The essence and types of educational programs for preschool educational institutions
The overwhelming number of preschool institutions are engaged in the general development of children, but even now, at the present stage, more and more institutions are appearing that pursue the following goals:
- early development of skills and abilities of preschool children (children's centers, kindergarten groups at lyceums and gymnasiums, etc.);
- combining in the process of raising healthy children with children who have problems in physical development;
- forming groups that function in conditions of learning two languages, and so on.
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These changes in the work of preschool organizations occur in connection with the growing demands of parents who see the need to raise the level of development of children, to reveal certain abilities in children, as well as to prepare them for school. In addition, their cause is a change in the educational process itself in schools.
All existing preschool educational programs are divided into two large groups:
- comprehensive (general) programs that consist of the main areas in the development of children: speech, physical, cognitive, personal, social, aesthetic, artistic. They develop the child’s communicative, mental, creative, motor abilities, and also form specific types of activities - gaming, object-based, theatrical, musical, visual, etc.;
- partial (local) programs, consisting, as a rule, of one or several areas of child development.
Note 1
Integrity in the educational process can be achieved not only through the use of one comprehensive program, but also through the use of certain local programs.
Finished works on a similar topic
Course work Modern educational programs for preschool educational institutions 440 ₽ Abstract Modern educational programs for preschool educational institutions 220 ₽ Test work Modern educational programs for preschool educational institutions 250 ₽
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Principles for constructing the Program
When developing the Program, the authors relied on a number of principles:
- The principle of a humane and personal attitude towards pupils presupposes the timely and comprehensive development of the child’s personality, the formation of the necessary spiritual and moral qualities.
- The principle of a comprehensive solution to the problems of education and training provides for a comprehensive solution to the problems of protecting and strengthening the health of children, their comprehensive education and development.
- The principle of developmental education - this principle is traditional, based on the scientific position of L.S. Vygotsky, who suggests that competently organized learning “leads” development.
- The principle of cultural conformity involves taking into account the national and ethnic characteristics of raising children, national and historical traditions. In accordance with this principle, children are introduced to the traditions of the people, national and cultural values, and develop a respectful attitude towards historical roots.
In addition to these principles, the organization of the educational process in accordance with the Program is carried out based on a number of traditional principles of education (systematicity, consistency, accessibility, etc.).
Characteristics of the main comprehensive programs of our time
Origins. This preschool education program is aimed at ensuring the holistic and comprehensive formation of the intellectual, physical and personal characteristics of children. It establishes the basic features of organizing a child’s activities in a preschool institution, the structure of the education and upbringing process, as well as the prerequisites for turning the program into reality.
Golden Key. Designed for children 3-10 years old, and is aimed at providing the most comfortable learning conditions for children in accordance with their age. Its peculiarity is the creation of conditions that will not only provide learning opportunities, but also preserve joy, emotions and happiness in the learning process for children.
Kindergarten is a house of joy . The first program whose main goal is the unique individuality of each student. Self-awareness and self-development are encouraged.
Paths. This program is designed for children 3-7 years old and aims to develop the child mentally through the use of creativity and imagination.
Teremok. Program for the youngest children - 2 months-3 years. The methods described in the program are innovative, variable, complex.
Steps to the school. The program is applicable to children aged 3-7 years. It comprehensively develops children, preserves and strengthens their health, forms functions that are significant for school, and reduces the risk of improper adaptation to school.
First steps. Designed for children 1-3 years old and aims to develop the child’s activity, emotionality, and independence.
Mosaic. Age group: children 2-7 years old. The program is designed to expand the potential of each child, open up opportunities for positive adaptation and socialization, ensure the development of the child’s personality, and show everyone their creative abilities. The newest ways of organizing educational work are proposed.
PRO children. The program encourages joint activities among preschoolers as they learn about the regulation of their own actions in the process and the actions carried out by their partners. The task of teachers is to develop children’s communication skills, logical thinking, and teach independence and responsibility.
Inspiration. The program sets clear goals and offers the tools teachers need to achieve this. It provides for building a high-quality preschool education process and creating an effective and modern environment for teaching preschoolers.
From birth to school. The new program was developed from the old one, created in 2004. It included new achievements in the practice and science of preschool Russian education.
Kindergarten 2100. The program should provide psychological and pedagogical support for the development of the personality of preschoolers and motivate children to reveal their abilities.
There are also many other complex programs that cannot be discussed within the scope of this work.
General characteristics of preschool education programs
Analyzing the current state of the organization of the pedagogical process and the regulatory software of preschool institutions, it is advisable to make a short excursion into history.
