The psychological readiness of children to study at school: general characteristics, types, methods of determination

The psychological readiness of the child to study at school is a complex of properties and skills that will help a first-grader master the curriculum in a peer team. It is determined, as a rule, by a child psychologist, based on the results of tests developed for this.

Features of age development

In preschool age, the child experiences a separation crisis of 6-7 years. It does not pass as noticeably as the negativity crisis of 3-4 years. The main change in this period is the ability to keep in mind the recommendations and attitudes of parents. For the baby, mom and dad are invisibly present when they are far away.

Psychologists claim that this change determines the ability of children to withstand separation from them without neurosis, which is inevitable up to 6 years. Therefore, at this age it is appropriate to determine the child’s psychological readiness for school.

At this time, the following serious changes are characteristic of physiological and psychological development:

• The immune system is being rebuilt, with which frequent diseases are associated in the seventh year of life.
• The areas of the brain that are responsible for logical thinking and the ability to do what is needed, but do not feel like ripening, the ability to generalize, form and hold integral images appears.
• The child has a thirst for knowledge, he needs everything, everything is interesting. He starts a lot and throws halfway.
• The game fades into the background after busy mastering new information and skills.
• In addition to loving parents, the child has a psychological need for a mentor who teaches, evaluates, cares and criticizes.

Consider the characteristics of psychological readiness for learning at school.

What is required of the baby so that he is comfortable learning

Many parents try to get him to read, count, write, but this approach is not entirely correct. In short, psychological readiness for learning at school is a child’s ability:

• To learn material from the school curriculum.
• Trust the teacher and perceive him as a mentor, and not an evil aunt scolding for oversights.
• With interest and without loss of enthusiasm, do homework.
• Build relationships with classmates, be part of the team and feel comfortable in it.
• It is painless to bear separation from parents during class.

At the same time, the level of intellectual development and mental abilities are not so important. If the child is psychologically mature, he will catch up quickly in terms of knowledge and skills.

Definition Approaches

The psychological readiness of children to study at school can be determined by 2 approaches. For convenience, we designed their features in the form of a table:

Types (components)

The psychological readiness of first-graders to study at school is a generalized, complex concept. It consists of several parts, equally important and related to the functioning of different parts of the brain, as well as the level of physical development.

Components of psychological readiness for learning at school:

• Personal readiness.
• Willful.
• Intellectual.
• Physical and psychophysiological.
• Speech.

This structure of psychological readiness for learning at school allows you to create an integrated picture of the level of development of the child. It is necessary to take into account each of the components in the diagnosis carried out by kindergarten teachers, primary school teachers and psychologists. Each of the components has its own structure.

Personal readiness

Personality assessment is an important part of the diagnosis of psychological readiness for learning at school, because it allows you to determine the child's ability to adapt to a completely new way of life. The changes that await him are very serious. It:

• New team.
• Classroom system.
• Mode.
• Teacher ratings.
• New rules to which he must obey.

Criteria for personal readiness

Psychologists distinguish such components:

• Social.
• Motivational.
• Emotional.

The social component determines how the child’s relationships with adults and peers develop. It is determined by the attitude of the preschooler to such people and phenomena:

• The school and the regimen that must be followed during training (arrive on time, withstand a certain number of lessons, do homework).
• Teacher and rules in the classroom. It is necessary to find out whether the child perceives the teacher as a mentor, the instructions of which must be followed (do not make noise, listen carefully, speak only after permission and within the framework of the topic being studied).
• The baby himself. The adequacy of the child’s self-esteem is studied, since too high determines the negative attitude to criticism, which is inevitable when receiving assessments, and too low will make adaptation among peers more difficult.

The motivational component of children's psychological readiness for schooling is the presence of interest and thirst for new knowledge. With normal age development, this should not be a problem, since seven-year-olds are trying by all means to master new information. The nuance that can cause difficulties is the transition from the usual game form of training to the lesson. Although most elementary schools practice the presentation of material in the form of a game, this is not the case in all classes. The child’s ability to maintain interest in the subject when performing boring tasks is an indicator of his readiness for school.

You can determine motivational readiness by the following indicators:

• Perseverance and the ability to finish the job to the end, even if it does not work the first time.
• The skill works, developed during classes at home or in the garden.

When teaching the most important way to motivate a child of this age is the praise of adults for any achievements. Parents and teachers should express it emotionally, but objectively.

Will component

It occupies a special place in the content of psychological readiness for studying at school. This component involves the definition of arbitrary behavior, if the preschooler is consciously able to control his actions and obey the rules adopted at school. According to progressive studies, this behavior is directly related to the motivational component of the personal and psychological readiness of children to study at school.

