The article deals with the problem of the formation of critical thinking of younger schoolchildren through an effective survey. In order to determine the relevance of the topic, the concept of the development of education and science and the State Mandatory Standard of Primary Education are analyzed. A review of the research of domestic and foreign scientists who studied the concept of "critical thinking" is presented. It is confirmed that this is one of the skills that allows the student to develop freely in the educational space.

 The general pedagogical process was carried out taking into account the three stages, functions and methods of pedagogical technology for the development of critical thinking proposed by J. Steele, K. Meredith, and C. Temple. As a result of the use of pedagogical technology for the development of critical thinking, students make mistakes at the first stage, freely express their thoughts without fear of teacher correction; update their knowledge and experience; solve large-scale problems on the topic, make common decisions; at the second stage, they understand the content of new information, compare existing knowledge and experience, pose questions aimed at finding effective and solvable ways, express their own opinion about new information, argue their positions; at the third stage, the ability to independently determine tasks, make forecasts, and make decisions develops. Since the object of the study were primary school students, experimental work was carried out with students of grades 4 "B" and "D" of the Lyceum school No. 23 named after Z.Kosmodemyanskaya. Three stages of the experiment have been implemented. Tasks aimed at forming students' critical thinking at the formative stage are developed based on the educational goals of the 4th grade curriculum. The effectiveness of the developed tasks aimed at the problem of research has been proved in the course of experimental research.