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Research on Organizing Scientific Discovery Activities for 3-4 Year Old Preschool Children


Children are the result of real-life experiences - is an effective measure that teachers can use to increase children's PTVT " [68]. " Children who are regularly exposed to many different stories have more developed VT and grammatical complexity in their spoken language than other children " [75]. According to author Tikheeva E. I, " one of the effective measures to develop language is to let children observe real objects, pictures, tell stories, visit, or organize games " [39]. Authors Christ, T. and Wang, C, affirmed: " Creating opportunities for children to use VT in meaningful communication situations is an important step in developing VT " [55].

In Vietnam, Nguyen Thi Oanh believes that the tasks of PTVT for 5-6 year old preschool children include: " (1) PTVT and skills in using words in children's speech; (2) Forming and developing grammar structures for children; (3) Phonetic education for 5-6 year old preschool children. The author analyzed the PTVT method, expanding the content and meaning of vocabulary for 5-6 year old preschool children through the way of perceiving the world around them through organizing children to participate in appropriate activities such as: playing, studying, working, walking, sightseeing..., in which playing activities and learning activities play a leading role " [26]. In addition, there have been a number of studies explaining "how do children acquire the elements of language?"; pointing out the content, methods, and forms of developing each element of language; in which all agree on using groups of methods such as using words, visuals, practice and games...; At the same time, specific measures were proposed [11], [12], [36], [43],... The authors described in detail how to implement PTVT methods/measures for children. However, children aged 3-4 years old have not yet received the attention of the authors. This is an opportunity for us to continue to delve into the research.

Through the analysis of research works in the world and Vietnam on PTVT for 3-4 year old preschool children, it can be seen that research from this perspective has received the attention of many researchers. These studies have shown the relationship between PTVT and children's language and cognitive development; factors affecting PTVT, PTVT speed, VT assessment as well as PTVT methods and measures for preschool children. These studies play an important role, providing an overview of children's vocabulary (speed, influencing factors, assessment methods, development methods).


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development...). However, new studies only focus on the task of developing VT and providing measures for general language development for children. Therefore, determining the tasks, measures and forms of organizing educational activities to develop VT is of great significance for the comprehensive development of 3-4 year old preschool children.

1.1.2. Studies on organizing scientific discovery activities for 3-4 year old preschool children

Research on Organizing Scientific Discovery Activities for 3-4 Year Old Preschool Children

First: Studies on the role of scientific discovery activities in the development of 3-4 year old preschool children

Research in this direction has typical authors such as: Worth, K [80], Nguyen Thi Thu Hien [13]... The authors emphasize the important role of the process of observation and contact with nature and society in the acquisition of knowledge, intellectual development and language of children. The common point in the research of these authors is: Through scientific activities, children learn about the world around them, explore, experiment, discover, explain, argue... As a result, children acquire a significant number of words, develop the ability to observe, think, solve problems... This is the condition for children's language to be revealed and developed. Worth, K. believes that teaching and learning science in preschool classrooms helps children use and develop important skills such as teamwork, language development and understanding of mathematics [80].

Author Nguyen Thi Thu Hien affirmed “ the important role of experimental games in creating interest, stimulating children to be active, developing curiosity, love of discovery, exploration, developing observation, judgment and intellectual abilities in scientific research activities. Thereby developing VT in particular and language in general ” [13].

In general, the above studies mainly analyze the role and influence of organizing scientific research activities on the development of preschool children in all aspects in general, and have not focused on studying measures to organize scientific research activities for preschool children aged 3-4 years old.

Second: Research on guidelines for organizing scientific discovery activities for 3-4 year old preschool children

Authors Marilyn Fleer & Tim Hardy [66] present approaches towards


guiding children to learn science. Thomas [37], Bloom [52] consider science activities as a means to educate and develop comprehensively for preschool children and build a "bank" of specific science activities to guide preschool teachers to organize science activities for children in a diverse way, creating opportunities for children to participate effectively, thereby promoting children's learning.

In studying the practice of giving children experiences in KPKH activities, author Janet Humphyryes said: “ Children from 0 to 6 years old always explore the world through their senses. Children can understand better when participating in activities to explore the natural world. Teachers should choose activities that children are interested in and want to learn about. To help children do this, teachers create opportunities for children to immerse themselves in the natural environment and spend time exploring it ” [16].

Author Nguyen Thi Nga proposed 05 measures to organize scientific research activities to develop reasoning ability for 5-6 year old children [23]. Authors Hoang Thi Phuong [32], Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy [38], Tran Thi Ngoc Tram [42] and Ho Lam Hong [15] guided the organization of activities or specific scientific research contents through building a "bank" of scientific research activities about inanimate nature, soil, water, air, light and the world of animals and plants... to develop children's awareness. These are important suggestions for us to propose measures to organize scientific research activities to develop reasoning ability for 3-4 year old preschool children. In general, studies on organizing scientific research activities have analyzed the role of organizing scientific research activities in the development of all aspects of preschool children.

