Abstract:

Background:
Metaphorical thinking in primary school children is a relevant issue opening new doors to scientific inquiry into development of Lithuanian educational research related to childhood cognitive abilities. Recent studies in this discipline by researchers in the Western Europe and, in particular, in the U.S. have become highly significant and assertive as they develop the framework for comprehensive knowledge about educational implications of childhood and provide possibility to project the process of education of and by children not only on the basis of differences between children and adults, but also at the level of characteristics of the world of childhood that carry important educational implications.

Metaphorical thinking has become an increasingly common notion mentioned in the scientific literature that discusses over thinking patterns in a human (Fein, 1979; Телия, 1988; Солсо, 1996; Шрагина, 1997, 1999; Winner, 1995, 1997; Розум, 2006; Gansen, 2010; Malinauskienė, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2011 and other). Metaphorical thinking in Lithuanian educational sciences is the phenomenon that yet has received little scientific inquiry, hence there are few theoretical/empirical studies of a more comprehensive nature to answer the question of what metaphorical thinking as a socio-cultural phenomenon of a child’s cognitive development is, and how it manifests itself in educational processes, in particular, during the educational stages of primary school.

The author has explored this scientific problem in her analysis of characteristics of metaphorical thinking in children and possibilities for its expression in the general context of human thinking from the cognitive perspective by discussing ideas expressed in scientific works by J. Piaget (Пиаже, 1969) and L.Vygotsky (Выготский, 1982).

The aim of the investigation is to identify the impact of proverbs as the means of developing the metaphorical thinking in the primary school.
The aim of the investigation determined the following key tasks of investigation:
1. To identify the didactic accessibility of proverbs for the primary school pupils.
2. To identify the level of II and IV grade pupils’ development of metaphorical thinking, setting the scale, denoting the understanding of the metaphorical text.

Sample:
The scope of the investigation included 48 pupils of second - fourth grades, selected in a random way from 4 school of 2 city or region of Lithuania.
Methods. The analysis of scientific literature; survey of pupils by questionnaire; statistic analysis of research data with the programme SPSS 13.0 for Windows.

Conclusion:
The author’s studies related to children of various age (7 to 11 year olds) suggest that proverbs as one the forms of manifestation of metaphorical thinking can be an appropriate tool for diagnosing and developing metaphorical thinking in primary-school by using tasks, methods and techniques adequate for a certain phase of children cognitive development.

Keywords:

Children, metaphorical thinking, primary school, proverbs.