Game as a means of forming pre-schoolers’ graphic writing skills

The article highlights the features characterising the formation of the pre-school aged children's writing skills with the help of gaming means. The problem of writing skills development (formation) becomes particularly relevant with regard to the transition to the twelve-year period of study at school, starting from the age of six. While training pre-schoolers in mastering written speech, very often a tendency to transfer school methods of teaching children writing is observed. Such a tendency hinders this process, makes children tired and does not attract their interest. The author emphasizes the need to use games as the effective means for preparing child's hands for writing. Some methods facilitating the development of pre-schoolers' writing skills which are based on the use of games and game exercises are described in the article. The games and exercises were grouped into several blocks depending on the kind of the child's functions being trained during their fulfilment: the development of visual-motor coordination, the development of the figure perception against the background of others and constancy of perception, the development of children's spatial concepts and the development of the motor component of the graphic skills. The fulfilment of exercises in a copybook, the writing of letter elements were woven into a fabulous story or adventure. A purposeful use of artistic and visual images contributed to the intensification of the pre-schoolers' cognitive activity, increased interest in preparing the children's hands for writing in classes and ensured a successful development of the children's graphic skills based on the visual thinking inherent at their age. The author of the article convincingly substantiated the pedagogical conditions for the successful development of the pre-schoolers' writing skills, such as: the provision of a positive emotional background in classes, the use of games as an effective means of learning and the implementation of the individual approach to children. A positive result of using games while teaching senior pre-schoolers to write is a significant reduction of the children's overload and fatigue, which are constant companions in learning in accordance with the traditional methods, when the monotonous and boring writing of letter elements requires that the child should apply a lot of physical, mental and nerve effort. A complex pedagogical influence on the development of the senior pre-schoolers' writing skills stipulated by the experimental methodology facilitated, made the process of training the children's hands to write more productive and interesting.