1.1.3. Studies on organizing scientific discovery activities to develop vocabulary for 3-4 year old preschool children

Research on KPKH activities has received attention, however, research on organizing KPKH activities to promote physical education for preschool children in general and preschool children aged 3-4 years old is still quite limited. This research direction focuses on 2 main contents:

First: Research on using exercises, games, experiments... in the process of teaching children scientific methods to develop their skills.

Author Tikheeva E. I believes that building a system of different exercises and games will develop the ability to absorb, observe, use symbols, think and speak....


MG children. She gives some exercises to expand VT to develop vocabulary meaning for children as follows: “ (1) Choose adjectives for objects; (2) Guess objects according to adjectives;

(3) Choose predicates (actions) for objects or choose objects based on predicates; (4) Compare word nuances; (5) Continue unfinished sentences; (6) Add subordinate clauses;

(7) Components of objects; (8) Saying sentences with given words; (9) Solving riddles and making riddles; (10) Classifying objects ” [39].

This exercise is still valuable in enriching vocabulary, developing the content of words, helping children know how to use words correctly when speaking. Therefore, we will select and apply it to organizing for 3-4 year old kindergarten children to acquire vocabulary in scientific research activities.

Second : Organizing experiential activities and discussing activities in the process of scientific research to develop language skills for children, with authors such as Smith [76], Lauren Lowry [62], Humphyryes [16], Luu Thi Lan [20], Dinh Hong Thai [36], Nguyen Van Can [5], La Thi Bac Ly [21], Bui Thi Lam [18], Le Thi Thanh Sang [35], Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong [34]... The authors all focus on researching children's language development, measures for language development, using scientific research activities as a means to develop language and proposing some measures to organize activities to develop language skills for preschool children....

Author Smith pointed out the method of stimulating children's interest in learning about the plant world through activities of planting and caring for trees. Thereby, children's knowledge about the surrounding environment appears from simple to complex. [76] Also researching this direction, Lauren Lowry emphasized, " When providing new words to children, especially 3-4 year old children, we should not give many words at the same time but should create opportunities, encourage and motivate children to express themselves to answer; should combine using gestures, movements, and facial expressions to help children understand the new words more deeply " [62].

Thus, scientific research activities have a great influence on the development of all aspects of children, including PTVT. The number of words that children will have will increase, they will understand and use correctly if we regularly and know how to communicate with children, teach children, and play with them. Scientific research activities help children directly perceive objects and phenomena, thereby stimulating language so that children can acquire words. Scientific research activities not only help children's VT to be expanded but also help children understand, choose and use appropriate words.


In summary, there are many studies on VT and PTVT for 3-4 year old preschool children. In particular, studies on organizing scientific discovery activities in general, scientific discovery for PTVT for children in particular, have received attention. Studies in this direction have also provided guidance on how to organize scientific discovery activities for comprehensive development of children. However, research on organizing scientific discovery activities for PTVT for 3-4 year old preschool children in Vietnam is still a gap. Therefore, it is necessary to study how to organize scientific discovery activities for PTVT for children in a systematic and systematic way, thereby developing measures to organize scientific discovery activities for PTVT for 3-4 year old preschool children in preschools.

1.2. Theoretical basis for organizing Scientific Discovery activities to develop vocabulary for 3-4 year old preschool children

1.2.1. Words and vocabulary

1.2.1.1. From

- Concept:

There are many ways to understand words, however, when giving the concept of words, people often pay attention to the main aspects: form (phonetics and structure); semantics; grammar and style.

According to the Vietnamese Dictionary : “ A word is a unit available in a language. A word is the smallest unit with a stable structure, used to form a sentence. ” [29, p.1035].

According to the group of authors La Thi Bac Ly, Phan Thi Hong Xuan and Nguyen Thi Thu Nga: " A word is the smallest unit of language that has meaning and has the independent function of creating sentences " [22, p.33].

In this thesis, we use the concept of Do Huu Chau: " A Vietnamese word is one or several fixed, invariant syllables, with certain grammatical characteristics, in certain structural patterns, all corresponding to a certain type of meaning, the largest in Vietnamese and the smallest to create a sentence " [6, p.6].

- Classification:

According to La Thi Bac Ly, Phan Thi Hong Xuan and Nguyen Thi Thu Nga: " Vietnamese word classes are divided into two large classes and one intermediate class " [22].


Real words : include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and numerals. They have the following characteristics: “( 1) Have lexical meaning; (2) Have the ability to be the main element in a main or secondary phrase; (3) Have the ability to take on the main components in a sentence .” [22]

+ Nouns: are words that indicate things (people, objects, phenomena, concepts or units).

+ Verbs: are words that indicate actions and states of things.

+ Adjectives: are words that describe characteristics or properties of objects, activities, states,...

+ Numerals : are words that indicate quantity and order.

Function words : include adverbs, prepositions, and modals. They have the following characteristics: “ have no lexical meaning, are incapable of being the main element in a main-subordinate phrase, and are incapable of taking on the main components in a sentence ” [22].