The development of the preschool education system followed the path of increasing the number of kindergartens and creating software and methodological support. Over the years, the content of the “Physical Education” section in programs for preschool educational institutions has been changed and supplemented. The first draft of the program, including the “Physical Education” section, was developed by the preschool sector of the research institute and released in 1932, and the subsequent improvement of this document continued until 1962.
The opening of research institutes for physical education contributed to the improvement of the system of preschool physical education. In 1938, the “Charter of the Kindergarten” and program and methodological instructions were published, called “Guidelines for the Kindergarten Teacher”; These documents became mandatory for all kindergartens. In the “Physical Education” section, teachers were prescribed mandatory classes on the development of movements, which should be carried out once a week in each age group.
In 1962, based on a generalization of many years of scientific research and practice in domestic kindergartens, a creative team led by A.P. Usova developed the “ Kindergarten Education Program .”
Based on research and experience of the 70-80s. and taking into account the need to update program materials, the “Program of Education and Training in Kindergarten” was published in 1985. Preschoolers were taught motor skills and abilities in physical education classes held three times a week. Along with the development of physical qualities in children (dexterity, speed, strength, endurance, flexibility), the need was emphasized for developing the ability to evaluate the quality of exercises and cultivating the expressiveness of movements.
The appearance in 1989 of the “ Concept of Preschool Education ” marked the beginning of a discussion of theoretical and applied issues related to updating the content of preschool education, including in the field of physical education.
The fundamental political and economic changes that have occurred in our country have affected all spheres of society, including the education system. Currently, preschool educational institutions are independent in choosing a program from a set of variable programs recommended by state educational authorities, making changes to them, and developing their own (author’s) programs in accordance with the requirements of State educational standards.
Despite the alarming trend of progressive deterioration in the health of preschool children and the recognition that among the various factors influencing the physical and mental development of children, physical education occupies an important place in terms of intensity of impact, in many modern programs for preschool educational institutions it is not a priority section of education. The problem is that the content of the programs is focused primarily on the mental (intellectual) development of children, which often leaves the physical and social-personal development of the child outside the scope of teachers’ interests.
One of the features of the modern educational process in preschool educational institutions is the increase in the volume and intensity of cognitive activity. Additional subjects are introduced into the weekly class schedule, for example, TRIZ, foreign languages, teaching reading, writing, etc. Of particular concern is the excess number of classes during the day and their duration without taking into account the age and individual characteristics of children.
At the same time, there is no clear division of responsibility for dosing the educational load on preschoolers and, consequently, for their emotional and physical well-being. The introduction of such additional activities inevitably leads not only to pronounced fatigue in children, but also to serious disruptions to the daily routine: a reduction in walks, daytime sleep, time for independent play and physical activity, which, of course, has a negative impact on health.
In the previous state program of education and training in kindergarten, unified for all preschool educational institutions in Russia, physical education classes were held three times a week for all age groups (with the exception of the first youngest). Today, in accordance with some modern programs for preschool educational institutions, for example, “Childhood”, “Rainbow”, which have passed the federal level examination and recommended by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, the number of physical education classes has decreased to two, and sometimes even once a week.
Most preschool educational institutions today are trying to move away from the traditional education system, looking for new forms of the pedagogical process, and changing its content. In the context of variability in education, in recent years a significant number of programs have appeared that define a new understanding of the development and upbringing of a child, including physical education. Although the number of programs for physical education of preschool children increases every year, few of them correspond to the proper level in their content and structure.
The analysis of the content of domestic programs on physical education for preschoolers, which appeared in print in recent years, allowed us to identify a number of shortcomings. It is noted that many developments declared as programs are not such, since they represent only a description of the author’s ideas and experience of his work. In addition, most of the so-called “new” programs are only variations of the previous Kindergarten Education and Training Program.
Many programs are based only on hypotheses and are not supported by objective results of pedagogical experiments, and, therefore, the result of their impact on the health and physical development of the child is unpredictable. Often, innovation is presented as a modified program that was originally intended for schoolchildren, or even adults, and is unsuitable for preschool children.
Since 1995, in accordance with the “ Model Regulations on a Preschool Educational Institution,” each preschool educational institution has the right to choose a comprehensive educational program, and each teacher – a specialized one. However, analyzing the activities of teachers, it is stated that most of them are not sufficiently informed or have no idea at all about modern programs for the physical education of preschool children.
