All articles

Background. Preschool age is a period of great importance for psychological development and preparation for school. One of the activities that must be formed in preschool age is visual activity, which is of great importance for the overall development of a preschooler. Involving children in visual activity is a step necessary for forming a solid neuropsychological foundation that will determine their success not only at school, but also in life in general.

Objective. The purpose of this study was to apply a program for gradual formation of drawing skills and determine its impact on development in preschool age.

Sample. This study involved 9 preschool children - third-grade students of a preschool institution. A qualitative assessment of visual activity was applied to all participants before and after inclusion in the experimental program.

Methods. To achieve this goal, an intervention program was implemented, which consists in gradually teaching drawing to children in their third year of preschool attendance (Solovieva, Quintanar, 2016). All children were given the same qualitative assessment tool for the development of drawing skills before and after the application of the program (Solovieva, Quintanar, 2016).

Results. The data obtained allow us to state an improvement in the results of the final assessment, which revealed qualitative and quantitative changes.

Conclusions. It was shown that the program for the gradual formation of drawing skills had a positive effect on the acquisition of visual activity.

From a theoretical and methodological perspective, we provide analyses of cultural-historical psychology to identify its differences with constructivism. As well as the origin of psychological development and the usage of “cultural” and “social” terms. The article discusses about the method used in cultural historical psychological approach and its implications for the organization of the teaching-learning process. The authors conclude on the need to differentiate between Vigotsky’s approach and postmodern constructivism according to conceptual, methodological, and epistemological basis.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the concept of “multicultural education” in the context of the development of an inclusive society, in particular, on the comparison on the implementation of multicultural component in the Russian educational system and the experience and implementation of a multicultural educational environment and bilingual education in Germany. The authors consider the adaptation and integration of migrants as one of the most important humanistic priorities of educational activities, the implementation which requires active participation of the entire education system in accordance with the “concept of state free migration policy of the Russian Federation „for the period up to 2025, which prioritizes the tasks of assisting migrants in the process of social and cultural adaptation and integration, e.g. on the topic of speech development, interaction and the improvement of the system of measures, that ensure respect the attitude of migrants to the culture and traditions of the host community. Multicultural education in Russia is viewed in the context of a multinational environment and migration policy. One part oft he article is to analyze the concept of a teachers multicultural (intercultural) competence as non-an integral part of general pedagogical competence. The need to develop a teacher‘s multicultural worldview has to be put in the context of the migration policy development, diversity and globalism of intercultural relations and intercultural communication. The authors are explaining an example of Russian practice implementing a multicultural educational environment and development experience (bi) multicultural environment on the example of the federal state of Berlin. The educational practice and policy will be shown on the implementation of bilingual education in preschool and school organizations, technologies for integrating bilingual children, migrant children, examples of identifying the level of language development (testing of bilingual children for knowledge of the German language). The article describes cognitive development features of bilingual children, considering the connection in the picture the world of the child of several cultures, which is primarily manifested at the linguistic level and special communication skills. The article substantiates the importance of language development, relevance and the need for an inclusive aproach in the process of integrating children, carriers of bilingual and bicultural component of personality. Multicultural, multi-confessional environment is defined as social inclusion, but inclusive education is set in the context of cultural diversity. A social inclusive approach is seen as a necessity for the successful implementation of polycultural education.

The article describes the experience of applying the ideas of the cultural-historical approach in the field of support and determining the effectiveness of innovative educational organizations of the preschool education system. The author deals with the perspective of the cultural-historical approach, the cycle of innovative development of organization and contours the social situation of development, zone of actual development, zone of proximal development and the space of creativity realization in the process of determining the effectiveness of regional innovation platforms of preschool education. In the context of the listed scientific concepts, the innovative processes implemented by the regional innovation platforms are defined and their quality conditions are monitored. The materials presented in the article may be of interest to specialists who support innovative educational organizations of the preschool education system and serve as a starting point in organizing and conducting scientific and experimental work in this field.

Parents and educators strive to help their children to develop optimally. Given the diversity of values and practices among dynamic modern populations it is important to understand all the dimensions that affect the development of children in their communities. A cultural-historical lens facilitates such a holistic understanding. Taking this lens, this article presents a model, developed with reference to cultural-historical theory and shows its application through reference to a study of three Hong Kong immigrant families in Australia. The model provides a traceable representation of the dynamic interactive processes and influences in a child’s development. It offers a template for the holistic analysis of the processes in a particular child’s development and guidelines for effective family pedagogy.