Intermediate word class : Pronouns, with the following characteristics: “ (1) Like real words: Able to take on some sentence components such as subjects and complements; (2) Like function words: Has no lexical meaning. When replacing a word class, the pronoun has the characteristics of that word class ” [22].

1.2.1.2. Vocabulary

According to the Dictionary of Linguistic Terms , “ Vocabulary includes all words and units equivalent to words ” [47, p.428]. With this concept, “vocabulary” is understood in a broad sense, equivalent to vocabulary.

According to Le Huu Tinh, " Individual vocabulary is the entire set of words and word-equivalent units of language stored in the individual's mind and used by that individual in communication activities " [40, p.14].

This concept shows that “ words stored in the individual’s mind ” means that the individual has understood the meaning of that word (receptive knowledge), and “ using words in communication activities ” means that they must be expressed externally by the individual being able to both pronounce and use the word in different communication situations (expressive knowledge). Thus, children’s knowledge includes both words/phrases that the child understands, has in the brain but does not know how to use, and words/phrases that the child already knows how to use in communication.


1.2.2. Developing vocabulary for 3-4 year old preschool children

1.2.2.1. Concept of vocabulary of 3-4 year old preschool children .

From the concept of vocabulary of Le Huu Tinh [40, p.14], the thesis understands:

“ The vocabulary of 3-4 year old preschool children is all the words and word-equivalent units of a language, stored in the child's mind in the form of reception (understanding the meaning of the word) or expression (being able to use the appropriate word)”

1.2.2.2. Characteristics of vocabulary of 3-4 year old preschool children

Language development of preschool children in general, and 3-4 year old preschool children in particular, is a process from low to high with stages having different characteristics depending on the age of the child. At each stage, there is inheritance and development of the achievements of the previous stage.

- Vocabulary in terms of quantity

In the Overview section, the thesis has presented specific research results on the number of words that children can achieve at the milestones they can achieve. We would like to reiterate the data of some domestic authors. According to Luu Thi Lan, 3-year-old children have 486 words. 4-year-old children have 724 words [20], according to Nguyen Xuan Khoa, 3-year-old children have 1300 words, 4-year-old children have about 1900 - 2000 words [17].

- Vocabulary in terms of word structure

In terms of word class structure, 3-4 year old kindergarten children mainly acquire nouns and verbs, other word classes rarely or never appear in their vocabulary. The proportion of other word classes increases with the age of the child, but the level is different in each year and in each type. According to Luu Thi Lan, the word class structure in the vocabulary of 4 year old children includes: nouns: 37.91% → 35.36%; verbs: 33.36% → 31.04%; pronouns: 2.82% → 3.61% [20].

The increase and decrease of word classes in vocabulary is consistent with children's perception. When they are young, children's perception is mainly of objects, actions and the closest people. Therefore, children's vocabulary is mainly nouns and verbs that name things, phenomena and activities. When they grow up, children recognize more characteristics, properties, relationships of things, actions,... therefore other word classes appear and develop more richly.

According to functional grammarians, verbs are word classes with a special role.


Verbs are especially important for children. Verbs help children express their desires and help those around them understand their desires. For example: When a child says eat, the mother understands that the child is hungry and needs to eat. When a child says go play, it means that the child wants to go play. Therefore, using verbs well will help children know how to use other types of words.

- Children's ability to understand word meanings

When acquiring a new word, children often use it as a proper word, meaning that a word only represents a single object and cannot be generalized to objects of the same type. For example, children use the word "shirt" to refer to a specific shirt they are wearing, but later when they are older, they can use it to generalize to all other shirts of the same type. This shows that the ability to understand the meaning of a word depends on the cognitive development of children through their ages.

According to Fedorenko, children have 5 levels of understanding the general meaning of words as follows: - Zero level (zero level): Each object has a name associated with it. Children understand the meaning of this name: mother, father, table, bowl, ... (nominal meaning). - Level 1: Low level of expressive meaning, common name of objects of the same type: doll, ball, cup, house, ...

- Level 2: More general: fruit (orange, mango); vehicle (motorbike, car); animal (chicken, fish, pig),... - Level 3: higher level that children can grasp such as: means of transport: cars, ships, motorbikes, objects; toys, kitchen utensils, school supplies... Kindergarten 5 - 6 years old

- Level 4: Maximum generalization, including abstract concepts; quantity, quality, action...

Accordingly, preschool children understand the meaning at levels zero and 1. Preschool children, especially older preschool children, understand the meaning of words at levels 2 and 3. Children in primary school understand the meaning of words at level 4. [8].

At the age of 3-4, children not only understand the meaning of words indicating specific objects and actions, but can also understand the meaning of words indicating properties, colors, relationships, etc. to be able to communicate with others. Children can understand the characteristics of some animals, such as: where do monkeys live, what do they eat, etc. This is also the stage when children can say the names, characteristics, and uses of some familiar means of transport (bicycles, motorbikes, cars, planes, trains, etc.); Say the characteristics of some animals (chickens, dogs, pigs, monkeys, etc.); Say the characteristics of

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