The problem of readiness for school education becomes relevant for graduating groups of kindergarten. Education of children in public schools from the age of 6 poses new tasks related to the diagnosis of children and assessment of their psychological maturity. Unfortunately, it happens that a child, when entering school, can both count and write, however, by school he may be not ready. Often, parents and educators are overly concerned with the child’s intellectual readiness for school, but they completely forget that in fact, the child’s emotional and social readiness for school is no less important. It is she who will ensure the success of his learning. “It is known that in the development of a child there are optimal timing for each type of learning. This means that only at certain age periods will learning a given subject, given knowledge, skills and abilities be the easiest, most economical and fruitful.” (L.S. Vygodsky) It is known that a four-month-old baby cannot be taught speech, and a two-year-old child cannot be taught literacy, because during this period they are not yet mature for this training, they have not yet developed those properties and functions that are necessary as prerequisites for this type of education. Therefore, the psychological readiness of a child for learning at school (school maturity) is understood as his achievement of such a level of mental development when he is able to take part in school education. This means that there are objective reasons that complicate the process of mastering educational skills . These reasons are based on the functional immaturity of the cortex and regulatory structures of the brain. Educational activities with the child must be organized in accordance with HIS (child’s) capabilities! The child on the threshold of school must be MATURE: • Physically • Mentally (Intellectually) • Emotionally • Socially These are criteria for school maturity. Let's consider everything, with one exception. I deliberately omit the “Mentally” item in this article (may my colleagues and readers forgive me), because For some reason, it is this that is put at the forefront when talking about readiness for schooling, and the other points are skimmed over without specifying their importance for the child’s HEALTH. Yes, yes, I’m not exaggerating, precisely for physical, mental and social HEALTH. But can a child who is not completely healthy be a successful student? Hardly. And if he can (rarely, but it happens), will this success bring joy to him and his parents? What am I talking about? Yes, that it would be better if the level of intelligence drops from a high level to an average one, but the neurotic stuttering of a beloved son will go away, the tics of a beautiful daughter will stop, etc. and so on. What mother would disagree with me? Ambitious, who gave birth to a genius and raises him as president, sometimes driving him with demands to “study, study and study again” to the point of stuttering and tics. Now I do not mean children who are psychologically mature and capable of learning. I’m talking about those who have reached school age and are “pushed” into school, despite the fact that they have not yet reached school maturity. (I agree that society is also pushing us to take such a step: there are not enough places in kindergartens. A child is released so as not to take up a place in kindergarten, and the school makes its own demands on readiness and waits for suitable students. There is such a problem, but in this article we simply mentioned it to justify ourselves, but will not consider it.) In medicine, there are the concepts of “passport and biological age.” The passport age is the number of years and months from the date of birth, and the biological age is the degree of maturity of the organs and systems of the body achieved by a certain passport age. The biological and passport ages may not coincide. According to our data, the gap between the biological and passport ages of older preschoolers and younger schoolchildren can be more than one and a half years. The question arises: at what age should we analyze neoplasms in these cases? And at what age should we “show off” to school? So: PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL READINESS. • General development of the child (morbidity,physical development (height, weight, etc.), "handedness", stuttering and other neurotic manifestations); • Development of general movements (dexterity, accuracy, coordination, speed) and motor skills of the hand; • Endurance (fatigue), performance , arbitrariness of actions and behavior, the ability to focus attention on an uninteresting task, not to be distracted by extraneous stimuli. Well, now, as they say, questions for self-test: Is the body of a frequently ill child ready for school stress? Is a child with stuttering and other neurotic manifestations ready? experience alarming situations: independent answers, going to the board, the teacher’s raised voice, reading aloud and defending his opinion among peers with speech or behavioral problems? Will a child with a speech disorder be comfortable at school or can this lead to isolation and low self-esteem, despite the fact that the level of intelligence of these children can be much higher than their peers? Children with general movement disorders (dexterity, accuracy, coordination, speed) will they be able to write beautifully (and we only want beautifully, not understanding what is meant by “beautifully” the regulatory structures of his brain have not matured, it seems to us that he is simply not trying)? By criticizing his “doodles,” we create a “situation of failure” for him. Why go to school where I am not successful? They promised me that school was