In the thesis the problem of forming pop singing skills in pupils of junior school age is studied. The essence of the phenomenon under study, the specifics of its manifestation at the present stage of the mass music culture development and the attitude of society to the active involvement of schoolchildren in public singing and performing activities are determined. The methodological foundations of organization of the forming experiment, which are based on conceptual ideas of humanistic, anthropological, personality-individual, multicultural approaches, are characterized. The structure of pop singing skills in the unity of basic-phonation skills, skills of artistic-expressive pop performance, vocal-stage performing skills is established. The pedagogical principles, on the basis of which the experimental methodology has been developed, are substantiated, namely: the dialectical unity of vocal-forming, developmental, educational and artistic-educational directions of pedagogical influence; musical-performing amplification; purposeful organization of the musical environment and family influence; continuity and systematicity in organization of the learning content; the optimal selection of educational repertoire. The pedagogical conditions of successful formation of skills of pop vocal activity in pupils of the junior grades are revealed, in particular: enrichment of children’s musical and artistic impressions on the basis of combining traditional and innovative technologies; organization of the educational process taking into account age, individual and personality traits, musical and vocal abilities of schoolchildren; systematic and gradual formation of students’ skills in vocal-pop performance in unity with musical abilities development and learning elements of musical literacy; purposeful stimulation of artistic-aesthetic, performing-creative, singing-communicative activity of schoolchildren. The essence of experimental work and methods of its implementation are described: encouraging and information-musical technologies, musical-information channels with the use of modern ICT, game exercises of phonation, competitive, improvised character, communicative and improvised games, visual-movement modeling of the melodic line, application of elements of the relational system, game-dramatization, musical-role-playing games. In studying songs the independent definition by children of means of expressiveness and their variation, awareness of performance as a communicative process was stimulated. The methodology of diagnostics of the levels of pop singing skills formation in the pupils of junior school age is presented and comparative analysis of the results obtained at the ascertaining and final stages of research, which confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, is presented.
