სასკოლო სწავლების დაწყების ასაკთან დაკავშირებით სპეციალისტებმა იმსჯელეს
The psychologists and doctors of the Psychological Center operating under the Educational Institution Mandaturi Service held a press conference regarding the starting age of school education, to which journalists, representatives of non-governmental organizations, parents, and all interested parties were invited. The purpose of the meeting was to provide all parties with comprehensive information from specialists regarding school age.
Parents and psychologists place different emphases on school readiness. While for the majority of parents, the ability to read and write is the reason for enrolling a child in school at an early age, psychologists emphasize social, emotional, and intellectual readiness, as well as the level of motor skills development. Accordingly, based on the recommendations of psychologists and important international and local research, the starting age for school education has been set at 6 years. It is also worth noting that, in general, psychologists consider 7 years to be the optimal school age. Consequently, in Austria, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Poland, and many other European countries, the optimal school age is set at 7 years. The starting age for education is also 7 years in the United States of America.
Starting school is a momentous event in a child's life. They are simultaneously faced with numerous novelties, and if a child does not have the appropriate readiness, going to school may turn out to be the beginning of insurmountable difficulties and psychological trauma. Probably every parent is interested in what school readiness entails. According to psychologists, it is the child's ability to begin and participate in the educational process, which corresponds to a certain level of development, specifically:
- Mental indicator – differentiation of perception, concentration of attention, logical memory, analytical thinking, rational approach to reality, purposefulness, interests in acquiring knowledge, ability to understand symbols;
- Developed motor skills (which implies the ability to turn the pages of a book and hold a pen).
- Emotional maturity – achieving better emotional stability, reducing impulsive reactions. Using emotions when motivating school activities;
- Social maturity – the desire to establish contact with peers and, to a certain extent, submit to the interests of the children's collective. Accepting one's own role in the social situation of school education.
The listed skills are formed under the influence of various factors and are therefore individual; i.e., the same age does not mean an equal level of development, but children's age development is subject to certain regularities and fits within a single age threshold for the majority.
Based on the conclusions of psychologists and doctors, as well as various foreign and local studies, it has been established that the ages of 5 and 6 have different stages of development. At this age, every single month is of great importance for the emotional and intellectual development of the child. While the leading activity for a 5-year-old child is play, for a 6-year-old child it is drawing, modeling, and constructing, which already indicates readiness for the school process. At the age of 6, cognitive and volitional skills are more developed than at the age of 5. In school, a child enters a radically different, structured environment saturated with new demands and responsibilities, which is more difficult for a 5-year-old child to overcome than for a 6-year-old child.
School, as a qualitatively new institutional environment, is stressful for a 5-year-old child. The adaptation process becomes complicated, which at first glance may seem overcome, but manifests later in the form of somatic, emotional, and behavioral problems, which are frequently encountered in the practice of our center.
