Development of coherent speech in preschoolers using mnemonic tables

An important condition for the development of preschool children is coherent speech. The child’s ability to explore the world around him depends on the level of its formation. But there are often serious gaps in the speech of preschoolers. These include: a small vocabulary, errors in the construction of sentences, inexpressive reading of poetry, etc., which may later affect learning at school. The causes of such problems may be a lack of verbal communication between children and parents, adults’ lack of awareness about the correct development of a child’s coherent speech, and the meager vocabulary of the parents themselves.

If adults have expressive speech, then the child speaks well and does not experience difficulties in communication. To eliminate these problems, you can use modern technologies.

What is a mnemonic table

Mnemonic tables are an effective technology for forming coherent speech.

Together with classical methods of speech development, mnemonics are actively used in preschool practice.

Mnemonics are methods and techniques that affect the memorization, storage and reproduction of information. Such a system is based on the creation of certain associations-images that promote the development of memory and coherent speech, manifested in the statements of preschool children in the form of description, narration and reasoning.

For children, this is a complex speech activity, so the methods of work should be accessible and understandable, and arouse their interest. To do this, adults themselves must have a good command of mnemonics in order to use it in the development of coherent speech in preschoolers.

Taking into account the psychological characteristics of children: visual-figurative thinking, involuntary processes of memory and attention, creative imagination, teachers use mnemonic techniques for the correct construction of speech in preschool children. An important place among them is occupied by mnemonic tables, or diagrams with code information. Since in preschool age visual-figurative thinking remains the dominant one, therefore the perception and processing of information will be best built on the basis of visual images.

The use of mnemonic tables is available not only to teachers, but also to parents. Everyone knows that preschool children love to draw, and in their drawings they depict all the objects of the surrounding world, natural phenomena, people who are next to them, the plots of their favorite fairy tales, etc. On this children's desire for creativity, work must be done to teach children mnemonic tables , not forgetting that this activity presupposes the presence of a certain level of thinking and creative skills of the child.

It is best to start with color tables, since images in the minds of children are built on specific properties of objects: if the sky is necessarily blue, snow is white, orange is orange. For older preschoolers, who are already developing logical thinking, it is better to switch to a black and white picture so that the color does not distract the child from the schematic image. This is how children learn the concept of “encoding a word.” Parents should not be scared by this; everyone in life encounters information coding: road signs, school puzzles, algorithms, etc.

Mnemonics in the speech development of preschool children

“Speech is a channel for the development of intelligence...

The sooner speech is acquired,

The easier and more complete the knowledge will be assimilated.”

V.A. Sukhomlinsky

Preschool education programs define one of the main objectives of the educational activities of preschool educational institutions as the task of children mastering speech as a means of communication and culture. Speech education of a preschool child includes enriching the active vocabulary, developing coherent, grammatically correct dialogical and monologue speech; development of speech creativity, sound and intonation culture of speech; acquaintance with book culture, children's literature, and much more. etc.

All these tasks must be implemented before the child enters school, since the psychophysiological capabilities of age create all the conditions for this.

However, it is no secret that nowadays figurative speech, rich in synonyms, additions and descriptions, in preschool children is a very rare phenomenon. In the process of speech development, the following problems are increasingly observed in children:

- inability to coordinate words in a sentence; monosyllabic speech consisting only of simple sentences; inability to speak grammatically correct;

- poverty of vocabulary;

- violation of sound pronunciation, poor diction.

- poor dialogical speech - the inability to formulate a question competently and clearly, to construct a short or detailed answer;

- inability to construct a monologue, for example, a plot or descriptive story on a proposed topic, retelling the text in your own words;

- lack of logical justification for one’s statements;

— lack of speech culture skills: inability to use intonation, regulate voice volume and speech rate, etc.;

- children do not know the techniques and methods of memorization. They are reluctant to learn poetry and retell texts. Memorizing poems causes them difficulties - rapid fatigue and negative emotions;

Therefore, kindergarten teachers were faced with the task of not only teaching children to express their thoughts coherently, consistently, and grammatically correctly, but, first of all, it was very important to awaken children’s interest in speech activity, captivate them, liberate them and turn backbreaking work into the most beloved and most accessible one. Kind of activity.

