A child from a very early age begins to perceive the reality surrounding him through the senses. He touches objects, takes them in his mouth to understand their taste, examines them visually, hears the sounds that the object of study makes, he smells. At a preschool age, the child develops perceptual actions, so education at home and in kindergartens should be aimed at studying sensory standards.
The acquired ideas about the properties of various objects in later life play the role of samples. This is easy to understand with the lemon. If you have never tasted the taste of this fruit, then you will not have any associations. But if you at least once felt its sour taste in your mouth, then with the word "lemon" or with the image of this fruit you see, the taste memory will remind you of it, and it will again become sour in your mouth.
Acquaintance with sensory standards in preschool age is the development of perception actions, knowledge of the properties and qualities of environmental objects by children, and the establishment of the relationship between them. In the future, when new objects appear in the child’s life, he will compare them with his friends. It is in preschoolers that there is a transition from their experience of perceiving sensory standards to those generally accepted among adults.
The assimilation of sensory standards occurs as a result of the study of objects. A child understands the properties of an object only as a result of studying it from all sides. In young children, thinking is clearly effective. This means that the baby perceives the surrounding reality through the senses. This is the basis for the development and upbringing of preschool children.
In the article, we consider that these are sensory standards in preschool age, how they are developed in the process of daily activities. You will learn what types of perceptions are involved in the process of cognition, how to organize work with children, so that they learn not only the properties of objects, but also can use standards for comparison with unfamiliar objects. We will get acquainted with the point of view of leading child psychologists and educators regarding the process of perception.
Perception process
Perception is a mental process of sensory cognition of the world, surrounding objects. Initially, the child perceives the object as integral, for example, sees just a pyramid, and not the individual rings and the rod on which they are worn.
As a result of tactile activity, meaningfulness comes that the pyramid consists of their individual parts, each of which has a different size and color. Thus, the properties of perception can be identified as follows:
- Integrity - the initial perception of the subject as a whole.
- Constancy - perceived objects have constant signs - a certain color and size, smell and shape.
- Structurality - a child does not just perceive individual sensations when looking at an object. He recognizes it and correlates with the objects of this group. For example, a pot and kettle are utensils, and a screwdriver and a hammer are tools. Hearing the sounds of music, the kid understands that it is a person who sings, and does not play the piano.
- Meaningfulness - since perception is closely connected with the child’s thinking, he gradually understands the essence of objects. He perceives the pyramid not only as a bright toy, but knows that the rings must be assembled in the order of the size of the rings. A teapot is not just metal utensils, but an object in which water is boiled for tea.
- Selectivity - first of all, the child perceives a brightly marked object, which is clearly visible against the background of the rest. That is why all manuals for preschool children should be beautifully designed to attract the attention of the baby so that he wants to play with such a toy or see the picture offered to him.
What is a touch standard
The development of children's perception and the development of ideas about the properties of surrounding objects is called sensory development, since the entire process of cognition occurs through the human senses. There are 5 main types of perception of the surrounding world:
- Visual - first of all, the child sees the object through the eyes, perceives its color, shape, size, location in space.
- Auditory - perceives sounds made by the subject. The baby’s first sound is the voice of his mother.
- Tactile - examination of any subject is tactile. A child takes it in his hand, tries to act with it, shakes it, throws it, rolls it, or strokes it.
- Tasting - kids take toys in their mouths not to eat, but to understand the taste of the item. With experience, the kid remembers the taste of food and already selectively treats them, one likes it and the other doesn't.
- The olfactory is the cognition of the world through smells. Some aromas are pleasant, others cause a desire to cover your nose with your hand.
Sensory standards in preschool age are samples developed by mankind that a child must learn for further successful study at school. The development of these skills occurs gradually, starting from a very young age. The importance of sensory development is very important at this age, when the process of improving the senses occurs, knowledge about the surrounding reality is accumulated.
In preschool age, sensory standards are the basic colors and shades, flat and volumetric geometric shapes, the size of objects - length, width, height and thickness, the height of musical sounds, the height of the human voice - quiet or loud sounds, etc. Humanity produced them in the course of labor activity for many millennia, and the baby masters the main ones while still being a preschooler.
The educator and parents of a preschool child are faced with the task of helping the child in the development of sensory standards, creating all conditions for the formation of ideas about surrounding objects. This happens during didactic games, in the process of training and working, on drawing and during modeling, on excursions and walks. Each age has its own characteristics in the development of sensory concepts and standards. Let's consider this question in more detail.
Age features according to L. A. Wenger
Leonid Abramovich Wenger is an outstanding Soviet psychologist who has done a lot of research in the field of sensory education of preschool children. He identified age-related features during the formation of sensory standards, starting from an early age.
In the first year of life, the baby is only enriched with impressions. The mother must create favorable conditions for this - each time showing a new toy or object, giving it into his hands, so that the child can explore, touch, give the opportunity to follow moving objects, etc. At this age, all tasks are solved with the help of manipulative actions .
In the second year of life, the baby learns to highlight colors, remember their names, and distinguish between the shape and size of objects. During this period, knowledge accumulates about the relations between objects, the baby compares them with each other.
Stable and fixed in speech concepts about sensory standards are formed only from the age of three, that is, in the preschool period. Children can already correlate and compare them in a row consisting of several objects. For example, from three or four segments drawn in a notebook, he can reveal the longest, the shorter, the shortest, the average in length, and so on.
The assimilation of sensory standards in various activities is fixed. For example, when designing, the kid remembers the colors of the parts, their shape and size, the material from which the parts are made, what can be created from them. So, the cone is used only for the construction of the roof or the upper part of the tower of cylinders, and the brick is placed at the bottom of the structure.
