Theoretical Foundations of Systemic Cognitive Competence in Preschool Children

The article examines the theoretical foundations of systemic cognitive competence in preschool children from the perspective of contemporary developmental psychology and preschool pedagogy. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to move beyond fragmented transmission of knowledge in early childhood education and to organize learning in ways that help children perceive relationships, regularities, causal links, and the integrity of surrounding phenomena. The purpose of the article is to clarify the conceptual content of systemic cognitive competence in preschool age, identify its structural components, and substantiate the pedagogical value of inductive learning for its formation. The study is based on theoretical methods, including analysis, comparison, synthesis, and interpretation of classical and contemporary scholarly works in cognitive development, early childhood education, and learning sciences. The findings show that systemic cognitive competence in preschool children should be understood as an integrative quality that includes cognitive, motivational, speech-communicative, and regulatory-practical dimensions. It develops when the child is placed in situations of observation, comparison, classification, prediction, explanation, and transfer of experience from particular cases to broader generalizations. The article argues that the theoretical roots of this competence can be traced to Piaget’s constructivism, Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, Bruner’s ideas on discovery learning and spiral curriculum, Montessori’s prepared environment, and contemporary research on early scientific reasoning, executive functions, and systems thinking. It is concluded that preschool education can foster systemic cognitive competence most effectively when children interact with concrete objects, discuss their observations, construct explanations, and repeatedly return to core concepts in expanding contexts.

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