1. Introduction

2. Features of communication

2.1 Verbal and emotional communication

3. Mental development

3.1 Speaking and writing

3.2 Sensory development

3.3 Development of thinking

3.4 Development of attention, memory, imagination

4. Personality of a child of primary school age

4.1 Gender identity

4.2 Psychological time of the individual

4.3 Development of feelings

5. Educational activities

5.1 School readiness

5.2 General characteristics of educational activities

5.3 The influence of learning on mental development

5.4 The influence of learning on personality development

6. Literature

1. Introduction

Junior school age (from 6-7 to 9-10 years) is determined by an important external circumstance in the child’s life - entering school. Currently, the school accepts and parents send their children away at 6-7 years old. The school takes responsibility through various interview forms to determine the child’s readiness for primary education. The family decides which primary school to send the child to: public or private, three-year or four-year.

A child who enters school automatically takes a completely new place in the system of human relations: he has permanent responsibilities associated with educational activities. Close adults, a teacher, even strangers communicate with the child not only as a unique person, but also as a person who has taken upon himself the obligation (whether voluntarily or under compulsion) to study, like all children of his age.

By the end of preschool age, the child is, in a certain sense, an individual. He is aware of what place he occupies among people (he, a preschooler) and what place he will have to take in the near future (he will go to school). In a word, he discovers a new place for himself in the social space of human relations. By this period, he has already achieved a lot in interpersonal relationships: he is oriented in family and kinship relationships and knows how to take the desired place among his family and friends that corresponds to his social status. He knows how to build relationships with adults and peers: he has the skills of self-control, knows how to subordinate himself to circumstances, and be adamant in his desires. He already understands that the assessment of his actions and motives is determined not so much by his own attitude towards himself (“I am good”), but primarily by how his actions look in the eyes of the people around him. He already has sufficiently developed reflexive abilities. At this age, a significant achievement in the development of a child’s personality is the predominance of the “I must” motive over the “I want” motive.

One of the most important results of mental development during preschool childhood is the child’s psychological readiness for schooling. And it lies in the fact that by the time a child enters school, he develops psychological properties inherent in the schoolchild himself. These properties can finally develop only during schooling under the influence of the inherent conditions of life and activity.

Junior school age promises the child new achievements in a new sphere of human activity - learning. A child in primary school learns special psychophysical and mental actions that should serve writing, arithmetic operations, reading, physical education, drawing, manual labor and other types of educational activities. Based on educational activities, under favorable learning conditions and a sufficient level of mental development of the child, prerequisites for theoretical consciousness and thinking arise (D.B. Elkonin, V.V. Davydov).

During the period of preschool childhood, in the ups and downs of relationships with adults and peers, the child learns to reflect on other people. At school, in new living conditions, these acquired reflexive abilities provide the child with a good service in solving problematic situations in relationships with the teacher and classmates. At the same time, educational activity requires special reflection from the child associated with mental operations: analysis of educational tasks, control and organization of executive actions, as well as control of attention, mnemonic actions, mental planning and problem solving.

The new social situation introduces the child into a strictly standardized world of relationships and requires from him organized arbitrariness, responsible for discipline, for the development of performing actions associated with acquiring skills in educational activities, as well as for mental development. Thus, the new social situation tightens the child’s living conditions and acts as stressful for him. Every child who enters school experiences increased mental tension. This affects not only physical health, but also the child’s behavior.

A child of preschool age lives in the conditions of his family, where the demands addressed to him are consciously or unconsciously correlated with his individual characteristics: the family usually correlates its requirements for the child’s behavior with his capabilities.

Another thing is school. Many children come to class, and the teacher must work with everyone. This determines the strictness of the teacher’s demands and increases the child’s mental tension. Before school, the child’s individual characteristics could not interfere with his natural development, since these characteristics were accepted and taken into account by loved ones. At school, the child’s living conditions are standardized; as a result, many deviations from the intended path of development are revealed: hyperexcitability, hyperdynamia, severe inhibition. These deviations form the basis of children's fears, reduce volitional activity, cause depression, etc. The child will have to overcome the trials that have befallen him.

General sensitivity to the influence of environmental living conditions, characteristic of childhood, promotes the development of adaptive forms of behavior, reflection and mental functions. In most cases, the child adapts himself to standard conditions. The leading activity is educational. In addition to mastering special mental actions and actions related to writing, reading, drawing, labor, etc., the child, under the guidance of a teacher, begins to master the content of the basic forms of human consciousness (science, art, morality, etc.) and learns to act in accordance with traditions and new ones. people's social expectations.

In new relationships with adults and peers, the child continues to develop reflection on himself and others. In educational activities, claiming recognition, the child exercises his will to achieve educational goals. Achieving success or suffering defeat, he falls into the trap of accompanying negative formations (a feeling of superiority over others or envy). The developing ability to identify with others helps to relieve the pressure of negative formations and develop into accepted positive forms of communication.

At the end of childhood, the child continues to develop physically (coordination of movements and actions, body image, and value attitude towards one’s physical self are improved). Bodily activity, coordination of movements and actions, in addition to general motor activity, are aimed at mastering specific movements and actions that support learning activities.

Educational activities require new achievements from the child in the development of speech, attention, memory, imagination and thinking; creates new conditions for the child’s personal development.

2. Features of communication

2.1 Verbal and emotional communication

The school makes new demands on the child regarding speech development: when answering in class, speech must be literate, concise, clear in thought, expressive; When communicating, speech structures must correspond to cultural expectations.

Communication becomes a special school of social relations. The child is still unconsciously discovering the existence of different communication styles. Also unconsciously, he tries these styles based on his own volitional capabilities and a certain social courage. In many cases, the child is faced with the problem of resolving the situation of frustrated communication.

In reality, in human relationships one can distinguish the following types of behavior in situations of frustration:

1) an actively involved, adequately loyal type of behavior striving to overcome frustration - an adaptive (highly positive) form of social normative response;

2) an actively engaged, inadequately loyal type of behavior fixed on frustration - an adaptive form of social normative response;

3) an actively activated, adequately disloyal, aggressive, frustration-driven type of behavior is a negative normative form of social response;

4) an actively engaged, adequately disloyal, ignoring, frustration-driven type of behavior is a negative normative form of social response;

5) passive, non-involved type of behavior - an undeveloped, non-adaptive form of social response."

It is in conditions of independent communication that the child discovers various styles of possible relationship building.

With an actively activated loyal type of communication, the child looks for speech and emotional forms that contribute to the establishment of positive relationships. If the situation requires it and the child was really wrong, he apologizes, fearlessly but respectfully looks into the opponent’s eyes and expresses his readiness to cooperate and move forward in the development of the relationship. This kind of behavior of a younger schoolchild usually cannot be a truly practiced and internally accepted form of communication. Only in individual, favorable communication situations does he reach this peak.