The implementation by preschool educational institutions of the right to make changes to programs recommended by state educational authorities, on the one hand, stimulates pedagogical creativity, promotes the diversity of the content of physical education, the use of new, including non-traditional health systems (for example, yoga, wushu, qigong, etc.). On the other hand, the validity of the changes made or the use of new proprietary programs is often questioned, both from the point of view of their health-improving effectiveness and compliance with the age-related capabilities of children, and the qualifications of teachers. Sometimes this leads to the fact that, upon graduating from kindergarten to enter school, the child does not master the program material in physical education in full and does not achieve the required level of physical fitness.
The democratization of the public preschool education system has caused a tendency for teachers to show creative initiative in drawing up various versions of the so-called “author’s” programs for the physical education of preschoolers. The desire for partial changes or complete replacement of the content of existing government programs with “author’s” ones deserves approval if it is dictated by professionally significant motives, for example, the advisability of replacing certain types of physical exercises with more effective ones in their developmental effect.
In practice, this leads to an unjustified increase in the volume of some types of physical exercise to the detriment of others. The lack of optimal balance in the content of programs reduces the possibility of realizing the versatile and harmonious physical development of children, the usefulness of their motor readiness and physical education.
Modern preschool education programs are divided into comprehensive and partial.
Comprehensive (general developmental) programs cover all sections of education, including physical education; these include: “Program of education and training in kindergarten”; "Childhood"; "Rainbow"; "Origins".
Partial (specialized) physical education programs have different directions:
1. Physical education and recreation - this includes the following programs “Physical education for preschoolers” (Glazyrina), “Developmental pedagogy of health improvement” (Kudryavtsev), “Health” (Alyamovskaya), “Theater of physical education for preschoolers” (Efimenko), “Program for physical education from 3 to 17 years” (Shcherbakov), “Raising a healthy child” (Makhaneva).
2. Valeological – this includes the programs “Health from Childhood” (Kazakovtseva), “Hello” (Lazarev).
3. Highly specialized. Highly specialized physical education programs include “Start” (Yakovleva, Yudina) and “Sa-Fi-Dance” (Firmleva, Saikina).
Almost all programs offer a standard set of physical education tools, including gymnastics, outdoor games, elements of sports games, and sports exercises. Although the new programs differ from each other in structure and content, the “Physical Education” section is based on the comprehensive “Program of education and training in kindergarten” . This program, which for many years was the main and mandatory document for all preschool educational institutions, today is one of the alternative programs recommended by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation.
In the comprehensive program “Childhood”, material on physical education is presented in the section “Getting involved in motor culture” of the program block “Raising children healthy, strong, cheerful”. The content of physical exercises is given for each age group; lists the skills that children must master during the school year; criteria for assessing the level of their development are highlighted, and methodological advice is given. The minimum results of physical fitness of preschool children are presented as a guideline. The undoubted advantages of the program are its clear structuring, as well as the availability of methodological support and recommendations for planning the content of educational material.
Significant disadvantages of the physical education section of the “Rainbow” include the lack of a clear structure. The content of physical exercises for each age group is not given, program objectives are not formulated, since, according to the authors, they should be specified for each child, which contradicts the requirements for preschool education programs. Only general recommendations of a hygienic and organizational nature are given, and the list of physical exercises given is very limited.
The “Physical Education” section for the older group provides an unreasonably limited list of motor skills that a child should master by the age of six, and provides general advice on organizing physical education. In the program for the upbringing, development and education of children aged 6-7 years, there is no section “Physical Education” at all. Consequently, it is not possible to qualitatively carry out the process of physical education in preschool educational institutions on the basis of the “Formating a culture of movements” section of the “Rainbow” program.
One of the undoubted advantages of the complex program “Istoki” is the presence of two blocks - a basis and a variant of its implementation. The basic part consists of such components as characteristics of the child’s age-related developmental opportunities, development goals and indicators, basic personality characteristics and general conditions for the implementation of the program. A variant of the implementation of the basis is given in the section “Content and conditions of pedagogical work”. The “Origins” program, like the “Childhood” program, has a clear structure, which also deserves a positive assessment.
For each age group, in the “Physical Development” section, a description of the capabilities of children is given, an approximate motor mode is proposed, the minimum indicators of motor development for boys and girls and approximate indicators of the physical development of children (length, body weight, chest circumference, vital capacity, carpal dynamometry, physical performance).
A distinctive feature of the specialized program “Physical Education for Preschoolers” is the non-standard method of using exercises. The content of the exercises is close to the natural phenomena that surround preschoolers. Movement training is built as a creative process, based on the research activities of the children themselves. The principles regulating the activities of a teacher in the physical education of children are revealed, and a description of the main directions and tasks of physical education is given.