good. Have you been deceived? A child who quickly gets tired and is easily distracted by extraneous stimuli (“catches flies or crows”) is there much benefit in going to school if after 1 lesson he is already tired. What happened in the remaining 3-4 lessons? Does not remember! Not because he is not attentive, but this is his psychophysiology. Such children receive a lot of comments and criticism from parents and teachers. Is such a school interesting? Are these children ready to face these difficulties every day and how will this affect their health? But it turns out:• 80-90% of children six to seven years old have some kind of deviation in physical health;• 18-20% - borderline (non-severe) mental health disorders; • about 60% - speech development disorders; • about 35% - immaturity of visual-spatial perception; • more than 30% - immaturity of complexly coordinated hand movements and graphic movements; • more than 70% - immaturity of integrative functions (visuomotor, auditory-motor and sensorimotor coordination); • approximately 13% have compensatory left-handedness associated with speech development disorders; • approximately 25% have a slow pace of activity (slow children). Note for those interested: Test biological age can be done using the Philippine test. At 5-6 years old, children experience a “half-height growth spurt” - it consists of a significant lengthening of the limbs of the arms and legs - the result characterizes the biological age of the child, because reflects not just the level of skeletal development, morphofunctional maturity of the body - it is associated with the level of maturation of the nervous system and the ability of the brain to perceive and process information. If this “jump” has occurred, then the child can easily reach the opposite ear with his hand. Changing teeth indicates that the child’s vital forces have already finished working on the formation of the physical body, and some of them can already be freed up so that the child can purposefully study. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Crisis of 7 years: find a balance between cooperation and competition, independence and obedience. • Motivational (game or cognitive motive, internal position) • Social (attitude towards a strange adult and peers. The degree of goodwill and emotional well-being in the team and one’s own SELF-ESTEEM) • Emotional-volitional (clarification of the prevailing types of fear, the ability to focus on an uninteresting task and finish what has been started it's up to the end) And again questions for self-test: A child who does not have an internal position like: “I’ll go to school because I’m already big. There I will learn a lot of new things and become smart”, does he have an understanding of why I am here and what from me?want? It was the adults who told him that he was big and he HAD to go here (to school). But he (the child) himself did not realize this. Is the “schoolboy” good? For a child who takes out a typewriter or a doll instead of an ABC book, the play motive prevails; it is difficult to teach him something, explaining: “If you learn the letters, you will learn to read.” But I don’t want to read, I love, when my grandmother reads to me. How do you like such a student? So then, again, the child is scolded for not reading well. So you began to stuff your child with reading when the playful motive had not yet changed to educational. So “there’s no point in blaming the mirror if your face is crooked.” And if a child has a hard time dealing with contact with other adults or even peers. And the school is simply a breeding ground for these strange adults (other teachers, administration, high school students and different parents), and a whole lot of peers fly out of all the doors when the bell rings. Is the child uncomfortable? Is it easy for him to concentrate on the learning task? If you can’t concentrate, they will call you “lagging behind,” “not understanding anything.” Like this: it’s already hard for a child, but instead of helping him, they call him names. “I never succeed in anything,” “I still can’t do it,” “Everyone will laugh at me” - these are phrases of “low self-esteem.” " Will it be an obstacle to successful learning? Will it be difficult for a child who does not know how to muster the will “into a fist” and bring the work he has begun (and even an uninteresting one) to the end? And the tasks are just the following: read to the end (sentence, paragraph, page), write to the end of the line (page). And if you haven’t completed it, then you haven’t completed the task, another situation of “failure” is unpleasant for the child himself, and even reinforced by parents and teachers: “Yes, you failed!” "I am bad!" - the child’s nervous system recodes the phrase of the adults. Someone knocked on the door, something cracked outside the window, a book was suddenly and loudly slammed behind them, the bell rang sharply and loudly - an anxious state and fears will consume the child before he can learn anything new. What if this new thing is also scary? For those interested: To determine the child’s internal position, ask him: Would you like to move from kindergarten to school? Why? What do you like about school? What would you like to do most at school? Or maybe it would be better to go to kindergarten? Why? Where do you think is better - at school or in kindergarten? If you could choose, what would you prefer: study at home with a teacher or with the guys in the class and the same teacher? To find out the leading motive (game or educational), a child is invited into a room where ordinary, not very attractive toys are displayed on a table. An approximate set of toys could be as follows: one item from a doll's room; furniture, one