the ability to tell about the plot presented image;

b) the ability to tell about his plot depicted and list the elements of the plot;

c) the ability to reflect in the picture the plot and its elements in accordance with the plan;

9) the development of musical and expressive skills and abilities:

a) the ability to navigate the rhythmic characteristics of music;

b) the ability to navigate in pitch relationships;

c) the ability to tell about the objective features of a musical work;

d) the ability to talk about the experiences and images that causes a musical work;

e) the ability to express one’s emotional and axiological experiences, attitudes and performances through musical works;

e) the ability to independently play and intonate melodies, songs;

g) the ability to move in accordance with the nature of the music.