EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON THE SENIOR PRESCHOOL CHILDREN SPEECH DEVELOPMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF TRAINING FOR TEACHING LITERACY

Abstract

Purpose. The purpose of the article is the theoretical grounding and empirical research of the senior preschool children speech development as a prerequisite for successful mastering literacy.

Methods. In order to realize the research purpose, we made the theoretical analysis and generalization of the data of scientific sources on the research topic (analysis, synthesis, comparison, systematization, generalization of scientific-theoretical and empirical data); the observation of the six-year-olds’ speech, the interviewing, the psycholinguistic analysis of children’s utterances, the methods of definition of concepts.

Results. As a result of theoretical analysis it is found that speech development of six-year-old children is characterized by a gradual transition from the level of speech operations (unconscious, involuntary, unintentional skills), which are not always effective in educational communication (speech is situational, spontaneous), to the level of speech actions (conscious, arbitrary, deliberate). It is before teaching children literacy when a speech must retain all its essential properties, features and its entire system organization with its elements – sounds, letters, words, syllables, sentences, utterances etc. The empirical study has uncovered the genesis of preschool children’s awareness of speech units and revealed the causes of untimely maturation of the required language skills to navigate the language system.

Conclusions. The article deals with the psycholinguistic analysis of the basic scientific approaches to understanding the phenomenon of speech development of senior preschool children. The analysis of recent domestic and foreign scientific sources of oral speech development and awareness of language reality by children is presented. The definitions of “reflection of the speech of preschool children”, “objectification of the senior preschoolers’ speech”, “meta-linguistic knowledge” have been further developed as also their role in the teaching literacy during the period of children speech development. The role of child’s spontaneous, empirical knowledge in the formation of meta-linguistic knowledge is revealed, which gives an opportunity to freely approach the acquisition of true one that is the theoretical knowledge of language.