During drawing, the kid picks up the necessary pencil for the image of the subject. For example, he knows that the stem is drawn with a green pencil, and the flower is depicted in red, yellow, pink or orange. He will not paint it black or green, since he already has experience in the perception of plants, and a touch color standard pops up in his memory. So, L. A. Wenger believes that the success of any activity of a child depends on the level of sensory development.
Three periods of representations of objects by V. I. Loginova
Vera Iosifovna Loginova is a talented researcher and theoretician of preschool pedagogy. She believes that the formation of sensory standards occurs throughout pre-school childhood and continues even in school years. She divided this entire period into three stages, based on the age-related capabilities of the child.
- The first stage is the development of sensorimotor pre-standards. The child in this period can only see the individual qualities of the subject, which are important for motor activity. The kid understands that the ball is rolling, but the cube cannot, but does not understand why this happens.
- At the next level of sensory development, the baby uses subject standards. He correlates the qualities of a familiar subject with a new one.
- At the end of preschool childhood, as a result of experience accumulation, sensory standards are formed in children. During this period, the child uses images of the properties of objects that are in his stock. On the basis of this experience, the whole system of standards accepted by mankind is assimilated. He already perceives the standards themselves separately from any particular subject.
Concept of magnitude
Particular attention is paid in early preschool age to the sensory standard “size”. This is one of the tasks of mental education, thanks to which the child learns not only to give the correct name to the property of objects, but also to compare them with each other, which gives the child a more complete picture of the reality surrounding him. Measuring activity develops thinking, serves as the basis for different types of activity, creates the prerequisites for studying at school.
Sensory standards of magnitude are first recognized at the level of the senses, that is, on a sensory basis. The child sees the object through the eyes, feels it, performs a series of actions with it. Then the perceived object is comprehended by thinking, knowledge is supplemented by speech. The perception mechanism itself is the same in adults and children. Knowledge and concepts about the subject come as a result of practical activity, with the participation of words and thoughts. The processes of comparison and analysis, synthesis and classification are involved, which are already signs of logical thinking.
Children of three years still cannot differentiate objects by a difference of sizes. So, the baby may try to put a big bear in a small crib. After this period, the child begins to highlight objects by their appearance, starting from their volume. So, the hippopotamus is large, and the mouse is small. With age and development of speech, children already distinguish individual signs of size, distinguishing between length, width, height, thickness. It is still difficult for them to remember the correct name of all these properties of the subject, so the teacher conducts didactic games with them, the purpose of which is to compare objects in size and correctly name the signs. All these training exercises are based on comparing values using a child’s eye.
All this is supported in practice in various activities. In the design, the child will not put a small detail below, as he understands that the whole structure will fall apart. Drawing a picture, the senior preschooler already correlates the size of objects with distance. So, the trees that grow close, draw large, and those that grow far, small.
Games for the formation of the concept of "quantity"
Teachers invented a huge number of didactic games that are used in the classroom to form elementary mathematical representations and familiarize themselves with the world around them.
We list the most popular among preschool workers:
- "Name it correctly."
- "Put it in order."
- The zoo.
- "Pick up an aquarium for the fish."
- "Find shoe boxes."
- Three Bears, etc.
The study of quantities occurs both in the classroom and during the game, using printed-board games or toys made according to the Montessori method.
The development of touch sound standards
The first perception of sound occurs in early infancy, when the baby turns his head in the direction of the mother's sounding voice. Of great importance for mental development is the speech of an adult, and then the child himself. Thanks to the sounds of the world, the child learns reality.
In music classes, children learn to distinguish pitch, low and high notes, correlating them with animals. For example, low notes - a bear is walking, medium - a fox is running, high - a bird is singing. Distinguish the rhythm of the march, dance music or lullaby. The perception of sounds allows you to correlate them with movements in the dance, sing a song according to the melody, do gymnastic exercises in the correct rhythm, read the verse rhythmically and with expression.
Games for comparing sounds
Teachers conduct musical and didactic games, which form sensory sound standards in early preschool age.
We list some of them:
- Quiet or Loud.
- "Dance or march."
- "Guess who's coming."
- "What is audible?"
- "Find out whose voice?"
- "Guess where it rings?" etc.
The study of color standards
From an early age, sensory standards of colors and shades are assimilated during the visual perception of objects, as well as their practical use. Children remember colors more easily during the game, therefore all toys are made so bright and colorful. They consolidate knowledge in the classes of drawing and modeling, applications and manual labor. Use the following games:
- "Find a couple."
- "Find the second mitten."
- "Build a service."
- "Find a flower for the butterfly."
- "Put a flower in a vase."
- "Collect the beads."
- "What is missing?" etc.
Reference standards
Sensory standards of a preschooler contain the concept of the shape of objects. This aspect of objects is perceived both visually and tactilely. The child sees the geometric shape of the object, understands its structure thanks to palpation, examination in the hands, it helps to quickly orientate the speech of an adult, which gives the name of each figure.
From a very young age, children play with in-ear toys, cubes, and designer parts. Then they learn to recognize the learned form in the surrounding subjects. For example, during the game "Find objects in the room ... (for example, a rectangular shape)" the child looks around and sees that the door, window, ceiling, table surface, notebook and pencil case, sheet of paper or carpet on the floor correspond to the touch standard.
The following games perfectly contribute to the consolidation of these standards:
- "What changed?"
- "Compose a picture."
- Puzzles.
- Lotto "Find objects of the same shape."
- "Pick up the key to the door."
- "What is the difference between houses?" etc.
As you can see, sensory standards in preschool age contribute to the mental development of children, develop logical thinking and form the skills of future educational activities at school. This is an important stage in the development of the child, which will help him become successful in the chosen profession. Sensory development should begin at an early age, and great attention must be paid to it.