When an inadequately loyal type of communication is actively activated, the child seems to give up his position without resistance, rushes to apologize, or simply submit to the opposing side. The readiness to accept the aggressive pressure of another without an open discussion of the situation is dangerous for the development of the child’s sense of personality. She crushes the child under her and dominates him.

When an adequately disloyal, aggressive type of communication is actively activated, the child makes an emotional verbal or effective attack in response to aggression from another. He can use open curses or fight back with words like “You’re a fool!”, “I hear this from someone like that!” etc. Open aggression in response to aggression puts the child in a position of equality in relation to his peer, and here the struggle of ambitions will determine the winner through the ability to provide volitional resistance, without resorting to demonstrating physical advantage.

When an adequate disloyal, ignoring type of communication is actively activated, the child demonstrates complete disregard for aggression directed at him. Openly ignoring in response to aggression can put a child above the situation if he has enough intuition and reflexive abilities not to overdo it in expressing ignorance, not to offend the feelings of a frustrating peer and at the same time put him in his place. This position allows you to maintain self-esteem and a sense of personality.

With a passive, non-involved type of behavior, no communication occurs. The child avoids communication, withdraws into himself (pulls his head into his shoulders, looks into a certain space in front of him, turns away, lowers his eyes, etc.). This position smears the child’s self-esteem and deprives him of self-confidence.

At primary school age, a restructuring of the child’s relationships with people occurs. As L.S. pointed out. Vygotsky, the history of the child’s cultural development to a result that can be defined “as the sociogenesis of higher forms of behavior.”

3. Mental development

3.1 Speaking and writing

The first years of a child’s life, as we have already said, are sensitive to the development of speech and cognitive processes. It is during this period that children develop a flair for linguistic phenomena, unique general linguistic abilities - the child begins to enter into the reality of the figurative-sign system. During childhood, speech development proceeds in two main directions: firstly, vocabulary is intensively acquired and the morphological system of the language spoken by others is acquired; secondly, speech ensures the restructuring of cognitive processes (attention, perception, memory, imagination, as well as thinking). At the same time, the growth of vocabulary, the development of the grammatical structure of speech and cognitive processes directly depend on living conditions and upbringing. Individual variations here are quite large, especially in speech development. Let us turn to a consistent analysis of the child’s speech and cognitive processes.

By the time a child enters school, his vocabulary has increased so much that he can freely communicate with another person on any issue related to everyday life and within his sphere of interests. If at three years old a normally developed child uses up to 500 or more words, then a six year old child uses from 3000 to 7000 words. A child's vocabulary in primary school consists of nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, numerals and connecting conjunctions.

Without special training, a child will not be able to conduct a sound analysis of even the simplest words. This is understandable: verbal communication itself does not pose tasks for the child, in the process of solving which these specific forms of analysis would develop. A child who cannot analyze the sound composition of a word cannot be considered retarded. He's just not trained.

The need for communication determines the development of speech. Throughout childhood, the child intensively masters speech. Speech acquisition turns into speech activity.

A child entering school is forced to move from his “own program” of speech training to the program offered by the school.

Methodists offer the following scheme of types of speech for the systematic organization of work on speech development.

3.2 Sensory development

A child who comes to school not only distinguishes colors, shapes, sizes of objects and their position in space, but can correctly name the proposed colors and shapes of objects, and correctly correlate objects by size. He can also draw the simplest shapes and color them in a given color.

It is very important that the child is able to establish the identity of objects to one or another standard. Standards are examples of the main varieties of qualities and properties of objects developed by humanity. As mentioned above, standards were created during the history of human culture and are used by people as samples, standards with the help of which the correspondence of perceived reality to one or another sample from a system of ordered standards is established.

If a child can correctly name the color and shape of an object, if he can correlate the perceived quality with the standard, then he can establish identity (the ball is round), partial similarity (the apple is round, but not perfect like a ball), dissimilarity (a ball and a cube) . Thoroughly examining, feeling or listening, the child performs correlative actions and traces the connection of what is perceived with the standard.

In nature there is an endless variety of colors, shapes, sounds. Humanity gradually streamlined them, reducing them to systems of colors, shapes, sounds - sensory standards. For schooling, it is important that the child’s sensory development is sufficiently high.

By school age, a normally developed child understands well that a picture or drawing is a reflection of reality. Therefore, he tries to correlate paintings and drawings with reality, to see what is depicted in them. When looking at a drawing, a copy of a painting, or the painting itself, a child accustomed to fine art does not perceive the multicolor palette used by the artist as mud; he knows that the world consists of an infinite number of sparkling colors. The child already knows how to correctly evaluate a perspective image, as he knows that the same object located far away looks small in the picture, but close up - much larger. Therefore, he peers closely and correlates images of some objects with others. Children love to look at pictures - after all, these are stories about life that they are so eager to comprehend. Drawings and painting contribute to the development of the symbolic function of consciousness and artistic taste.

3.3 Development of thinking

A feature of a child’s healthy psyche is cognitive activity. A child’s curiosity is constantly aimed at understanding the world around him and building his own picture of this world. The child, while playing, experiments, tries to establish cause-and-effect relationships and dependencies. He himself, for example, can find out which objects will sink and which will float.

The more mentally active a child is, the more questions he asks and the more varied these questions are. A child may be interested in everything in the world: how deep is the ocean? How do animals breathe there? how many thousand kilometers is the globe? Why doesn’t the snow melt in the mountains, but does it melt below?

The child strives for knowledge, and the acquisition of knowledge itself occurs through numerous “why?”, “how?”, “why?” He is forced to operate with knowledge, imagine situations and try to find a possible way to answer the question. We have already said that when some problems arise, the child tries to solve them by actually trying them on and trying them out, but he can also solve problems, as they say, in his mind. He imagines a real situation and, as it were, acts in it in his imagination. Such thinking, in which the solution of a problem occurs as a result of internal actions with images, is called visual-figurative. Imaginative thinking is the main type of thinking in primary school age. Of course, a junior schoolchild can think logically, but it should be remembered that this age is sensitive to learning based on visualization.

J. Piaget established that the thinking of a child at six or seven years old is characterized by “centring” or perception of the world of things and their properties from the only possible position for the child, the position he actually occupies. It is difficult for a child to imagine that his vision of the world does not coincide with how other people perceive this world.

