Veraksa A.N. Possibilities of Play in the Cognitive Activity of the Preschooler
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Abstract
The study addressed play activity and symbolization as means of teaching new content to preschool children with comparison of their effectiveness to the traditional teaching process. The study experiment was designed to teach preschoolers the concept of rainbow by means of traditional learning (by explanations and application of schemes in control group) and symbolization (by play activity in experimental group).
The study included 23 5-6 year-old children divided into control and experimental groups. Children in the two groups were equalized by means of psychological diagnostics. Before the experiment, most children, although familiar with, could not explain the phenomenon of rainbow.
The changes in children’s representation of a rainbow were assessed by their drawings made before and two weeks after the experiment. Comparative analysis of the drawings showed that drawings from control group (before and after the experiment) were focused solely on external signs of this phenomenon (the shape and the colors of rainbow). On the other hand, drawings by the children of the experimental group made after the experiment, in various ways demonstrated the conditions under which rainbows commonly occur (rain, sun, etc.). However, none of the children could answer the question of what is depicted in the drawing – no verbal explanation was given. We assume that the drawings by children from the experimental group depicted the structure they caught “intuitively” (in the words of Jean Piaget) with a symbol, whereas the deficiency in the conceptual (abstract) tools accounted for the children’s inability to explain it verbally.