Using collective activities in the development of speech in children of older preschool and primary school age

Abstract

Introduction. The number of children with speech disorders increases from year to year. Work on the development of speech at preschool and school educational organizations is not always planned, systematic, and coherent. This composite group of children is insufficiently studied in pedagogical science and practice. In classes on speech development and children’s independent activity, not enough time is devoted to collective activities. Materials and methods. The pilot study involved 147 children from four preparatory groups and two first grades of the elementary school in Orekhovo-Zuevo (Moscow Region, Russian Federation). The following research methods were used: analysis of foreign and domestic scientific literature, survey, and experimental research. The results were compared using Pearson's chi-squared test χ2. The study used the authors' toolkit adjusted for the conditions of the experiment. Results. The study showed a fairly high quality of the toolkit prepared for testing. Initially, the groups of respondents showed a low level of speech development – 47% (69 children), an average level – 51% (75 children), and a high level – 2% (3 children). Collective activities were widely used at the formative stage during class time and after classes. The results of the control stage (low level 8.1%, average 47.3%, high 44.6% of children) convincingly demonstrate the effectiveness of using collective activities in speech development (χ2 = 96.813; p < 0.01). Discussion and conclusion. The toolkit chosen for collecting primary information was shown to be of sufficient quality. The study showed the effectiveness of using active social and psychological education methods (in particular, Olympiads, creative workshops, creative weeks, collective creative activities) by teachers of pre-school educational organizations and primary school teachers to develop children's speech. An important condition for the development of speech in children of older preschool and primary school age is using collective activities, insufficiently studied in Russia and abroad, in the pedagogical process.