Physical education lesson plans are presented for all age groups. All of the above can be attributed to the indisputable advantages of the analyzed program. At the same time, the sequence of mastering the program material in the presented outline plans raises some doubts, where the relationship between the tasks and content of this physical education lesson with the previous one is not traced.
The main idea of the specialized program “ Developmental pedagogy of health improvement” is that the introduction of children to physical education unfolds as a process of problematization, inversion, creative transformation of the child’s ordinary motor experience and movement standards. Any movements are considered as a special object of development, transformation, cognition and evaluation of children. In the course of setting and solving various motor problems, preschoolers intensively develop motor imagination - the basis of creative, meaningful motor skills. The formation of motor imagination and meaningful motor skills is inextricably linked with the development of expressive movements in children, which is given a special place. In our opinion, all this deserves unconditional approval.
The program for each age group identifies general priorities for introducing children to physical education, and provides a brief description of the physical and mental development of children. Much attention is paid to the prevention of functional deviations from the musculoskeletal system (poor posture, flat feet) through the systematic use of general developmental exercises to strengthen certain muscle groups and corrective exercises. All of the above allows us to positively evaluate this program.
In the specialized program “Health,” the content of the program material is presented in the form of monthly plans for each age group. Daily gymnastics after daytime sleep includes a set of corrective exercises aimed at preventing and eliminating functional abnormalities in the musculoskeletal system (poor posture, flat feet). In addition to academic work (physical education classes), therapeutic physical education (PT) classes and sectional work (various sports classes) are recommended. This program allows you to successfully solve the problems of physical education of preschool children.
The specialized program “Raising a Healthy Child” is recommended as an addition to the “Development” program. The main goal of the latter is the development of the mental and artistic abilities of children, and therefore it does not contain a section on the physical development of preschoolers, although it provides free time for physical education classes, and also includes an additional section “Expressive movement”. The program formulates the main objectives of physical education for preschool children and presents long-term planning of physical education classes in the gym. The disadvantages of the program include the lack of a set of skills that children must master during the school year, as well as criteria for assessing the level of their mastery.
The specialized “Physical Education Program from 3 to 17 years old” is aimed at developing in children the ability to control vital motor actions in various conditions and cultivating the need for systematic physical exercise. The disadvantages of the program include the use of exercises taken from school methods (for example, jump turns were introduced into the content of drill exercises for children of the fourth year of life). A number of acrobatics elements are also quite difficult for preschool children.
A distinctive feature of the highly specialized “Start” program is that the program material is distributed in specific areas: applied, general developmental, acrobatic, breathing exercises, elements of artistic gymnastics (exercises on apparatus - rings, horizontal bar, trampoline, jumping over a goat), rhythmic gymnastics (without an object and with objects), rhythm. Its distribution by age group is arbitrary, and children in the middle group can follow the program for older preschoolers, which is not always justified. During classes, there is a frequent change of motor actions with different physical loads, different tempos, alternation of entertaining movements with movements that require mental and physical stress.
The disadvantages of the program include the following: objectives, indicators and criteria for assessing physical development and physical fitness for each age group are not defined, and a long-term lesson plan is not presented. An analysis of the “Start” program showed that in terms of its content (most of the exercises are acyclic in nature), the conditions of implementation (gymnastic equipment) and the predicted achievements of students (more suitable for the initial training group of a children’s sports school in gymnastics), it is a program of additional education, although partially can also be included in a general development program. This program can be used in the process of physical education in preschool educational institutions in sectional work, in addition to, and not instead of, physical education classes conducted on the basis of comprehensive preschool education programs or specialized physical education programs.
The main goal of the highly specialized dance and play gymnastics program “Sa-Fi-Danse” is to promote the comprehensive development of preschoolers through dance and play gymnastics. Its content consists of the means of basic gymnastics, musical and rhythmic education, choreography, playful self-massage, creative gymnastics, igroplasty and musically active games. The positive side of the analyzed program is the game method of conducting classes, which gives the educational process an attractive form, facilitates the process of memorizing and mastering exercises, increases the emotional background of the lesson, and promotes the development of the child’s thinking, imagination and creative abilities.
The program presents lesson plans for all age groups, provides requirements for mastering knowledge, skills and abilities, provides recommendations for organizing and conducting classes, teaching methods, and selecting musical accompaniment. All this ensures the success of the implementation of the additional education program under consideration in the practice of preschool educational institutions and its popularity among teachers.