piece of doll dishes, one soft toy, one cube, one simple car; It should be noted that this set cannot include the subject’s favorite toys. The child is asked to carefully examine the toys and remember them. This takes about a minute. After he gets acquainted with the toys, we suggest listening to a fairy tale. A child is read a fairy tale that he has never heard before. At the most interesting point, the reading is interrupted, and the experimenter asks the subject whether at the moment he would rather play with the toys displayed on the table or listen to the end of the fairy tale. Children with a pronounced cognitive interest usually prefer to listen to the continuation of the fairy tale. Children with weak cognitive needs prefer to play. But their play, as a rule, is of a manipulative nature. If a child chooses toys, and then, after playing a little, comes up to the experimenter and asks to finish reading the fairy tale, then the adult refuses, citing the fact that the choice has already been made. If the child, having chosen the toys, does not begins to play with them, and takes one toy and returns to the experimenter with a request to finish reading the fairy tale, then the adult invites the child to put the toy in its place and then come to finish listening to the fairy tale. If the child refuses to part with the toy, the adult does notfinishes reading the fairy tale and tells him something, a fairy tale, or a toy. You can determine the child’s emotional and social readiness for school with the help of ordinary observation. How does the child communicate with peers? Does he have permanent friends? Do you often quarrel and conflict? Does he participate in cooperative games? Can you negotiate with other children? Can he adequately perform various roles in games? Does he strive to complete the work he has begun? Does he often ask adults questions about the world around him that is incomprehensible to him? How does the child interact with the teacher? Does he take the initiative in communication or does he wait until he is approached? When providing assistance, does he get involved in his work or withdraw into himself? Does he unconditionally fulfill the demands and requests of adults or express his own opinion? When completing a task, does he communicate with adults about the topic of the task or shift the conversation to other topics? Does he show desire and interest in learning something new? FUNCTIONAL READINESS• Copy a sample (eye-hand coordination + motor skills)• Maintain a task and perform a “chain of actions” These are school-required functions. Clumsy scribbles sadden a child to tears and cause many sad moments for their parents: why do other children write smoothly? and beautiful, and ours?... Because of the peculiarities of the state of their nervous system!!!! It is more difficult and time-consuming for them to develop and consolidate motor skills, especially fine movements. With the same symptoms, for example, lack of coordination of movements, the underlying causes may be different. Without understanding them, it is practically impossible to make a near-term forecast of the effectiveness and success of learning. Questions for self-test: Will a child who does not know how to copy a sample be able to successfully repeat an element of a letter in a copybook (and a copybook is based on copying) or copy correctly from the board? Is it easy for everyone? keep several tasks in your head at once: write down your homework and put away your diary, and then open a 25-page primer and read the text “Friends”? With the phrase “remove the diary,” many will already lose this “chain of actions.” And in response they will hear: “Didn’t you understand?” For those interested: Remember, the leading thing is development, and not learning to write, read, count. We appeal to L.S. Vygodsky, let us repeat his phrase: “...only that education in childhood is good, which runs ahead of development and leads development behind itself...but it is possible to teach a child only what he is capable of learning.” And this is significant. We teach not writing, but cutting with scissors, lacing, stringing, modeling, etc. To teach copying, give children more tasks like: completing the missing part of the picture, making objects the same, etc. Give the child tasks consisting of several actions. “Take a piece of paper and a pencil. Sit at the table and draw a man. Leave the pencil on the table and bring me the drawing.” Watch what he misses in the chain. Nothing? Great! Well, that’s basically all I wanted to draw your attention to. As promised, I omitted the criterion of “Intellectual (mental) maturity”, because they write about him in bright colors everywhere. Say: “intimidated”, “this is too much.” I just wanted to tell you that in determining a child’s readiness for school, intelligence is important, but by no means decisive! And if a mentally developed child does not have problems on the points described above, i.e. physiologically mature, emotionally healthy and socially adapted, then this is a successful student, a healthy child and happy parents. But if any of the criteria is “lame”, then let’s help him (the child) understand, develop, strengthen, etc. what he needs, and say goodbye to what bothers him (fears, tics, etc.) and let’s not rush to school. And when we successfully cope with everything, then “Hello school!” And then, the conversation will not be about whether the child is “ready” or “not ready” for school, but about whether the school is ready to create learning conditions that correspond to his individual characteristics development. And is the teacher ready to work with such a child, given that children who do not have certain characteristics».