Relevance of the article. Studies aimed at studying the cognitive aspect of the development of language ability in preschoolers show that the center of the development of language ability is the semantic component that underlies the linguistic development of a preschool child, which includes not only expanding the vocabulary, but also educating children to pay attention to the content of the word, its semantics, enriching connections with other words, because in monologue speech, the meaning of a single word interacts with the semantics of the entire utterance. The formation of coherent monological speech is the central task of the speech development of a preschooler. The work on the meaning of the word, the expansion of the semantic field, the use of the associative principle of vocabulary assimilation, the formation of linguistic generalizations in the assimilation of the grammatical structure of speech develop in preschoolers the arbitrariness and awareness of speech, the ability to sel ect accurate and expressive means when constructing coherent utterances of different types. These provisions apply to mastering not only the native language, but also any other language.
The aim of the study. To summarize the results of research conducted for more than twenty years in the kindergarten No. 215 (then – the preschool department of school No. 324 in Moscow).
Progress of the study. The research conducted under the leadership of F.A. Sokhin, O.S. Ushakova, V.I. Yashina was aimed at developing the theory of language acquisition in preschool childhood, organically combining pedagogical, psychological and linguistic aspects in theoretical analysis and experiment. These studies have shown that children, starting from the younger preschool age, show great interest in language reality, “experiment” with words, create new words, focusing on both the semantic and grammatical side of the language. A necessary condition for their linguistic development is a gradual awareness of linguistic phenomena, i.e. the development of children’s metalanguage activity, which leads to a genuine mastery of the richness of the language.
The research results also showed that enriching the dictionary includes not only expanding its scope, but also educating children to pay attention to the content of the word, its semantics, clarifying the meanings of words, expanding the connections of the word with other words. Along with the semantic side of the word, the problem of lexical compatibility of words also plays an important role, which makes it possible to close the mastery of the semantics of the word with the development of coherent speech.
Conclusions. The formation of elementary awareness of the phenomena of language and speech is one of the most important tasks of both speech and linguistic development, starting fr om preschool age, therefore, we consider this aspect to be central in the initial development of a linguistic personality and understanding the meaning of a word, which is the basic unit of language and the basis of a child’s cognitive development, determines the essence of the development of his language ability.