Eugenia O. Shishova

Background. The article analyzes the problem of cognitive regulation in children with different language status during the pre-school period, which allows for a more specific understanding of the trajectories of cognitive development in a multilingual and multicultural educational environment.

Objective. To identify differences in executive functions and divergent thinking between balanced bilingual preschoolers (Russian/Tatar) and monolinguals (Russian), and to establish the patterns of correlations between these indicators within each group.

Sample. The empirical study involved 120 preschool children aged 5 to 7 years (M = 6.15; Med = 6.1) of which 60 were balanced bilinguals (Russian and Tatar) and 60 were monolinguals (Russian).

Methods. The research employed observation, an associative experiment, and psychodiagnostic methods aimed at studying executive functions and divergent thinking in preschool children. Data processing was carried out using descriptive statistics, the Mann–Whitney U-test, and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient.

Results. Significant differences were found in all indicators of executive functions and divergent thinking, with higher scores in bilingual children. The identified relationships between executive functions and thinking processes made it possible to establish different trajectories in the development of the self-regulation system of creative thinking in preschoolers with different language status: convergence of executive functions and thinking processes, forming an integral system of cognitive regulation in bilinguals; local coherence of executive functions and thinking processes in monolinguals.

Conclusions. The results can be used in the development of psychological and educational technologies, as well as in the design of individual educational pathways that promote the development of the regulatory-cognitive sphere in primary school children with different language status.

The study considers the problem of the development of children’s personality in the system of preschool education. The analysis is focused on issues related to the influence of the quality of the educational environment and its developing psychological and pedagogical potential on the formation of children’s subjectivity. At present, one of the most important issues in psychology is the study of the development and formation of the child’s psyche in the process of interaction with their environment. The research is based on concepts and approaches to the educational environment as the source of the person’s mental development (L.S. Vygotsky, V.I. Slobodchikov, V.A. Yasvin); the systemic-environmental approach in education (A. Bandura, K. Rogers, I.A. Baeva, V.A. Yasvin); and statements on the development of the psyche and the formation of the personality as a subject of development during activities (B.G. Ananyev, L.S. Vygotsky, D.B. Elkonin, L.V. Alekseeva). The results of the study of the quality of the educational environment in early childhood confirm that all the preschool institutions in Russia have different capacities and developing potential. According to the results of the cluster analysis, four distinctive modern types of educational environments with different capacities were identified. Tendencies towards associating the quality parameters of the educational environment and the subjectivity of children were revealed, as well as significant differences in the subjective characteristics of preschool children in different types of educational environments. A “stimulating productive educational environment” and a “learning environment” contribute to the development of passivity and dependence in the child, while a “heuristic educational environment” and a “creative environment” are characterized by their focus on the free development of the active child and the unlocking of personal potential.

The relevance of the article’s subject is due to the need to develop bilingual children’s thinking in their second language – Russian. Reasoning is one of the forms (units) of thinking. We assumed that if, during the acquaintance of children with the works of children’s literature, an analysis of the structure of reasoning is carried out – to determine the main idea (thesis), the type of connection of arguments (sequential, parallel, mixed), to find (and formulate) a conclusion, to distinguish between full and abbreviated reasoning, to use special (lexical) means of connecting parts of reasoning – then the efficiency of reproducing the text heard and discussed, the quality of constructing one’s own reasoning will increase significantly.

The purpose of the article is to show the results of a study on the implementation of the methodology of working on reasoning in the process of familiarizing older preschoolers with works of children’s literature. Reasoning is understood as a unit of thinking, as a compositional form of speech, a functional type of speech that is more characteristic of the scientific style of speech, but is also present in fiction in the form of an author’s view, an author’s assessment and an author’s interpretation of facts.

The course of the study. The pedagogical experiment was conducted on the basis of preschool institutions of the Republic of Tatarstan, in which children learn two languages – Russian and Tatar. At the same time, Tatar is their native language. The experiment took place in 2020-2022. The data obtained were compared with control groups in which no work on reasoning was carried out. The total number of subjects was 476 children of senior preschool age (236 in experimental groups, 240 in control groups). Russian Russian literature In a pedagogical experiment, we tried to focus children’s attention on the structural features of reasoning in works of Russian fiction, to use the identified features in the construction of children’s own statements-reasoning in Russian.

The results of the study turned out to be significant: there are practically no changes in the number of correctly constructed arguments in the control groups, in the experimental groups there is a significant increase (on average by 30%). This proved the positive effect of working on the structure of reasoning.

Conclusion. The results of the study convince that the work on the development of bilingual children’s abilities to reason in Russian should be connected with the definition of the main idea of the work of art, with the identification of arguments proving the main idea of the author, with the formulation of the conclusion that the author wanted to convey to the reader. In this regard, it is recommended to: teach children to find and build a complete reasoning (thesis, proof, conclusion) that explains the ideological content of a fairy tale or story; identify brief (or abbreviated) arguments in literary texts, explain which parts of it and why they are abbreviated; find consistent, parallel and mixed connection of arguments in the arguments and independently build in their statements; use special reference words to connect the thesis with arguments, arguments with the conclusion; offer children tasks, exercises aimed at constructing their own reasoning on various topics.