Play interaction technique used in training of primary-school children in swimming

Aim: to determine effectiveness of play interaction in water within training of primary-school children. Materials and Methods. The study was conducted from 1 October 2015 till March 2016 at the premises of youth sport school Zhastar. The study involved 9-10-year-old primary-school children (n = 20) who could swim. The children were divided into two groups - control and experimental groups, 10 people each. Training sessions were conducted both in water and on land. The study used direct comparative educational experiment carried out under the equalized conditions. The methods included study and analysis of methodological literature on the topic, educational observation and survey, educational experiment, and mathematical statistics methods. Results. The educational experiment data revealed the significant improvement of performance in the experimental group. In comparison with the control group, the results increased by 60% in “torpedo” test, by 22% in “breath holding” test, and by 23% in “breath-holding crawl” test. Along with that, the processing of tests by methods of mathematical statistics confirmed the significance of differences between the control and experimental groups in three of four tests. Conclusion. The results suggest that using play method in the main part of training sessions increases the effectiveness of adoption of swimming skills, which proved the hypothesis of our research.