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Abstract: The article highlights the features of development of initiative at preschool age. Modern requirements of recent normative documents define the development of initiative in children as a priority task of pre-school education. Initiative is associated with the inner impulse of man, which allows him to develop a variety of activities. In the theoretical studies, individual initiative of children is considered as an innate quality, granted by nature, which develops in specially created conditions. Psychological studies show that in order to show initiative a child needs: to understand the current situation in which it is necessary to act, be able to evaluate it and orient in it; to figure out what needs to be done in order to achieve the goal, to develop an action plan; to decide on an independent action in order to execute it and take responsibility for the undertaken actions. At the same time, the problem of the child's active participation in various activities has not been studied to the full; there remain poorly understood issues of organization of independent activity of children, criteria for development of initiative in children's activities. The materials presented in the article show that senior preschool children’s initiative is most evident in their work. Based on the analysis of publications on human development initiative, the authors identify the main components of initiative in the work of children. These components (motivational, cognitive, behavioral, and reflexive) may be taken as the basis for the research of initiative at preschool age.