For this purpose, when teaching children, it is quite justified to use creative innovative methods and technologies, the effectiveness of which is obvious, along with generally accepted ones. Remembering the words of K. D. Ushinsky, who wrote: “Teach a child some five words unknown to him, he will suffer for a long time and in vain, but connect twenty such words with pictures, and he will learn them on the fly,” we decided to organize a search for such technology that will make it interesting for children and, at the same time, effectively develop their speech, and, therefore, contribute to their full mental development.

Such technology, in our opinion, is mnemonic technology, which facilitates memorization, increases memory capacity through the formation of additional associations and allows children to solve the problems of their speech development in a fun way. This is how T.B. presents it in his work. Polyanskaya [1].

L.V. Omelchenko defines mnemonics as a system of various techniques that facilitate memorization and increase memory capacity through the formation of additional associations, organizing the educational process in the form of a game. The purpose of teaching mnemonics is the development of memory, thinking, imagination, attention, which are closely related to the full development of speech [2].

In order to master mnemonics, teachers needed to get acquainted with the theory and technology of working with children, and understand the role of the teacher in this new direction of educational activity for us. For this purpose, the kindergarten held seminars and workshops, prepared and acquired the necessary methodological and didactic material.

We learned that the use of mnemonics is currently becoming relevant, since this pedagogical technology began its ascent in working with speech therapy children, whose speech development does not follow traditional methods. In addition, we studied the theoretical foundations of technology, methods of its application and diversity.

The main “secret” of the psychophysiological basis of mnemonics is very simple and well known. A person connects several visual images in his imagination, and the brain records this relationship. And later, when recalling one of the images of this association, the brain reproduces all previously connected images. It is well known that the language of the brain is images. And, above all, visual images. If we address the brain in its language, it will carry out any of our commands, for example, the “remember” command.

But where can we get programs that will allow us to communicate with the brain and encode the information we need into its figurative language? Mnemonics is such a program. It consists of several dozen mental operations, thanks to which it is possible to “establish contact” with the brain and take under conscious control some of its functions, in particular, the memory function.

The use of mnemonic techniques helps to increase memory capacity. All this is achieved through the formation of associations. Abstract objects and facts are replaced by images that have a visual, auditory or kinesthetic representation. Most children have difficulty remembering words with unknown, abstract meanings. Memorized information disappears from memory after a few days.

For durable and easy memorization, you should fill the word with content using mnemonic techniques. Connect it with specific bright visual and sound images, with strong sensations. The peculiarities of this technology lie in the use of symbols rather than images of objects. The technique of symbolization makes it much easier for children to find and memorize words. The symbols are as close as possible to the speech material. For example: a Christmas tree is used to designate wild animals, and a house is used to designate domestic animals.

Mnemonic technology helps in solving problems of speech development in the process:

- formation of skills and abilities of dialogical and monologue speech (examination of paintings, illustrations, conversations, conversation, composing stories, retelling fiction, etc.);

- activation and enrichment of vocabulary, including when guessing and making riddles. ;

- when memorizing poetry;

- formation of grammatically correct speech;

- teaching children to read and write.

Mnemonics promotes the development of mental processes in children such as: memory, logical thinking (the ability to analyze, systematize) and imaginative thinking.

With its help, various general educational and didactic tasks are solved: familiarization with various information; development of ingenuity, training of attention; teaching children the ability to establish cause-and-effect relationships in events and stories; fine motor skills develop. Children who master the means of mnemonics are subsequently able to independently develop speech in the process of communication and learning.

The effectiveness of using technology depends on certain conditions:

— the content of the material must be accessible to a child of a given age;

— use of various visual modeling techniques: pictograms, substitutes, mnemonic tables.