The transition to systematic education at school, to developmental education, changes the child’s orientation in the phenomena of reality around him. At the pre-scientific stage of development of thinking, the child judges changes from an egocentric position, but the transition to mastering new ways of solving problems changes the child’s consciousness, his position in assessing objects and changes occurring to him. Developmental education leads the child to master the scientific picture of the world; he begins to focus on socially developed criteria.

3.4 Development of attention, memory, imagination

Educational activity requires the development of higher mental functions - arbitrariness of attention, memory, imagination. The attention, memory, and imagination of a junior schoolchild are already acquiring independence - the child learns to master special actions that make it possible to concentrate on educational activities, retain in memory what he saw or heard, and imagine something that goes beyond what was previously perceived. If in preschool age play activity itself contributed to quantitative changes in the development of voluntariness (increased voluntariness, expressed in concentration and stability of attention, long-term preservation of images in memory, enrichment of imagination), then at primary school age educational activity requires the child to assign special actions, thanks to which attention, memory, imagination acquire a pronounced voluntary, deliberate character. However, the arbitrariness of cognitive processes in children of six-seven, ten-eleven years old arises only at the peak of volitional effort, when the child specially organizes himself under the pressure of circumstances or on his own impulse. Under normal circumstances, it is still very difficult for him to organize his mental functions at the level of the highest achievements of the human psyche.

Development of attention. The child’s cognitive activity, aimed at examining the world around him, organizes his attention on the objects under study for quite a long time, until interest dries up. If a six or seven year old child is busy with a game that is important to him, then he can play for two or even three hours without being distracted. For just as long, he can be focused on productive activities (drawing, designing, making crafts that are meaningful to him). However, such results of focusing attention are a consequence of interest in what the child is doing. He will languish, be distracted and feel completely unhappy if he has to be attentive in an activity that he is indifferent to or does not like at all.

A younger student, to a certain extent, can plan his own activities. At the same time, he verbally states what he must do and in what sequence he will perform this or that work. Planning certainly organizes the child's attention.

Memory development. When memorization becomes a condition for successful play or is important for the realization of the child’s aspirations, he easily remembers words in a given order, poems, sequence of actions, etc. The child can use memorization techniques consciously. He repeats what needs to be remembered, tries to comprehend, realize what is being remembered in a given sequence. However, involuntary memorization remains more productive. Here again, everything is determined by the child’s interest in the business he is busy with.

At school, the child is faced with the need to memorize voluntarily. Educational activities strictly require the child to memorize. The teacher gives the child instructions on how to remember and reproduce what needs to be learned. Together with the children, he discusses the content and volume of the material, divides it into parts (according to meaning, difficulty of memorization, etc.), and teaches them to control the memorization process. Understanding is a necessary condition for memorization - the teacher fixes the child’s attention on the need for understanding, teaches the child to understand what he must remember, sets the motivation for the memorization strategy: preserving knowledge and skills not only for solving school assignments, but also for the rest of his life.

Voluntary memory becomes a function on which educational activity is based, and the child comes to understand the need to make his memory work for himself. It is the memorization and reproduction of educational material that allows the child to reflect on his personal mental changes as a result of immersion in educational activities and see with his own eyes that “teaching oneself” means changing oneself in knowledge and in acquiring the ability to perform voluntary actions.

Development of imagination. At primary school age, a child can already create a wide variety of situations in his imagination. Formed in playful substitutions of some objects for others, imagination moves into other types of activity.

A child, experiencing difficulties in real life, perceiving his personal situation as hopeless, can go into an imaginary world. So, when there is no father and this brings unspeakable pain, in the imagination you can find the most wonderful, most extraordinary - a generous, strong, courageous father. In your imagination, you can even save your father from mortal danger, and then he will not only love you, but also appreciate your courage, resourcefulness and courage. A father-friend is the dream of not only boys, but also girls. Imagination provides a temporary opportunity to relax, free from tension in order to continue living without a father. When peers oppress - beat, threaten with violence, morally humiliate, in the imagination you can create a special world in which a child either solves his problems with his own generosity, reasonable behavior, or turns into an aggressive overlord who cruelly takes revenge on his offenders. It is very important to listen to the child’s statements about his peers who oppress him.

The mental development of a child attending school changes qualitatively due to the demands made by educational activities. The child is now forced to enter into the reality of figurative-sign systems and into the reality of the objective world through constant immersion in situations of solving various educational and life problems. Let us list the main tasks that are solved at primary school age: 1) penetration into the secrets of the linguistic, syntactic, etc. structure of the language; 2) assimilation of the meanings and meanings of verbal signs and independent establishment of their subtle integrative connections; 3) solving mental problems associated with the transformation of the objective world; 4) development of voluntary aspects of attention, memory and imagination; 5) development of imagination as a way to go beyond personal practical experience, as a condition for creativity.

4. Personality of a child of primary school age

At the age of seven to eleven years, the child begins to understand that he represents a certain individuality, which, of course, is subject to social influences. He knows that he is obliged to learn and in the process of learning to change himself, appropriating collective signs (speech, numbers, notes, etc.), collective concepts, knowledge and ideas that exist in society, a system of social expectations regarding behavior and value orientations. At the same time, he knows that he is different from others and experiences his uniqueness, his “self,” striving to establish himself among adults and peers.

4.1 Gender identity

The younger schoolchild already knows about his belonging to one gender or another. He already understands that this is irreversible, and strives to establish himself as a boy or girl.

The boy knows that he must be brave, not cry, and give way to all adults and girls. The boy is looking at male professions. He knows what a man's work is. He is trying to saw something off, hammer something in. He is very proud when his efforts are noticed and approved. Boys try to behave as men do.

The girl knows that she should be friendly, kind, feminine, not fight, not spit, not climb fences. She gets involved in homework. When she is praised for being a needlewoman and a hostess, she flushes with pleasure and embarrassment. Girls strive to become like women.

In the classroom, girls and boys, when communicating with each other, do not forget that they are opposites: when the teacher puts a boy and a girl at the same desk, the children are embarrassed, especially if the surrounding peers react to this circumstance. In direct communication, children can observe a certain distancing due to the fact that they are “boys” and “girls.” However, primary school age is relatively calm in terms of pronounced fixation on gender-role relationships.

The linguistic space of the native language, which contains an infinite number of meanings and meanings that determine the formation of psychological attitudes towards gender identification, begins to have a special, hidden impact on the sexual identification of a child of primary school age.

4.2 Psychological time of the individual

A child of primary school age's judgments about his past, present and future are still quite primitive. Usually, a child of this age really lives for today and the near future.

The distant future is generally abstract for the elementary school student, although when he is given a rosy picture of his future successes, he beams with pleasure. His intentions to be a strong, intelligent, courageous man or a kind, friendly, feminine woman are certainly laudable, but today's child makes only some symbolic efforts for this, relying on good impulses.

