Fiction is the type of art that accompany a person from the first years of life. The educational, cognitive and aesthetic significance of folklore is enormous, since it, by expanding knowledge about the surrounding reality, contributes to the development of the ability to subtly feel the artistic form, melody and rhythm of the native language.

It is important to note that the transition of children to the senior preschool age marks a number of changes, including in the child's mental activity: interest increases not only in the actions of literary characters, but also in their motives, feelings, experiences, the ability to catch the subtext is formed, independently express the moral message of the work, perceive the text in its synthesis forms and contents. At the same time, a child of 5-6 years old is able to identify the key features of literary genres (rhyme, rhythm, steady turns).

Fiction activates the ability to listen, analyze incoming information, develops the child's mental and speech abilities, lays down the skills of comparison, analysis and inference, the senior preschooler is able to take into account the circumstances and various characteristics of the hero to express his attitude to the text.

The perception of fiction is considered as an active volitional process involving not passive contemplation, but an activity that is embodied in internal assistance, empathy for the characters, in an imaginary transfer of events to oneself, "mental action", resulting in the effect of personal presence, personal participation in events. Thus, a characteristic feature of the perception of a work of art by children is the unity of the "feeling" and the "thinking".

At the same time, the dynamics of enriching the vocabulary of a child is growing, who actively learns new words, figurative expressions, so that his vocabulary becomes more emotional and literate, rich in epithets and metaphors.

A literary work is a unique means of educating the younger generation, since it is able to simultaneously influence the emotional and moral components, develop thinking and speech, and transmit the accumulated experience of mankind. Fiction is a universal developing educational tool, taking the child beyond the limits of what is directly perceived, immersing him in possible worlds with a wide range of models of human behavior and orienting him in them, providing a rich language environment. Artistic texts allow you to emotionally, intuitively grasp a holistic picture of the world in all the variety of connections of things, events, relationships.

Samples of fiction can be differentiated by their impact: through the story, children learn the conciseness and accuracy of the word; in poems they catch the musicality, melodiousness, rhythmicity of Russian speech; folk tales reveal to them the accuracy and expressiveness of the language, show the richness of native speech with humor, lively and figurative expressions, comparisons.

The texts of works of art affect both conscious and intuitive thinking, developing a person's worldview and worldview, helping to more fully assimilate both the whole picture of the world and a variety of connections, processes, phenomena that form its appearance, reflecting its patterns. However, success in understanding and assimilation of this experience directly depends on the ability of an adult to properly organize the process of reading a work and further discussion of what he has read, not only without loading the child with unnecessary information, but also leading the child to an independent conclusion.

An important place in this process is occupied by the definition of the tasks of literary education of children. The purpose of familiarizing preschoolers with fiction is the formation of a future culturally educated person.

The tasks and content of the process of familiarization with fiction can be determined on the basis of understanding the peculiarities of perception and understanding of works of literature. Generically , these tasks can be formulated as follows:

1. to promote the development of interest in fiction, the ability to holistically perceive works of different genres, assimilate the content of works and help to realize emotional responsiveness to them;

2. to promote the formation of initial ideas about the features of fiction: about genres (prose, poetry), about their specific features; about composition; about the simplest elements of imagery in language;

3. to promote the education of literary and artistic taste of the senior preschooler, the ability to understand and feel the mood of the work, to catch the musicality, sonority, rhythm, beauty and poetry of stories, fairy tales, poems; to develop poetic hearing.

Therefore, for comprehensive education by means of fiction, the formation of the child's personality, his artistic development, special attention should be paid to the correct selection of literary works.

At the same time, it should be taken into account that a literary work should carry cognitive, aesthetic and moral functions, that is, it should be a means of mental, moral and aesthetic education.

As a result, the following criteria for the selection of books can be distinguished:

1. The ideological orientation of the children's book, which determines compliance with the tasks of moral education, education of love for the Motherland, for people, for nature. The moral character of the hero also determines the ideality of the book.

2. High artistic skill, literary value. The criterion of artistry is the unity of the content of the work and its form. An exemplary literary language is important.

3. Accessibility of a literary work, compliance with the age and psychological characteristics of children. The peculiarities of attention, memory, thinking, the range of interests of children, their life experience are taken into account.

4. Plot entertainment, simplicity and clarity of composition.

5. Specific pedagogical tasks.

The selection criteria make it possible to determine the range of children's reading and storytelling. It includes several groups of works:

1. works of folk art and creativity of the peoples of the world, in particular, small forms of folklore: riddles, proverbs, sayings, songs, nursery rhymes, tall tales and shifters; fairy tales;

2. works of native and foreign classical literature;

3. works of modern native and foreign literature.

As a result, it can be concluded that reading fiction is a complex and multidimensional process, one of the forms of which is the partnership activity of children with an adult. Since most children 5-7 years old cannot read fluently, unlike other forms of collective activity of an adult and a child, such as play, cognitive research, productive activity, reading does not have the character of independence, and implies the participation of an adult at every stage. This imposes a special responsibility on an adult in terms of the selection of literary texts for reading and its organization so that the book, touching the strings of the child's soul, contributes to the development and education of the child to the greatest extent.