A pictogram is a symbolic image that replaces words; it is a picture with which you can write down words and expressions; it is a picture that will help you remember a given word. For example, a “merry holiday” - a ball, fireworks; a sign depicting a leg can mean walking, standing. Examples of pictograms - road signs, on clothing (clothing care)

You can use pictograms depicting: words-objects (for example, “girl”, “sun”, “butterfly”, etc.), words-signs (“big”, “small”, “sad”, “cheerful” etc.), action words (“goes”, “shines”, “flies”), prepositional symbols (“under”, “above”, “in”, etc.). The personal creativity of the teacher makes it possible to reproduce this in various variations.

Substitution is a type of modeling in which some objects are replaced by other, real-conditional ones. It is convenient to use paper squares, circles, ovals that differ in color and size as substitutes, because substitution is based on any difference between objects and their characteristics.

Acting out speech content with the help of substitutes, according to O.M. Dyachenko, it’s better to start with folk tales, because... stable stereotypes of familiar characters (orange fox, big and brown bear, etc.) are easily transferred to models. In the first lessons, the number of substitutes should match the number of characters, then you can introduce extra circles or squares so that the child can choose the ones he needs. At first, it is enough for the child to raise the corresponding symbol as the story is told to adults, then you can move on to acting out the story.

A special place in working with children is occupied by the use of such didactic material as mnemonic tables. A mnemonic table is a diagram that contains certain information. The content of a mnemonic table is a graphic or partially graphic representation of fairy tale characters, natural phenomena, some actions, etc. by highlighting the main semantic links of the story’s plot. The main thing is to convey a conventionally visual diagram, to depict it in such a way that what is drawn is understandable to children.

In a mnemonic table you can depict almost everything - a graphic or partially graphic representation of fairy tale characters, natural phenomena, some actions, i.e. You can draw whatever the teacher using this technology deems necessary. The main thing is to depict it in such a way that what is drawn is understandable to children.

Having studied the theoretical foundations, mastery of mnemonic technology began on the basis of the principle “from simple to complex”: at trainings and practical classes, teachers first became familiar with the technique of using the simplest mnemonic squares, successively moved on to mnemonic tracks and later to mnemonic tables.

Practical work with children began after an algorithm for working with the model was developed.

There are several stages in working with reference diagrams.

At the 1st stage, elements of diagrams and symbols were introduced. For example, designations of color, shape, size, action.

On the 2nd stage, they used elements of supporting schemes and symbols in all types of direct educational activities (hereinafter GCD) and in various types of children's activities. We were guided by the fact that the child should not get used to it, that this symbol is applicable only in one area, because the symbol is universal.

At the 3rd stage, the method of contradiction or the method of denial was introduced. For example, not smooth, not sweet, etc.

The fourth stage is the stage of learning to combine symbols, “reading” a chain of symbols.

Further, at the 5th stage, children were organized to independently search for images symbolizing some quality. The task of this stage was to actively search for images. Here, children developed the ability to justify their choices.

At the next stage, the 6th stage, children were taught to look at tables and analyze the content of what is depicted on it.

During the 7th stage, children were taught to recode information, i.e. transformation from abstract symbols to images.

The 8th stage was the final one, here a fairy tale or story on a given topic was already retold. In younger groups with the help of a teacher, in older groups independently.

Retelling, as a method of developing coherent speech, plays a special role in its formation. Here the structure of speech, its expressiveness, and the ability to construct sentences are improved. Here the mnemonic table was supposed to help children remember the sequence of events, the order of appearance of fairy-tale characters and their actions.

Work with mnemonic tables to teach children retelling began with the simple reproduction of cumulative fairy tales that were well known to children, the peculiarity of which was the construction of the plot along a chain. According to T.V. Bolshova, fairy tale texts are the most fertile material for the development of speech and thinking in preschool children. These were the fairy tales “Kolobok”, “Turnip”, “Teremok”. They are familiar to children in content; multiple repetitions of the plot were quickly remembered by children. Therefore, these fairy tales have always been used at the initial stage of work on mnemonic technology, even with older children [3].

Retelling with the help of mnemonic tables helped children see all the characters, concentrate their attention on the correct construction of sentences, and on reproducing the necessary expressions in their speech.