Personal past has a double meaning for younger schoolchildren. Firstly, the child already has his own memories. The images of his memory are vivid and emotional. A 7-12 year old child is normally freed from early childhood amnesia. Memory stores visual ideas, which are reproduced in the form of generalized memories, which are transformed at this age by enriching the child with life experience and the symbolic culture of language. The child loves to “return” to childhood and relive stories dear to him. Today these stories bring him satisfaction and open joy. As a rule, a child strives to free himself from bad memories. Secondly, during the period of adaptation to school in the first and second grades, many children express sincere regret that they have become older. These children would like to go back in time to their preschool childhood without the depressing and exhausting obligations of studying and learning. Students in the third and fourth grades may also have the desire to become small and not go to school. In this case, the child needs psychological support and support.

4.3 Development of feelings

New facets of feelings of a child of primary school age develop, first of all, within educational activities and about educational activities. Of course, all those feelings that appeared in him in preschool age continue to remain and deepen in everyday relationships with his beloved close adults. However, the social space has expanded - the child constantly communicates with the teacher and classmates according to the laws of clearly formulated rules.

Another very important feeling for a developed personality is also empathy for others.

Empathy is experiencing something together with another (others), sharing someone else's experiences; this is also an action towards someone with whom one empathizes. The developed ability to empathize includes the entire range of this state: firstly, it is compassion (pity aroused by the misfortune of another person) and sympathy (a responsive, sympathetic attitude to the experiences, misfortune of another); secondly, it is joy (the feeling of satisfaction with the joy and success of another).

A child learns empathy through the mechanism of imitation. Following a model is called imitation. Imitation occurs through copying behavior and feelings. Actions, deeds, facial expressions, pantomimes are reproduced on the basis of physiological mechanisms. Imitation of feelings occurs on the basis of both physiological and psychological mechanisms.

A child learns empathy through imitation of the external manifestations of this human state and through imitation of actions that accompany empathy.

Imitating the actions of empathy that adults show towards each other, towards children, and animals, leads the child to the point that he learns to show all the external attributes of empathy and is actually able to experience short bursts of empathy for others. The feelings that arise in a child in relation to other people are easily transferred to the characters of fairy tales, stories, and poems. The most vivid empathy is manifested when listening to fairy tales and stories, when it comes to a character who is in trouble.

The teacher can inspire. To do this, he must have the technique of suggestion. No argument is needed here. Suggestion is an influence on the will, consciousness, motivation to certain actions, primarily through the first signaling system. This influence is carried out by voice, intonation, and facial expressions. Suggestive speech is different from narrative speech. With the help of an intonograph and an electronic computer, the difference in the physical characteristics of suggestive speech from narrative speech was shown. From a psychological point of view, the effectiveness, emotionality of the speaker and the degree of confidence in what is being said are especially significant. If a teacher constantly treats envy, gloating and arrogance with disgust and indignation, then the inspiring power of his feelings will give positive results.

A teacher can work on imitative identification, on the mechanism of identifying a child with a significant adult. A child of primary school age is still very imitative. And this imitation is strengthened by a change of place in the system of social relations - the child’s arrival at school. The uncertainty that a child experiences at school increases his imitation.

A child’s imitation can be involuntary or voluntary.

Involuntary imitation leads to borrowing the behavior of classmates and teachers. This imitation is based on the physiological imitation mechanism - on the demonstrated model. Here the child unconsciously borrows the action.

Voluntary imitation is an act of will that builds on top of involuntary imitation. In this case, the child purposefully reproduces this or that action, trying to recreate it reliably in accordance with the model. By repeating syllables after the teacher and reproducing phonemes, the child masters his native and other languages ​​through the mechanisms of involuntary and voluntary imitation. Through these mechanisms, the child masters the activities of physical education, visual arts, singing, labor skills, etc.

Empathy as a very important socially significant quality can receive its special development through imitation of the teacher’s behavior with children regarding their failure and success. If a teacher, assessing a child’s knowledge, informs him of failure and at the same time sympathizes with him and becomes upset with him, then this is exactly how children will behave in the future.

5. Educational activities

5.1 School readiness

Entering school is a turning point in a child’s life. A distinctive feature of the position of a student is that his studies are a compulsory, socially significant activity. For this he is responsible to the teacher, school, and family. The life of a student is subject to a system of strict rules that are the same for all students. Its main content is the acquisition of knowledge common to all children.

An important aspect of psychological readiness for school is a sufficient level of volitional development of the child.

A special place in psychological readiness for school is occupied by the mastery of special knowledge and skills that traditionally relate to school skills - literacy, numeracy, and solving arithmetic problems.

Readiness to master the school curriculum is evidenced not by knowledge and skills themselves, but by the level of development of the child’s cognitive interests and cognitive activity. A general positive attitude towards school and learning is not enough to ensure sustainable successful learning if the child is not attracted by the very content of the knowledge acquired at school, is not interested in the new things he learns in the classroom, if he is not attracted by the process of learning itself.

The school places particularly high demands on the child’s thinking. The child must be able to identify the essential in the phenomena of the surrounding reality, be able to compare them, see similar and different; he must learn to reason, find the causes of phenomena, and draw conclusions.

Another aspect of mental development that determines a child’s readiness for schooling is the development of speech - possession of the ability to describe an object, picture, event in a coherent, consistent, understandable way for others, to convey the train of one’s thoughts, to explain this or that phenomenon or rule.

A special problem is adaptation to school. A situation of uncertainty is always exciting. And before school, every child experiences extreme excitement. He enters life in new conditions compared to kindergarten. It may also happen that a child in the lower grades will obey the majority against his own wishes. Therefore, it is necessary to help the child in this difficult period of his life to find himself, to teach him to be responsible for his actions.

5.2 General characteristics of educational activities

The child’s educational activity develops as gradually, through the experience of entering into it, as all previous activities (manipulative, objective, play). Learning activity is an activity aimed at the student himself. The child learns not only knowledge, but also how to master this knowledge.

Educational activities have their own structure. D. B. Elkonin identified several interrelated components in it:

1) educational task - what the student must learn, the method of action to be learned;

2) educational actions - what the student must do in order to form a model of an assimilated action and reproduce this model;

3) control action - comparison of the reproduced action with the sample;

4) the action of assessment - determining how much the student has achieved the result, the degree of changes that have occurred in the child himself.

