COGNITIVE ACTIVITY OF SENIOR PRESCHOOLERS: ESSENCE, STRUCTURE, AGE CHARACTERISTICS

Introduction. The article indicates that the content and scope of life experience are different for children of the sixth and seventh years of life, as it is determined by many factors, such as: attending preschool education only in the older preschool age or from the age of 3 (4) years, children's abilities, their inclinations, talents and inclinations, age-related anatomical, physiological and psychological developmental features, etc. The purpose of the article is to define and substantiate the essence, structure and age-specific features of cognitive activity of senior preschool children. Methods. Bibliographic analysis of scientific and theoretical professional literature, definitional analysis, structural and logical analysis, generalization and synthesis of new concepts. Results. It is substantiated that during the period of senior preschool age children have a different nature of agency and activity: on the one hand, children naturally gravitate towards play activities, becoming more interested in games with rules, they could transfer elements of learning, acquired knowledge and abilities during classes to the content of creative games. On the other hand, the nature of cognitive activity in this period is aimed at mastering the general mechanisms of learning activity, which about to become a leading type and will lead to a dynamic change in the psyche of children to a qualitatively higher level. It is emphasised that children's orientation, their agency is a key aspect in gaining experience of the world around them, readiness for its creative transformation and interpretation. However, the nature of the agency, its types, sustainability, dependence on the types of children's activities are undergoing significant modification. Originality. It has been found that the essence of cognitive activity of senior preschoolers can be defined through a system of concepts: «cognitive pre-activity agency», aimed at the implementation of «cognitive activity» through the system of «cognitive actions». In addition, it is noted that cognitive agency is curtailed (but does not disappear) after the cognitive activity is completed. Having mastered new or improved the current cognitive abilities, after completing the activity, the subject enters the state of potential (situational) agency. It is determined that the cognitive activity of senior preschoolers is a type of general social agency of the child's personality of 6 (7) years of age, which is formed in various types of activities, enriched, complicated and moves from a lower to a higher quality level in the form of real (functioning) and potential (situational). Conclusion. The structural components of cognitive activity of senior preschoolers are characterized: motivational (cognitive needs, cognitive interests and attitudes, cognitive motivation in general), target (conscious goal, intermediate goals and results, general goal and result of cognition, purposeful personality) and instrumental (system of human ideas about the internal side of actions performed externally; ability component of the structure of the cognitive sphere of personality, which is revealed through knowledge, skills, life experience, etc. Prospects for further research are to determine the individual characteristics of the development of active cognitive agency, to identify the causes of its underdevelopment and dependence on the conditions of upbringing, education and development of senior preschoolers, means of forming a stable type of cognitive activity in children of 6(7) years of age.