There is Vygotsky and Vygotsky. The Vygotsky who is still alive in his works and their thoughtful readers, and the Vygotsky «from textbooks». This is what Vygotsky looks like «in textbooks» schematically. According to his conception, a child does not develop on his own; he draws his «powers» for development from the sociocultural environment, which is created for him by an adult. To be more precise, it is created by his hands, his mind and, if he is lucky, by his heart. That is why when doing it, an adult acts not «on his own behalf» but «on his behalf and the behalf of the authority» of culture itself, which formed historically when he merely acts as an intermedium between culture and the child. In collaboration with an adult, a child learns cultural patterns – ways of interacting with human things, models of human behavior, samples of world perception, and criteria for evaluating what is happening in the world, deciphering «languages» – the symbols of the culture... And then he applies these patterns and codes to certain situations. It seems reasonable. But the social factors of child development (which included communications with an adult) were written about long before Vygotsky. Usually they were described as something imposed externally, something directive. From this perspective, development appeared to be a gradual «social enslavement», and they searched for the sources of freedom in the primal game of Mother Nature’s forces, which is natural for such logic. However, this «mother» is in some ways is a more rigid «dictator» than society. In fact, Vygotsky’s ideas are much deeper and more interesting.

The article describes essential and distinctive features of an exemplary basic educational program of preschool education “From birth to school”, which is connected with the innovative systems the Standard of the preschool education - positive socialization, individualization of the development, support of children’s initiative. The program “From birth to school” has a systemic, comprehensive, science-based understanding of the objectives and requirements that are applied to the preschool educational institutions. The program is based on the scientific psychological-pedagogical school of L.Vygotsky and his followers (A. Zaporozhets, A. Leontyev et al.). The program is developed in accordance with the psychological and physiological characteristics of the children, supports the diversity of childhood, makes preschool education “entertaining” and is aimed at the formation of motives and needs of a child.

In the article the problem of the organization of communicative activity of the senior preschool children in the process of early foreign language education is presented. Various forms of communicative activity of children can be organically included in the educational activities in the classroom during foreign language acquisition, enriching the learning process with communicative and ethno-linguistic content. In preschool education modernization the process of foreign language learning, built on the basis of communication, is of great importance and contributes to a child’s ability to intercultural and international communication, as well as for his/her personal development as moral and responsible citizen. The author describes the basic forms and principles of the English language teaching in preschool and gives examples of the types of work with preschool children in the classroom in English, which can be implemented by teachers and parent.

Relevance. Observing the modern processes taking place in the educational society, it is impossible not to note the marked generation gap and, as a result, the depreciation of cultural ideals and values among young people and the younger generation. The article presents the experience of testing the pedagogical technology “Artifact”, based on the key ideas of the cultural and historical approach and designed to make cultural artifacts the semantic and value core of the educational process of a preschool educational organization.

Progress of the study. The study involved 147 preschoolers aged 4 to 7 years attending preschool educational organizations in Moscow and the Voronezh Region. The study was supposed to design a complex of psychological and pedagogical conditions for the development of a cultural sample by a child through the acquaintance of preschoolers with a cultural artifact, the restoration of cultural meanings and contexts, and to obtain products of children’s creativity (children’s artifacts) created on its basis.

The results of the study. In each age group participating in the study, the original cultural artifacts were identified and based on them, various children’s artifacts with partial or complete reproduction of mastered cultural samples were obtained using the Artifact technology.

Conclusions. A cultural artifact, as an entry point into culture under specially designed psychological and pedagogical conditions, is an object of cognition appropriate to preschool childhood and a source of a cultural sample offered to a child for development in the zone of proximal development. Being a part or the basis of a children’s creative product (children’s artifact), a cultural sample becomes a particle of the culture of the future and an important condition for the formation of a conscious and value-based attitude of the younger generation to cultural heritage. Thus, the Artifact technology has been successfully tested in the conditions of real pedagogical processes in kindergartens and can be recommended for solving problems related to the implementation of a value-oriented component of educational programs and the assignment of traditional Russian values by preschoolers.