The ultimate goal of educational activity is the student’s conscious educational activity, which he himself builds according to its inherent objective laws. Educational activity, initially organized by an adult, must turn into an independent activity of the student, in which he formulates an educational task, carries out educational actions and control actions, carries out assessment, i.e. Learning activity through the child’s reflection on it turns into self-learning.

Higher mental functions, according to L.S. Vygotsky, develop in the collective interactions of people. L.S. Vygotsky formulated the general genetic law of cultural development: “Every function in the cultural development of a child appears on the scene twice, on two levels, first social, then psychological, first between people, as an interpsychic category, then within the child, as an intrapsychic category. This applies equally to voluntary attention, as to logical memory, to the formation of concepts, to the development of the will. The psychological nature of man is the totality of human relationships transferred internally. This transfer inside is carried out under the condition of joint activity of the adult and the child. In educational activities - teachers and students.

Gradually increasing the potential of mental operations and methods of educational activity existing in culture is a natural way of developing individual intelligence and its socialization. However, in the theory of the content and structure of educational activities over the course of decades, the idea has crystallized that the basis of developmental education is its content and methods of organizing training. This position was developed by L.S. Vygotsky, and then D.B. Elkonin and V.V. Davydov. Of fundamental importance for theorists of the conditions for assimilation of knowledge was L. S. Vygotsky’s idea that “learning plays its leading role in mental development, first of all, through the content of acquired knowledge.” Specifying this position, V.V. Davydov notes that “the developmental nature of educational activity as a leading activity at primary school age is due to the fact that its content is theoretical knowledge.” The scientific knowledge and culture accumulated by humanity are assimilated by the child through the development of educational activities. V.V. Davydov, studying the educational activity of junior schoolchildren, writes that it “is built in accordance with the method of presenting scientific knowledge, with the method of ascending from the abstract to the concrete.” Thinking in the process of educational activity is to some extent similar to the thinking of a scientist presenting the results of his research through meaningful abstractions, generalizations and theoretical concepts. At the same time, it is assumed that knowledge characteristic of other “high” forms of social consciousness also receives the opportunity to be holistically reproduced in a similar way - artistic, moral and legal thinking carries out operations that are related to theoretical knowledge.

5.3 The influence of learning on mental development

The problem of developmental training and education has been developed in our country for many decades. Initially, attention was paid to the development of learning skills. As a result, it was found that primary education does not have any significant effect on the mental development of children. L.V. Zankov wrote that achieving a good quality of knowledge and skills in the primary grades is not accompanied by success in the development of the child. The formed educational system, generated specifically by the historical development of educational activities, required a restructuring of the theory and practice of educational activities. At the end of the 60s, a restructuring of primary education was carried out, one of the goals of which was to increase the role of education in the mental development of children.

When younger schoolchildren master theoretical knowledge, conditions arise that are conducive to the formation of psychological formations in them that determine mental development - reflection, analysis and planning.

Relative success gives the teacher the opportunity to see what each of his students acquires. Analyzing the current and relative success of the child, L.S. Vygotsky, along with the level of the child’s actual development, highlighted the concept of the zone of proximal development, which marks “the distance between the level of his actual development, determined with the help of tasks solved independently, and the level of the child’s possible development, determined with the help of problems solved by the child under the guidance of adults and in cooperation with his more intelligent comrades... The level of actual development characterizes the successes of development, the results of development as of yesterday, and the zone of proximal development characterizes mental development for tomorrow.” The maturation of the child’s mental function occurs not only according to complex laws of development, but also thanks to the complicity of an adult, who takes upon himself the mission of leading the child, performing educational actions with him, so that tomorrow he can perform them independently. For the dynamics of mental development and for school success, the functions that have matured today are not as significant as the functions that are in the stage of maturation: what is important is not so much what the child has already learned, but what he is able to learn.

We should once again turn to the idea of ​​L.S. Vygotsky that at each age development is based on different functions. At an early age, the leading function is perception, then memory and thinking. In reality, the transition from one function to another does not occur according to stages of age development. Each child has his own special dominants in the development of functions. Thus, in the conditions of school education, which was initially aimed at developing logical thinking, children appear who are clearly not ready to develop mentally in the proposed way. Visual-figurative thinking may dominate in them; they need figurative supports to solve problem situations (from educational tasks to situations in everyday life). N.S. Leites described this type of child development and showed that it not only has a negative side, but also potentially carries with it opportunities for creativity. When correlating absolute success in the educational activities of a child of primary school age with early giftedness, a teacher may make a mistake: not every case of absolute success reveals to us a future intellectual and future talent. At the same time, not every case of developmental delay obviously predetermines failure in the prospects for mental development. Having previously explored the manifestations of giftedness and mental retardation, N.S. Leites showed that there are many options for development. The development of each child has its own prospects - this must be remembered. You should communicate with the child, first of all, as an individual, and not as a successful or unsuccessful student.

5.4 The influence of learning on personality development

The mental development of a child is fundamentally influenced by learning activities. In this case, the acquisition and development of speech in the educational system are of decisive importance. The spontaneous acquisition of speech in the first years of childhood should be replaced by programmatic development in the context of school education.

Programmatic speech development includes the following types of child learning and development.

Firstly, the assimilation of a literary language subordinate to the norm. This includes the development of reflection on the correlation between literary and non-literary language. The child is still very sensitive to corrections from an adult; he easily perceives the words of the teacher, who indicates that the given speech corresponds to the literary language or is vulgar, colloquial, and far from the requirements of speech. Secondly, mastering reading and writing. Both reading and writing are speech skills that rely on the language system, on knowledge of its phonetics, graphics, vocabulary, grammar, and spelling. Success in mastering reading and writing is determined by the skills of constructing speech, the features of expressing one’s thoughts and perceiving the speech of others.

Thirdly, the students’ speech corresponds to a certain level of requirements, below which the child should not be, since he occupies the position of a student.

Learning places its own demands on speech exercises. This is, first of all, systematic training in the acquisition and development of speech. All exercises have a reasonable sequence and relationship. Each lesson aimed at developing speech has its own requirements for the student.

Modern methods of speech development determine the basic skills of students. Required skills include:

1) skills related to awareness of the topic that the child must consistently reveal; 2) skills related to planning a storyline and planning, accumulating material for an upcoming story or essay;

3) skills related to planning the story or essay itself (plot, composition, etc.);

4) skills related to the language preparation of a story or essay;

5) skills related to the construction and writing of the text itself, as well as control and correction of the text. (Based on materials from M. R. Lvov.)

Speech stereotypes are so strong that even in the speech of a person who has chosen languages ​​as his profession as an adult, who has mastered more than one foreign and native language, there are still common vernaculars learned in childhood. However, this circumstance should not be an excuse for either the teacher or the student. Mastering cultural speech is the norm of mental development of a modern person.

