Children 3-4 years old

"First knowledge" and "The Alphabet"

In our ‘First Knowledge’ and ‘Alphabet’ classes, we play, learn and speak Russian!

The main aim of the lessons is to develop correct and expressive Russian speech, as well as the ability to hear, understand and use Russian in everyday communication.

Learning takes place through play: using characters and storylines from familiar fairy tales, themed games, creative tasks and work in workbooks.

The programme has been developed based on original teaching methods devised by leading educators and authors of teaching materials for pre-school children.

Children aged 3–4

How a child’s speech develops at this age

Between the ages of 3 and 4, a child’s speech develops rapidly. Children begin to use more complex sentences, their vocabulary expands, and new grammatical structures emerge. A child is now able to listen to short fairy tales, understand their content and answer simple questions about the story.

Well-known fairy tales — ‘The Speckled Hen’, ‘The Turnip’, ‘Kolobok’, ‘Teremok’ and ‘The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats’ — are already understandable to children of this age. When retelling a story, a child can repeat individual words and phrases, and finish familiar sentences after an adult. With repeated reading, children are able to memorise short texts almost by heart.



However, retelling a story coherently on their own may still present a certain challenge for the child. Their speech is also not always fully understandable to those around them: children still do not pronounce some sounds clearly enough or substitute them with simpler ones.

By the age of four, a child usually makes active use of speech to communicate, asks questions and forms sentences consisting of several words. Their vocabulary gradually expands; children begin to use not only nouns, verbs and adjectives, but also pronouns, adverbs and numerals.

The following are particularly important for further speech development:

• expanding their vocabulary;
• developing auditory attention;
• regular speech practice;
• active verbal communication;
• providing correct speech models to imitate;
• developing grammatically correct speech. 

At this age, children also actively experiment with words and may create their own, sometimes unusual, word forms. This is a natural part of language development, which we gently guide by offering the child correct language models. It is also at this age that English establishes its dominant role for children who are in an English-speaking environment, both at home and at nursery.

How we work with children aged 3–4

Our programme is designed to last two years and includes over 42 thematic areas related to the world around the child.

We combine speech development, educational activities, creativity, play and an introduction to Russian culture. Each theme helps the child not only to learn new words and concepts, but also to use them in speech.

Gradually, the lessons become more structured.

‘Alphabet’

In the ‘Alphabet’ programme, children are introduced to the letters in a playful and age-appropriate way. In each lesson, we study one letter, look at its shape and learn to spot it in familiar words.

Children expand their vocabulary for that particular letter, learn to recognise sounds in words and gradually begin to distinguish between their characteristics — for example, hard and soft sounds.

Great emphasis is placed on developing phonemic awareness — the ability to hear and distinguish speech sounds. This is an important foundation for subsequent reading and writing lessons.

As the children grow older, the number of writing and drawing tasks increases. They colour in, trace, practise writing exercises, cut out shapes and work with various materials.

In speech development lessons, children complete grammar exercises, learn to use prepositions and case forms correctly, construct sentences and agree words with one another.

The curriculum is supplemented by themed lessons on numbers, time and clocks, technology, the seasons, the world around us, fairy tales and stories. 

In this way, the child gradually moves from free play and familiarising themselves with the language to a more conscious exploration of its structure, whilst retaining the most important elements: interest, movement, creativity and the enjoyment of learning.