Everyone is familiar with riddles. This small form of folk art provides unusually large opportunities for the development of the child. She appears in the baby’s life in the preschool period and becomes one of the most favorite activities for many years.
What is a riddle
Among the wide variety of genres belonging to folklore, such as nursery rhymes, jokes, jokes, songs, proverbs, sayings, the riddle takes the most honorable place. And you can’t confuse her with anything.
In the riddle, the presentation of the question is extremely concise, but at the same time it remains capacious and figurative. The task of the author of the riddle is to not miss a description of the properties, signs, characteristic of a particular subject or phenomenon.
What are the purposes of the riddle in the development of children
A teacher or parents, offering a child a game where you need to solve puzzles, pursue certain goals. Some of them can be formulated as follows:
- The development of figurative speech. This is facilitated by such means as epithets, avatars, comparisons, rhythm and rhyme.
- The use of polysemous words in riddles. It helps to enrich the child’s vocabulary. When solving a riddle, a little man has to think about the secondary meaning of the word, pay attention to such a phenomenon of language as ambiguity.
- The development of fantasy. There is always fiction in the riddle. A child involuntarily must follow it, while developing his imagination. The properties and attributes of the objects described in the riddle are not true. And only guessing puts everything in its place.
- Understanding the relationship. The riddle provides an opportunity to think about the connections that exist in the world between objects and phenomena.
The list presented here outlined only the main goals that adults usually pursue, playing with the child in riddles. In fact, this list is much more extensive.
Types of riddles and the willingness of children to work with them
Puzzles, the child solves certain logical tasks, performs certain mental operations. Depending on this, all puzzles are divided into groups according to their level of difficulty.
The success of guessing riddles of any difficulty level will depend on how prepared the children are for this. They should be guided in the world of things, actions, relations, which are described in the texts of riddles. So that the child can do this, adults need to carry out targeted preparatory work.
The development of the baby's ability to analyze the language of the puzzle will largely affect the effectiveness of their guessing. Any riddle offered to a child by an adult should be considered from different perspectives: did you like the task, did you describe the object successfully, which led to the correct answer, what words describe the smell, color, action.
Considering that once the baby will be offered the task to come up with a riddle himself, you can include the following questions in the work:
- What words does the riddle begin with?
- How does it end?
- How is the question formulated?
- Pick your words to describe the subject.
Gradually, the child will learn to independently find a solution, using all the signs, properties of objects described in it. And the riddle language will help him in this.
In addition, the result may be affected by the way the task is presented to adults, the level of speech development of the child, his age, the amount of knowledge possessed in an encyclopedic nature, and other factors.
Riddles of the first level. Item Features
In the tasks of the first level of complexity, such riddles are presented - a description of the signs of a phenomenon or object. At the same time, there is a simple enumeration of them. The size, shape, color, purpose, sound, material of manufacture, methods of movement and so on are called.
Puzzles can be included in this group, where there is a description of the signs, but the solution to the problem is encrypted in their list. To guess such puzzles, it is enough to make a simple analysis, that is, to highlight the signs, and then combine them into a single whole by performing the synthesis operation.
Usually puzzles related to the first level of difficulty provide the subject with a sufficient number of signs - and the logical problem is solved easily and quickly.
Mysteries of the second level. Item Properties
This group includes puzzles - descriptions of the properties of objects, which are expressed by one or two signs. Despite the brevity of the description, the baby needs to restore a holistic image.
Riddles that are based on juxtaposing, comparing objects and phenomena belong to the same group. The text may use the technique of negation.
In order to guess such riddles, the child must have a fairly complete picture of the mysterious subject or phenomenon. He needs to not only highlight the description of the properties in the riddle, but also compare them with other characteristic features of the same subject, which are not presented in the text of the task.
Riddles of the third level. Description of properties, features
In order to solve puzzles related to the third level of difficulty, children need to perform operations comparing properties and attributes, which at first glance seem very far from each other. But this may seem only at first. Here, the child needs to understand the hidden meaning of the metaphor.
Riddles
Many factors influence the choice of riddles that describe the properties, attributes of objects, actions, and phenomena. First of all, you need to remember that children have limited ideas about the world in which they live. This is due to their poor life experience.
For this reason, the subject of riddles may be objects that surround the child in everyday life. They are close to the baby, have an emotional effect on him. The most common guessing words are the names of toys, pets, food, hygiene items and household items.
With age, the range of topics expands, and the level of complexity of the proposed puzzles changes. Transport, natural phenomena, sports, professions, the world of plants and animals - a list of mysteries that can be used with older children.
Writing your own puzzles
The guessing process is very fascinating for children. But inventing your puzzles is no less interesting, although it is much more complicated.
At the very beginning of the development of this type of work, kids need to be offered to compose riddles - descriptions of properties. They are modeled on an adult. It is no secret that not all children are able to cope with this type of task immediately. But regular classes can develop this skill in any child.
After a certain time, the guys themselves will come up with riddles to describe the properties, attributes of objects, receiving true pleasure from this type of work.
The result of children's creative work on composing riddles can be a book or an album designed by them. In addition to the texts of riddles, you can put illustrations for them in the album.
For reference
When working with a riddle, you constantly have to operate with the concepts of “sign” and “property”. So how does a feature differ from a property? Briefly, this can be formulated as follows: a sign is a general characteristic of an object. The property gives a detailed description of the quality of the item.
The story of the appearance of riddles in our lives can be of interest to both children and adults.
A special attitude to this type of creativity was still in ancient man. It is known that in many tribes there was a rite of passage for a boy to be a man. In order for the young man to withstand the tests of maturity, he needed to prove his dexterity, physical strength and courage. To do this, it was necessary to withstand severe pain, kill a ferocious predator on the hunt, and also show your mind, knowledge, and quick wit.
Among the Germans and the ancient Greeks, one of the types of martial arts was guessing riddles. A man who could not cope with the task, lost his life.
The Slavs have a belief that mermaids love to make riddles and destroy people who cannot find the answer.
Mystery and guessing riddles was a prerequisite for the Russian wedding ceremony. The bridesmaids had to come up with very difficult tasks for the groom and his friends. If young people could not guess these riddles, then they did not give them a bride. A similar ceremony can be seen at modern weddings, only now it is comic.
Appearing many millennia ago, riddles have always been and remain a means by which you can replenish the luggage of knowledge about the world around us, develop your ability to think figuratively, unconventionally, show observation, ingenuity, and mind.