The child must be able to:

• Listen to the teacher and complete the tasks assigned to him.
• Be disciplined, do not allow yourself to do what you want.
• To work according to the model.
• Perform tasks according to the learned rule.
• Be diligent and spend as much time in the classroom as required.
• Concentrate, even if he is not very interested.

Intellectual component

This criterion is given special attention among all types of psychological readiness for learning at school. The intellectual component includes the level of formation of such basic physical functions: memory, thinking, attention.

The child should be able to remember:

• Up to 9 or more items (things) in half a minute.
• A series of words (up to 10, but not less than 6), reproduce phrases repeated 1-2 times.
• Up to 6 digits.
• Details of the image shown and answer questions about them.

The thinking skills that a preschooler should possess:

• Matching logical pairs of words.
• Determining the fragment that is not enough to complete the picture, explain your choice.
• Understanding the sequence of events.
• The ability to assemble a picture of 12 parts.
• The ability to find a pattern in a logical chain.

Skills of attention necessary for the child to start school:

• Complete the task without losing concentration.
• Find differences between 2 similar pictures.
• Be able to identify the same objects from a number of similar ones.

Physical and psychophysiological readiness

Physical readiness is the ability to perform certain physical exercises, which are considered necessary for this age. It depends on the state of health, posture, compliance of height and weight with norms, speed and dexterity of movements.

In addition, the concept of physical readiness includes:

• Vision.
• Hearing.
• The ability to independently serve yourself (to dress, put on shoes, eat, fold textbooks, go to the toilet on time).
• The state of the nervous system and its effect on mobility.
• Fine motor skills.

Separately, it is worth mentioning such an important indicator as phonemic hearing. With normal development, it allows you to recognize and distinguish all sounds in words. but also consonant words with different meanings.

Voice Readiness

It includes a set of skills:

• Pronunciations of all sounds.
• The ability to divide the word into syllables and sounds, to determine their number.
• Word formation and the formation of sentences using the correct grammatical forms.
• The ability to tell and retell.

Determination methods

Knowing the psychological readiness of first graders to study at school is very important. According to experts, the main achievement after the end of primary school is that the child has a desire to learn, a fairly high self-esteem appears, based on successes and acquired skills. This is only possible if, upon entering the first grade, he was ready for training.

An objective psychological readiness for learning at school is determined using the following methods:

• Interview in groups and individually.
• Testing using blanks - printouts on paper, cut out pictures and figures, toys.
• Drawing on a given topic.
• Graphic dictation.
• A test questionnaire to determine motivational and verbal readiness during which the child answers questions about the school.

The psychological characteristic of readiness for training is compiled by a psychologist. To make it as objective as possible, and not to blame the expert for bias, the children perform most tasks for testing in the presence of their parents. Diagnosed in a relaxed atmosphere. Adults should encourage and support the child.

Parent Tips

Although they begin to talk about psychological readiness for school closer to 7 years of a child’s life, its formation takes place within the framework of general development, starting from birth. Psychologists give such advice to parents:

• Often and much to talk with children, explain and describe to them everything that happens around. The more lively communication with those closest to you, the better the child’s speech will develop.
• Be sure to answer all the questions that the kids ask. Inattention and the answers “I don’t know”, “because”, “do not interfere” contribute to the fading of interest in knowledge.
• Always give the opportunity to express their own opinion.
• Explain the reasons for rejection and punishment in a friendly tone.
• Praise for achievements and help to cope with difficulties. For all children aged 0 to 10 years, the praise of an adult is the main motive for activity.
• Conduct classes at home in a playful way. It is considered the most accessible for the assimilation of material in childhood.
• To be engaged in creativity.
• A lot of books to read to the child.
• To control the baby’s nutrition, to make a healthy and balanced menu, so that the baby receives all the necessary trace elements for the full development.

According to psychologists, the more a child plays enough before school, the easier it is for him to observe discipline in the first year of school. Those children who were deprived of the opportunity to play enough, are trying to catch up in the first grade.

The main causes of psychological immaturity

A child of 6-7 years old may not be ready for school. Common reasons for this:

• Soreness, due to which the baby is less hardy, often misses classes, it is more difficult for him to adapt in the team.
• Lack of systematic studies until this age. Regularity disciplines and helps to get used to the lesson system.
• Pathologies of the nervous system, in which the child should be examined and treated by a neurologist, neurologist, psychotherapist, attend consultations of a psychologist and social worker. Such diseases are often accompanied by mental retardation.

In order for the preschooler to be ready for schooling on time, it is important that he grows up in a healthy psychological atmosphere, is loved, plays a lot and receives the necessary care.