Formation of speech and thinking in children 2-5 years old
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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At this age, the child's vocabulary grows very quickly. If at 2 years he was about 250-300 words, then by the age of 5 he has reached 2500 words. The child is intensely mastering grammatical forms, his speech becomes more clear and coherent. In it begin to appear, except for nouns, verbs. The proposals are becoming more complex, although they remain short. By the 3rd year in the child's speech, subordinate clauses begin to appear: "If I obey, I will be taken to the zoo." For the development of speech, one of the main and even decisive role is played by communication with adults. So, for example, the results of studies indicate that in a family of deaf-mute parents, normal sound speech in children, even those who do not suffer from deaf-mute, does not appear.
If we talk about the type of speech, then in the period from 2 to 5 years, situational speech predominates in children. That is, the child describes what happens to him or around him. But at the age of 5, the beginnings of contextual speech begin to appear, for example, in retelling auditions of tales or stories. At the same age, the intellectual function of speech (that is, planning and regulating practical action) begins to appear, which is due to the development of the intellect.
By the age of 5, the child is practically mastering the basic rules of grammar and learns to use them in oral speech. Naturally, he learns grammar without studying the rules, but memorizing the speech speed used by adults. Because of the limitations of thinking and a small range of knowledge and skills, the process of learning the meaning of words is quite difficult for the child. But life and communication with adults and peers compels him to absorb these values - this is how a new need for a child's life is formed. But, taking into account the concrete nature of children's thinking and the weak differentiation of grammatical relations, the process of assimilation of meanings of words occurs in a peculiar way. The child "invents" his own words, relying on an external analogy. For example, knowing the word "mechanic", he by analogy, instead of "postman" says - "mailman" (AM Bardian). This "word creation" was described very well by KI Chukovsky in his book "From Two to Five". Widely known is the example from this book, when a small boy, eating a pasta says: "I namakaronilsya!". Children's wordmaking is the result of the child's acquisition of some widespread grammatical forms, the consequence of the fact that the child sees objects and phenomena in a special way, as well as the prevalence of specific thinking in him.
Specific-imaginative thinking explains the fact that the child does not understand the figurative meaning of the words: "Uncle Petya was removed from the construction site" - the child understands this literally - Uncle Petya, sitting on a brick building, removed and let down on the ground other workers. (AM Bardian).
Children of this age are inherently active-active thinking. If a child is offered to get an object from a height inaccessible to him, he will jump, trying to grab it, but to ask how to get it, he will answer: "Why think, you need to get it." This type of thinking is even trumped up in an anecdote: "A student wants to rip a high hanging apple, he starts to shake a tree, but the apple does not fall." The passer-by tells him: "Why can not you think of another way?" To which the student responds: you need to shake! "
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