When children began to enjoy the success of the results of their activities based on these fairy tales, the qualitative potential of their speech development increased. They gained confidence in their ability to reproduce the text logically and correctly. They began to confidently use the algorithm for working with text. After this, they moved on to literary works of art.

Gradually we began to expand the range of our actions using mnemonic tables. We carried out preliminary work on the development and enrichment of speech. At first, ready-made mnemonic tables were given; they were colored, correctly executed in color and graphic terms, the images were understandable to the children. The mnemonic tables did not exceed the required amount of information, which corresponded to the age of the children in the group. Then we started trying to create mnemonic tables ourselves. At the initial stage, they offered a ready-made plan - a diagram, and as they learned, the child was also actively involved in the process of creating his own diagram.

Practice in mnemonic technology has shown that mnemonic tables are quite effective when learning poems. The point is this: for each word or small phrase a picture (image) is invented, thus the entire poem is sketched out schematically. After this, the child reproduces the entire poem from memory, using a graphic image. Here the work was built on the same principle - “from simple to complex.” First, we add only simple symbols, diagrams (for example, designations: colors, shapes, sizes, actions) and increase the volume of information (let’s say the volume is already more than 9 mnemonic squares).

The most difficult type of monologue speech is composing a descriptive story and retelling with elements of creativity. Here it was important to teach the child to identify the characteristics of an object.

At the stage of compiling a descriptive story, symbols denoting words continued to be entered into the mnemonic tables. For example: when they saw a symbol in the form of a question mark or an outline image of an object, children were asked to name the object or object. Then the children designated the color; they talked about the color of the object based on the color spot-palette. Geometric figures - denoted the shape of an object. If the symbol was “hand,” the children understood that they had to talk about what the object felt like or name an action with it. “The image of a person” symbolized why a person needs an object, how a person takes care of it, or how a person uses it. “Parts of an object” - reminded us that we need to tell what parts the object consists of. Other symbols were used as needed. Next, the children were introduced to the concept of negation, symbols were introduced denoting the particle “ not

", for example, the symbol "crossed out mouth" meant the word "inedible".

We paid attention to the fact that the mnemonic tables are given in one color and without detailed images; all images should also be accessible and understandable to children; the amount of information was increased as necessary.

In addition, children were involved in the process of creating mnemonic tables; their participation contributed to the development of not only grapho-motor skills, but also better memorization and encoding of information.

Children usually greeted the proposal to come up with a story or fairy tale joyfully, and here tables began to play an important role. But to ensure that children’s stories are varied and logically structured, mnemonic tables will again provide significant assistance. When children, using this technology, mastered the algorithm for retelling, composing a descriptive story and a story from memory, they began the more complex stage of using it in the process of creative storytelling.

When teaching children how to compose stories with creative elements, the following tasks were solved:

- development of coherent speech based on a self-created imaginary situation;

— development of creative imagination;

— updating children’s knowledge and ideas about the environment;

— development of verbal and logical thinking;

- develop the ability to draw up a plan for the development of an imaginary situation.

In relation to mnemonics, various teaching methods were used - verbal: explanation, clarification, story, conversation, discussion; visual: sample, display, illustration, demonstration); cognitive and practical activities were widely used.

In the process of GCD, the maximum possible conditions were created for reasoning and describing the circumstances of the development of events. They taught children to think independently, analyze, express their thoughts, express their attitude to created events - this is an important task when using mnemonics in teaching children coherent speech.

In the process of working with the new technology and based on an analysis of the fairly effective results of developing the coherent speech skills of children in their group, we came to the conclusion that storytelling according to the scheme helps children develop dialectics and logic of thinking, overcome shyness, isolation, and timidity. Children learn to defend their point of view, give reasons for their statements, and when they find themselves in difficult situations, independently find original speech solutions and turns of phrase.

The technique of mnemonics is applicable to all narratives and descriptions, prosaic and poetic. It is easy for children to illustrate any capacious and picturesque poem with a series of drawings, and from them learn the text of the poem. We understood this thanks to our acquaintance with N. Chokhonelidze’s book “Learning Poems from Pictures [4].