The program, on the one hand, is a document reflecting the activities of a specific teacher, institution or entire region; on the other hand, a type of creative development (technology) for any pedagogical educational creative activity of both the teacher (institution) himself and the children studying with him, since the pedagogical process is always two-sided in nature.
A program (Greek “announcement, order”) is the content and plan of activity, a statement of the main provisions of the activities of an organization or an individual, as well as a summary of the educational subject.
An educational program is a normative document that defines priority values and goals, features of the organization’s content, and methodological support for the educational process.
Potashnik and Lazarev identify the following qualities that a program should have:
1. Relevance – focus on solving the most significant problems.
2. Predictiveness – the ability to meet changing requirements and conditions for its implementation.
3. Rationality – the ability to obtain the most useful result when achieving a set goal using actually available resources.
4. Realism – correspondence between the desired and the possible, between goals and actually necessary means.
5. Integrity – completeness and consistency of actions necessary to achieve the goal.
6. Controllability – determination of intermediate goals, i.e. real ways to check the results obtained.
7. Sensitivity to failures – the ability to quickly detect deviations and correct actions.
The educational program includes the following structural elements:
1. Title page (date, name of the program, age of children for which it is designed, duration of the program, full name of the authors, year of compilation).
2. Table of contents.
3. Explanatory note. Reveals the educational field and subject of study, novelty, relevance, pedagogical appropriateness of the course (section) being studied, the purpose and objectives of the program, its distinctive features, the age of the children participating in the implementation of this program, a brief description of the age and individual characteristics of children, duration of implementation, forms and mode of classes, expected results, forms of summing up the results of the program.
4. Educational and thematic plan. Contains a list of sections, topics, number of hours on each topic, forms of classes.
5. Contents. Revealed through the program objectives of physical education by age groups, characteristics of age-related characteristics of the development of motor skills of children of different age groups, recommendations for the implementation of a motor regime, the content of physical education (list of physical exercises, list of knowledge, motor skills), criteria and standards for assessing the level of physical fitness preschoolers.
6. Information support of the educational program. Includes a list of references (methodological support), a list of video and audio products.
Additional and sample programs
Additional preschool education programs. Based on clause 6 of Art. 14 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On Education”, an educational institution, in accordance with its statutory goals and objectives, can introduce additional educational programs to the main educational programs and provide additional educational services beyond the main educational programs that determine its status.
The provision of additional educational services (paid, free) and the implementation of additional educational programs is carried out only at the request of parents (their legal representatives) on a contractual basis. The use of additional educational programs in preschool education (hereinafter referred to as additional programs) became possible with the development of new, flexible forms of teaching preschoolers in creative workshops, clubs, sections, etc., organized in preschool institutions and on their basis. In a number of regions of the Russian Federation (Krasnodar, Stavropol Territories, Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov regions, etc.), additional programs create a complete system of vocational education for children from kindergarten to higher education.
Additional programs include educational programs of various orientations: artistic and aesthetic cycle, ethnocultural, cultural, intellectual and developmental, communicative and linguistic, environmental, physical education and health, various penitentiary orientations, etc. In some cases, preschool education subprograms can be used as additional programs.
Additional educational programs cannot be conducted instead of or as part of the main educational activities at the expense of the time allocated for the main educational programs of preschool education (walks, sleep, basic classes, games).
Model educational programs. Unlike various author's programs (main, additional), the approximate educational program is not a specific working document that determines the content and specifics of the teacher’s activities for every day.
In accordance with paragraph 5 of Article 14 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On Education”, the development of exemplary educational programs is organized by state educational authorities on the basis of state educational standards. The purpose of developing exemplary programs is to implement the requirements for the mandatory minimum content of basic educational programs, expand the interpretation of state standards for each level of education, and ensure the continuity of general education at all levels. In the field of preschool education, in the absence of a state educational standard for preschool education, the basis for the development of exemplary programs is the project and “Preliminary (exemplary) requirements for the content and methods of teaching and raising children in preschool educational institutions.” In the sample preschool education program, approximate blocks of content for the main components of preschool education are presented in large blocks, which allows program developers to create various educational modules for specific types of preschool education centers and vary the content of education in accordance with regional, national, local or established traditions in raising children.
The sample program contains mandatory criteria for the results of children's education based on standard indicators of the child's physical and mental development at each age level of preschool childhood, minimum requirements for equipping the educational process in preschool centers (minimum equipment, visual aids for demonstration purposes and individual use). When developing innovative (variable) programs based on sample programs, it is possible to expand the scope of content and more deeply present individual topics (blocks) of the sample program in order to put into practice the principle of variability in preschool education.