The development of speech is facilitated by mental development - the ability to fully and correctly assess a situation, analyze what is happening, as well as the ability to identify a problem. This also includes the ability to logically correctly describe the situation under discussion (consistently, clearly highlighting the main thing). The child must be able not to miss anything significant, not to repeat the same thing, and not to include in the story what is not directly related to this story. It is also important to monitor the accuracy of speech.

6. Literature

1. Mukhina V.S. Age-related psychology. - 4th ed., - M., 1999. - 456 p.

2.3. Memory of younger schoolchildren

The memory of younger schoolchildren is characterized by involuntariness. Children most easily remember material that was included in their active activities, with which they directly interacted, as well as that with which their interests, motives and needs are directly related. First-graders (as well as preschoolers) are dominated by well-developed involuntary memory, which ensures the memorization of information that is emotionally rich for the child. However, not all the information that children need to memorize at school is of interest and attractiveness to them. Therefore, only involuntary, immediate, emotional memory does not ensure the fulfillment of the requirements of educational activities, the successful implementation of which requires voluntary, purposeful memorization of educational material. Changing the leading activity from play to learning stimulates significant changes in children’s memory processes.

The most significant changes in the development of memory of primary schoolchildren consist in a gradual increase in the features of arbitrariness of memory processes, which become consciously regulated and mediated, which is primarily due to a significant increase in the requirements for memory efficiency, a high level of which is necessary when performing educational activities. The mnemonic activity of younger schoolchildren, as well as their educational activity in general, becomes more arbitrary and meaningful, as evidenced by the identification of mnemonic tasks and the children’s mastery of techniques and methods of memorization. Children begin to realize and identify a special mnemonic task (memorization task), which differs from other educational tasks. The identification of mnemonic tasks began in preschool age, but preschoolers were not always able to identify these tasks or identified them with great difficulty. Already in the first year of education, children’s mnemonic tasks themselves are differentiated: children realize that certain material must be remembered literally, some information must be retold close to the text or in their own words, and be able to reproduce it after a long period of time.

The ability of children of primary school age to voluntarily memorize varies throughout their education in primary school and varies significantly among first-graders and students in grades 3–4. For first-graders, it is easier to carry out the “remember” attitude than the “remember with the help of something,” and children remember material more easily without using any means than by comprehending and organizing the material, which affects memory performance. As educational tasks become more complex, the “memorize without using any means” attitude becomes extremely ineffective, and this forces younger schoolchildren to look for ways to organize their memory. Most often, this technique is repeated repetition - a universal method that ensures mechanical memorization of information. In grades 1–2, where the student is required only to simply reproduce a small amount of material, this method of memorization allows one to cope with educational tasks. But often it remains the only one for younger schoolchildren throughout the entire period of study, which is due to lack of mastery of semantic memorization techniques and insufficient formation of logical memory.

Younger schoolchildren gradually master a variety of mnemonic techniques - memorization techniques. First, schoolchildren use the most basic techniques - lengthy examination of the material, its repeated repetition, dividing it into parts that often do not coincide with semantic units. Children of primary school age gradually master the most important memorization technique - dividing text into semantic units and drawing up a plan. When using this technique, first-graders find it difficult to divide the text into semantic parts; they cannot highlight the essential, main thing in each passage; often when dividing, they only mechanically divide the memorized material in order to more easily memorize smaller parts of the text. Particular difficulties for younger schoolchildren are dividing the text into semantic parts from memory. Children divide text into semantic parts better when directly perceiving the text.

Without special targeted training, memorization techniques are formed spontaneously and often turn out to be unproductive. The low level of development of mnemonic processes and the child’s inability to remember directly affect the effectiveness of his educational activities and, ultimately, his attitude towards learning and school as a whole. Only a few primary schoolchildren can independently move on to more complex, rational methods of voluntary memorization. Most children learn these techniques through special training aimed at developing meaningful memorization. Meaningful memorization is based on the use of complex mental operations (analysis, synthesis, comparison), which children master gradually during the learning process, and involves the division of material into semantic units, semantic grouping, semantic comparison, etc., as well as the use of a variety of external means of memorization . In the elementary grades, mnemonic techniques of comparison and correlation are also widely used. The memorized material is usually correlated with something already well known, and individual parts and questions within the memorized material are compared. First, primary schoolchildren use these methods in the process of direct memorization, relying on external auxiliary means (objects, models, pictures), and then on internal ones (comparing new and old materials, drawing up a plan, etc.).

Age-related characteristics of the memory of younger schoolchildren include easier and more productive memorization of visual material than verbal material. In verbal material, children remember names of objects better and abstract concepts much more difficult. Memorization results are monitored mainly at the recognition level: first-graders look at the text and believe that they have learned it because they feel a sense of familiarity. Other main age-related characteristics of the memory of younger schoolchildren are:

Plasticity of memory, manifested in passive imprinting and rapid forgetting;

The selective nature of memory, which determines better memorization of emotionally attractive and interesting material and that material that needs to be remembered more quickly;

Increased randomness of memorization, reliance on various semantic connections;

Gradual liberation of memory from the need to rely on perception, reducing the importance of recognition;

Preservation of the figurative component of memory and its close connection with active imagination;

Increasing the level of voluntary regulation of mnemonic actions, which is characterized by the formulation of a mnemonic task, the presence of a memorization motive, the nature of the mnemonic attitude and the use of mnemonic techniques (Fig. 2.3).

Features of memory development in primary school age:

Plasticity and selectivity of memory;

Increasing memory capacity, increasing accuracy and systematicity of reproduction;

Increased randomness of memorization;

Mastering various special methods of memorization;

Improving logical memory;

Freeing memory from reliance on perception;

Making playback a controlled process;

Imagery of memory and its close connection with active imagination;

Increasing the level of voluntary regulation of mnemonic actions.

Rice. 2.3. Age-related characteristics of memory in younger schoolchildren

In general, both voluntary and involuntary memory improve significantly throughout primary school age, memory changes quantitatively and qualitatively, and becomes more productive. From first to fourth grade, a child’s memory capacity increases on average 2–3 times. In the development of voluntary memory in younger schoolchildren, there is also an aspect associated with written speech and drawing. As children master sign and symbolic means and written speech, they also master mediated memorization using such speech as a sign means.

Important conditions for the development of memory are the child’s interest in knowledge, a positive attitude towards individual academic subjects and learning in general, his active position, a high level of cognitive motivation, special memorization exercises, assimilation of memorization methods and strategies related to the organization and semantic processing of memorized information. , the presence of an attitude towards memorizing the material.

