Attention is a process of consciousness that acts selectively and is directed at an object. If a child has a high level of attention development, then in the future it will help him when learning in school, he will be easier to concentrate, and will not be distracted. While the child is small, his attention is involuntary, he can not control it, he is often distracted from the main occupation, it is difficult to concentrate. In this regard, any activity of the baby is impermanent, full of impressions, he does not finish one thing, grasps for another.
That is why, until the baby is grown up, adults need to help him develop voluntary attention. The result will not have to wait long, and parents will be especially pleased to find that with the development of voluntary attention the child has a sense of responsibility, now he carefully performs any task, even if it is not very interesting. Arbitrary attention has several properties, the development of which is necessary for its gradual development. For example, one of the properties is the amount of attention. The child's consciousness is able to cover a number of homogeneous objects, this quantity is called the volume.
Further, if a child can focus on several objects, this is the property of concentration. The next property of attention follows from the previous one, and it must also be developed in the baby. By focusing on several objects, a child can perform several actions with respect to them, without losing sight of any of the objects, so the kid will learn to distribute his attention.
It is important to take time and to switch attention, this ability will help in the future with ease to navigate in any situation and jump from one activity to another.
And, of course, attention must be stable, as it helps to form self-control in the preschooler, and in the school years this skill is very useful.
All these properties of attention can be developed to varying degrees. Concentration can be high, but a low degree of stability, or the maximum developed switching, while the volume is not very large.
For the development of all properties, exercises that the child will be happy to perform under the guidance of adults, and parents will be able to assess the level of development of a particular property of attention.
Here is an example of an exercise to develop attention stability. Draw ten twisted strands for the child. The beginnings and ends of the threads must be respectively on the left and right sides. The beginnings (located on the left) of the threads are numbered from 1 to 10, and their ends do not have to correspond to the initial numbers, that is, the ends are confused. The child should visually (without the help of fingers or a pencil!) Find the end of the thread and name the figure that corresponds to the initial digit. If the child coped with this task (that is, found all the beginning-ends) in 2 minutes, then we can talk about a sufficiently high level of stability of attention.
The following exercise will help the child develop the speed of switching attention. To do this, agree in advance that the child, hearing the word denoting the animal, for example, bounces. And then call any words, including the animal names between them. For example: a book, a pencil case, a frying pan, MONKEY (jump), a spoon, snow, a boot, a mirror, a DOG (jump), etc. If the child gets lost, you need to do this several times, helping, and when it gets, you can increase the tempo. The second stage is complicated: after hearing the name of the animal, the child stomps, and the name of the plant - clapping.
These and other exercises for the development of attention are not intrusive, boring, and cheer kid, and help the child learn to focus and be attentive.