DEVELOPMENT OF THINKING PROCESSES IN OLDER PRESCHOOLERS

Abstract

The importance of implementing the KARUS system for the purpose of creativity training and finding creative solutions when solving new problems in various fields of activity, science, and technology is emphasized. The definition of the concept of strategy, developed by V.O. Molyako, is formulated. Attention is focused on the psychological prerequisites for the development of creativity and creative potential in preschool age. The features of the development of a preschool child's thinking are determined, and the stages of its formation are analyzed: from visual-action to visual-figurative and verbal-logical thinking. Emphasis is placed on the main change in the preschooler's thinking process: the “translation” of an external action into an internal plane, which allows the child to operate in the mind. It is substantiated that creative thinking is determined by intellectual-figurative foundations and is conditioned by the adherence to consistency, integrity of the form of presentation, and content. Play is a unique form of active cognition of the surrounding world, contributing to the development of self-awareness and all psychological processes of the child – speech, perception, thinking, imagination, memory, cognitive abilities, as well as the personal and motivational spheres. Creative activity is considered a means of development and formation of the child's personality, the prerequisites of which are the developmental interaction between the teacher and the child, and the formation of creative abilities through various types of activities. The main indicators of a child's creative abilities are: originality as the ability to generate ideas and new solutions; curiosity; speed and flexibility of thought, determined by the number of ideas and the ability to quickly and effortlessly switch from one idea to another; and a developed transfer skill (the ability to easily move from one class of phenomena to another, which ensures readiness for intellectual risk and paradoxes in situations of uncertainty). The features of the functioning of analogy strategies in children's thinking are considered. A characteristic of the thinking development program for older preschool children is provided. The main provisions of the KARUS system are formulated. The foundations for implementing methods that model various complications are expounded: the method of information deficit, the method of information saturation, the method of time constraints, the method of sudden prohibitions, the method of absurdity, and the method of situational dramatization. One of the most appropriate variants of creative perceptual-mental training based on the analogy strategy for older preschool children is presented.