Case Study

Second-grade students were given two stories to memorize and warned that one of them should be told the next day, and the second should be remembered “forever.” A few weeks later, a survey of students was conducted, and it was found that they remembered the story better when read with the intention of remembering it “forever.”

Reliance on thinking, the use of various methods and means of memorization (grouping the material, understanding the connections of its various parts, drawing up a plan, strong points, classification, structuring, schematization, analogies, associations, recoding, completing the material, serial organization of the material, etc.) contributes to the transformation memory of a junior schoolchild into a true higher mental function, characterized by awareness, mediation, and arbitrariness.

There is an improvement in logical, semantic memory, which is based on the use of mental processes as a support, a means of memorization. As mental methods of memorization in primary school age, semantic correlation, classification, identification of semantic supports and drawing up a plan, etc. are used. A.G. Vorobyova notes that the development of logical memory takes place in three stages: at the first stage, children master the logical operations of thinking; at the second stage, individual operations are combined into logical thinking techniques, while logical memory still functions on an involuntary-intuitive basis; the third stage is characterized by the development of logical methods of memorization, that is, the arbitrary use of thinking for mnemonic purposes, the transformation of mental actions into mnemonic skills (Table 2.3).

Table 2.3

Stages of development of logical memory of junior schoolchildren

First stage. Mastering logical thinking operations

Second phase. Adding individual operations into logical thinking techniques, functioning of logical memory on an involuntary-intuitive basis

Third stage. Development of logical memorization techniques, arbitrary use of thinking for mnemonic purposes, transformation of mental actions into mnemonic skills

Case Study

Primary schoolchildren's mastery of the mnemonic technique of structuring can begin with performing a speech act: after reading the text, children learn in a joint discussion to identify the topic, main idea and semantic parts, determine the topic of each of them and their interrelationships. Then, gradually, cognitive actions are transferred to the internal mental plane: when reading a text, children identify semantic parts in their minds, and then name them to the teacher. In the future, schoolchildren are tasked with using appropriate mental actions to memorize the text.

But even having successfully mastered the corresponding mental operations and their use as a means of memorization, primary schoolchildren do not immediately come to use them in educational activities. Second-graders do not yet demonstrate the need to use them independently. By the end of primary school age, children increasingly begin to turn to new methods of memorization when working with educational material. Optimal development of the logical memory of children of primary school age occurs when a number of conditions are met regarding the organization of teaching children memorization techniques, their practical application, teaching schoolchildren self-analysis of mnemonic activity, and the correct formulation of the memorization task by adults:

The need to form in children a clear idea of ​​various mnemonic techniques;

Statement of a mnemonic problem indicating ways to solve it;

Providing children with the opportunity to choose mnemonic techniques with subsequent analysis of the effectiveness of selected techniques in solving specific memorization problems;

Encouragement of children by adults: teachers and parents, to use a variety of techniques for processing material to solve mnemonic problems.

Compliance with the above conditions makes it possible to achieve significant changes in the memory work of younger schoolchildren, which are manifested in the conscious voluntary use by children of rational mnemonic techniques when organizing memorization, which, in turn, leads to an increase in memory productivity.

E.G. Zavertkina formulated a number of principles for the development of mnemonic abilities of younger schoolchildren:

The principle of interconnection of the operational mechanisms of cognitive abilities - that is, a set of methods for processing memorized material, which leads to an increase in the productivity of memory processes, namely: to an increase in the speed, volume, accuracy of memorization and reproduction of material; to increase the strength of its memorization and preservation; to increase the possibility of its correct memorization and reproduction;

The principle of inclusion of the process of development of mnemonic abilities in the general process of intellectual development of younger schoolchildren;

The principle of an individual approach, implemented by means of diagnosing the initial level of development of schoolchildren’s mnemonic abilities and individual selection of a system of developmental exercises that correct the universality of educational programs;

The principle of structural organization of a developmental program in accordance with the ways of organizing mnemonic activity by its subject;

The principle of psychological and pedagogical cooperation and joint activities of participants in the educational process.

Primary school age can be considered sensitive for the formation of voluntary memory, therefore, at this age stage, targeted psychological and pedagogical developmental work on mastering mnemonic activity, taking into account the individual characteristics of the child’s memory, is especially effective. Indicators of the level of development of the mnemonic abilities of a junior schoolchild in general can be considered the productivity of memorization based on the functional and operational mechanisms of mnemonic abilities, the presence of techniques for processing memorized information, the degree of awareness of the use and mastery of mnemonic techniques, the degree of formation of the ability to regulate and manage mnemonic processes.

The textbook examines the importance of the social situation of development in primary school age and general issues of the psychology of development of a primary school student. The dynamics of development of a junior schoolchild from grades 1 to 4 is presented according to the main parameters of the cognitive, regulatory and social-communicative spheres of the personality of junior schoolchildren; The formation of the internal position of a junior school student is considered. Particular attention is paid to the vectors and risks of development in primary school age. Each chapter of the textbook is accompanied by questions for discussion on the topic, assignments for workshops, research assignments, reference material and a list of recommended readings (primary and additional).

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Olga Olegovna Gonina

Psychology of primary school age

Educational edition

© Gonina O.O., 2015

© FLINT Publishing House, 2015

Preface

The psychology course for primary school age is one of the most important in the preparation of bachelors in the areas of “Psychology” and “Psychological and Pedagogical Education”. Mastering the course creates the basis for the meaningful assimilation of pedagogical knowledge, as well as knowledge in the field of other psychological disciplines. Future specialists need to know the basic patterns of the formation of the leading type of activity and other types of activity of a child of primary school age, the development of cognitive mental processes and personality traits at this stage of ontogenesis, the characteristics of possible personal and behavioral problems of primary schoolchildren and be able to use diagnostic tools to identify the characteristics of the psyche of children, create optimal conditions for their mental development.

This textbook was compiled with the aim of developing students' ideas about the basic patterns of mental development of a child of primary school age, methods of their diagnosis and correction. The content of the textbook is focused on a scientific approach to the study of the patterns of mental development: ideas about the driving forces of mental development, about the general patterns and logic of the development of the psyche of younger schoolchildren, knowledge about the characteristics of the social situation, leading activities and new formations of the psyche of younger schoolchildren.

