Children’s Comprehension of the Religious Story Affected by their Emotional Capacities

Abstract

The use of the religious stories is an important element of the religious education of preschool and younger schoolchildren. The question arises here, in what way should the story be presented to the children in order to be understandable to them at their specific level of development? In this article children’s understanding of a story is placed within the context of their emotional development. The key emotional competencies, mastered by the child until the age of 12, are presented, as well as the key aspects of the social reality which the child can understand based on the mastered emotional competencies and which are important for the understanding of the story. The aspects of the biblical story about the multiplication of the loaves are shown through each individual development stage of a child in order to show the things a child is capable of understanding at a particular stage.