Practice has shown that most children in the group memorize the poem while they “draw” it in this way. Gradually, the memory of preschoolers strengthened and became more “tenacious.” There have been qualitative changes in the development of not only memory, but also imaginative thinking, and, of course, creative imagination. Children began to remember much better, more in volume, easier and more emotional.

Our work on the development of coherent speech in children is not limited to mnemonic tables. We perceived the use of mnemonics as an initial, “starting”, but at the same time effective technology, since it allows children to more easily perceive and process visual information, save and reproduce it. Mnemonic tables, in turn, serve only as didactic material in the work on the development of coherent speech.

Of course, the use of mnemonics is in no way intended to replace the most famous and widely popular method in the development and strengthening of memory - traditional memorization of texts. However, mnemonics copes with the task of helping to make the memorization process simpler, more interesting and informative.

How to create a mnemonic table when working with text

The mnemonic table includes a wide range of words and phrases; everything can be encrypted in it, but children should work with it from simple to complex. Therefore, preschoolers first learn the concept of mnemonic squares (drawing diagrams).

The first stage is mnemonic square

In it, the adult encrypts the word and shows the child a diagram enclosed in a square window. For example, the word "thunderstorm" could represent the following pattern:

You can depict any word in a mnemonic square, the main thing is that it is accessible to children. The subject matter is different, it can be objects, animals, their properties and actions. The goal is to teach the child to correlate an image-scheme with an object or action and see its relationship with the world around him.

Children love this exercise and are happy to encode different words, it is good if parents encourage this.

The second stage - mnemonic tracks

After mastering the mnemonic square, they move on to mnemonic tracks, i.e., several “windows” in which a phrase or sentence is depicted. The child, under the guidance of an adult, first moves from one square to the next and, with the help of drawn diagrams, recalls the text, and then does this independently.

For example, a sentence composed together with a child, “The cat pulled a ball out of the basket and is playing with it,” can be encrypted as follows:

Parents, teaching their child to encode words in home games, solve several problems at once:

• speech development;
• creative self-expression of the baby;
• independence in games.

The third stage - mnemonic table

And as the final stage of the mnemonic technique, the compilation of mnemonic tables with a schematic representation of the text. This could be any work or story that was invented by an adult, the main thing is that the content is accessible to the child. In the future, just as in working with squares and paths, children independently come up with and encrypt any texts.

This is what a mnemonic table might look like, which schematically depicts a story compiled by children.

“Cold winter has arrived. A lot of snow fell. The guys dressed warmly and went for a walk. They built a slide outside and went sledding. Then they made a snowman and played snowballs. It's fun to walk in winter! »

From such stories, you can compose entire cycles according to the seasons, and from the pictures-schemes drawn by children, you can make homemade albums-books, which preschoolers can look at and retell the works. This is an excellent way to develop not only children’s coherent speech, but also creative imagination, fine motor skills, and drawing skills.

Most of all, children like to encrypt fairy tales or funny rhymes. The main image in the mnemonic tables should be the characters and their actions, so that the retelling is easier for the preschooler. The properties of objects encrypted in the tables will be available to older children after special training.

Parents who are interested in helping their child master the richness of their native language can take an active part in compiling these types of tables.

For example, fairy tales about animals and objects, with a simple plot, a small number of characters and dynamics of development, can be easily encoded and become a game for preschoolers. This is what the fairy tale “Zayushkina’s Hut” might look like.

You can encrypt any fairy tale in this way. But for such activities with the child, it is better not for parents at first not to take fairy tales like “The Frog Princess” that are voluminous in content, abundance of characters and numerous actions, since the arbitrariness of mental processes in preschoolers is just being formed, and long-term work can extinguish interest child.

The greatest effect from the action of the mnemonic table is achieved when working on poems and retellings of texts, since their use in speech development solves many problems: it makes it easier for the child to perceive and assimilate the text, establish the sequence of presentation of the content, and reproduce it according to the plan-scheme. Among children's works, you can select poems for learning with children and coding them in mnemonic tables. These can be both works of classics, A. Barto, V. Berestov, S. Marshak, and texts of modern authors. It all depends on the creative orientation of adults and children, the level of development of their coherent speech.