The textbook begins with a consideration of the social situation of development and leading activities of primary school age. The following is a description of other types of activities typical for primary schoolchildren: gaming, communicative, productive and labor, which is due to the activity approach to the analysis of the psyche of children. The following chapters are devoted to the patterns of development of the cognitive sphere of children: sensations and perception, attention, memory, thinking, imagination, speech. The main age-related features of the cognitive development of children, the directions of quantitative and qualitative changes in mental functions are described, and the process of structure formation in the cognitive sphere is revealed. The features of the personal development of a child at primary school age are characterized: patterns of development of the sphere of self-awareness, motivational-need sphere, age-related characteristics of the emotional and volitional spheres, moral development. In this case, special attention is paid to the consideration of external and internal factors of personality development, determining the driving forces and conditions of the child’s personal development. The last chapter of the textbook is devoted to the presentation of some aspects of psychological support for the development of primary schoolchildren: problems of psychological readiness for school and adaptation of children to school education, school failure, personal and behavioral problems of primary schoolchildren, the basics of psychocorrectional work with children of primary school age.

After each chapter there are texts for self-study, questions and tasks for self-testing of knowledge, as well as practical and research tasks for in-depth analysis and practical understanding of the studied material, psychodiagnostic techniques that can be used to study the characteristics of the development of various types of activities, personal characteristics and characteristics cognitive processes of children. Lists of recommended literature after each chapter will also help organize independent work on studying the psychology of primary school age. For the same purpose, the appendix contains test questions for the entire course of the discipline, topics of reports and abstracts. The text of the textbook is accompanied by practical examples, drawings and tables, which make it possible to better understand and assimilate factual material on psychology of primary school age.

In conjunction with other disciplines of the basic part of the professional cycle of the Federal State Educational Standard of Higher Professional Education, the discipline “Psychology of Primary School Age” provides the tools for developing the professional competencies of a bachelor of psychological and pedagogical education.

When studying the discipline “Psychology of Primary School Age,” a bachelor must have the following competencies:

Patterns of development of various types of activities at primary school age;

Features of cognitive and personal development of a child of primary school age;

The main directions and content of psychological support for the development of younger schoolchildren.

Apply the acquired theoretical knowledge in work in educational and educational institutions;

Analyze age-related characteristics of the mental development of younger schoolchildren;

End of introductory fragment.

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The psychology course for primary school age is one of the most important in the preparation of bachelors in the areas of Psychology and Psychological Pedagogical Education. Mastering the course creates the basis for the meaningful assimilation of pedagogical knowledge, as well as knowledge in the field of other psychological disciplines. Future specialists need to know the basic patterns of the formation of the leading type of activity and other types of activity of a child of primary school age, the development of cognitive mental processes and personality traits at this stage of ontogenesis, the characteristics of possible personal and behavioral problems of primary schoolchildren and be able to use diagnostic tools to identify the characteristics of the psyche of children, create optimal conditions for their mental development.
This textbook was compiled with the aim of developing students' ideas about the basic patterns of mental development of a child of primary school age, methods of their diagnosis and correction. The content of the textbook is focused on a scientific approach to the study of the patterns of mental development: ideas about the driving forces of mental development, about the general patterns and logic of the development of the psyche of younger schoolchildren, knowledge about the characteristics of the social situation, leading activities and new formations of the psyche of younger schoolchildren.

Social situation of development in primary school age.
The specificity of the social development situation at primary school age lies in the restructuring of the child’s system of relationships with the surrounding reality associated with entering school. Junior school age is characterized by the fact that the child acquires a new status: he becomes a student, and the leading activity changes from play to learning. Educational activity is socially significant and puts the child in a new position in relation to adults and peers, changes his self-esteem, and rebuilds relationships in the family. On this occasion D.B. Elkonin noted that educational activity is social in its content (it involves the assimilation of all the achievements of culture and science accumulated by humanity), social in its meaning (it is socially significant), social in its execution (carried out in accordance with socially developed norms) , she is the leader at primary school age, i.e. during the period of formation.

The transition to educational activity is carried out against the background of a contradiction that arises within the social situation of the child’s development: a preschooler outgrows the developmental potential of role-playing games, the relationships that he has with adults and peers regarding the game. More recently, relationships regulated by the play role and game rules were the source of the child’s development, but now this situation has exhausted itself. The attitude towards the game has changed, the preschooler understands more and more clearly that he occupies an insignificant position in the social environment. Increasingly, he has a need to do work that is necessary and important for others, and this need develops into the student’s internal position. The child acquires the ability to go beyond a specific situation and look at himself as if from the outside, through the eyes of an adult. That is why the crisis that arises during the transition to schooling is called the crisis of loss of spontaneity. The social situation of development during the transition from preschool to primary school age is characterized, on the one hand, by an objective change in the child’s place in the system of social relations, on the other hand, by a subjective reflection of this new position in the child’s experiences and consciousness. It is the inextricable unity of these two aspects that determines the prospects and zone of proximal development of the child in this transition period. At the same time, an actual change in the child’s social position is not enough to change the direction and content of his development. To do this, it is necessary that this new position be accepted and comprehended by the child himself and reflected in the acquisition of new meanings associated with educational activities and the new system of school relations. Only thanks to this does it become possible to realize the new development potential of the subject.

Content
Preface
Chapter 1 Characteristics of the social situation of development and activity in primary school age
1.1. Social situation of development in primary school age
1.2. Educational activities of junior schoolchildren
1.3. Labor activity of junior schoolchildren
1.4. Communication of junior schoolchildren
1.5. Game activities of junior schoolchildren
1.6. Productive activities for younger schoolchildren Questions and tasks for self-control
Workshop
Recommended reading
Chapter 2 Development of mental processes in younger schoolchildren
2.1. Perception of younger schoolchildren
2.2. Attention of younger schoolchildren
2.3. Memory of younger schoolchildren
2.4. Thinking of younger schoolchildren
2.5. Features of the development of imagination of younger schoolchildren
2.6. Speech development of children of primary school age Questions and tasks for self-control
Workshop
Recommended reading
Chapter 3 Personality development of a primary school student
3.1. Sphere of self-awareness of a junior schoolchild
3.2. Emotional sphere of primary school children
3.3. Development of volitional regulation of behavior and volitional personality traits of younger schoolchildren
3.4. Motivational-need sphere of junior schoolchildren
3.5. Moral development of children Questions and tasks for self-control Workshop
Recommended reading
Chapter 4 Psychological support for the development of younger schoolchildren
4.1. Psychological readiness for school
4.2. Psychological adaptation of children to school education
4.3. The problem of school failure
4.4. Personality and behavioral problems of younger schoolchildren
4.5. Psychocorrectional work with primary schoolchildren Questions and tasks for self-control
Workshop
Recommended reading
Bibliography
Applications
Appendix 1 Questions for the test and exam in psychology of primary school age
Appendix 2 Test tasks in psychology of primary school age
Appendix 3 Sample topics for coursework and dissertations in psychology of primary school age.