Title: Chapter Nine
1Chapter Nine
- The Play Years
- Cognitive Development
2How Young Children Think Piaget and Vygotsky
- PiagetSwiss developmentalist
- believed young children were limited by their
egocentric perspective - egocentrismPiagets term for type of centration
in which child sees world solely from his/her
personal perspective - VygotskyRussian developmentalist
- recognized how childs social/cultural context
helps shape his/her cognitive development
3Piaget Preoperational Thought
- Preoperational thoughtPiagets term for
cognitive development between 2 and 6 years - characterized by centration, focus on appearance,
static reasoning, and irreversibility
4Obstacles to Logical Operations
- Centrationtendency to focus on one aspect of a
situation - Egocentrism or ego-centrationcontemplation of
the world exclusively from childs personal
perspective - empathy is an exception
5Obstacles to Logical Operations, cont.
- Focus on appearanceignores all attributes except
appearance - Static reasoningassumes that the world is
unchanging - Irreversibilityfails to recognize that reversing
a process can sometimes restore whatever existed
before transformation
6Conservation and Logic
- Thinking is intuitive rather than logical
- Conservationprinciple that amount of substance
is unaffected by changes in appearance - applied to liquids, numbers, matter, length
- understanding develops after age 7, and then
slowly and unevenly
7Conservation and Logic, cont.
8Vygotsky Children as Apprentices
- One Theory
- theory-theoryGopniks term for the idea that
children attempt to construct a theory to explain
everything they see and hear
9Vygotsky Children as Apprentices, cont.
- Children do not strive alone their efforts are
embedded in social context - parents guide young childrens cognitive growth
in many ways - present new challenges for learning
- offer assistance and instruction
- encourage interest and motivation
10Vygotsky Children as Apprentices, cont.
- Apprentice in thinkingchild whose intellectual
growth is stimulated and directed by older and
more skilled members of society - Guided participationprocess by which young
children, with the help of mentors, learn to
think by having social experiences and by
exploring their universe
11How to Solve a Puzzle
- Guidance and motivation
- structure task to make solution more attainable
- provide motivation
- Guided participation
- partners (tutor and child) interact
- tutor sensitive and responsive to needs of child
- eventually, because of such mutuality, child able
to succeed independently
12Scaffolding
- Scaffoldingsensitive structuring of childs
participation in learning encounters - Zone of proximal development (ZPD) skills too
difficult for child to perform alone but that can
be performed with guidance and assistance of
adults or more skilled children - lower limit of ZPD can be reached independently
- upper limit of ZPD can be reached with assistance
- ZPD is a measure of learning potential
13Scaffolding, cont.
- Private speechinternal dialogue when people talk
to themselves through which new ideas are
developed and reinforced - verbal interaction is a cognitive tool
- Social mediationuse of speech to bridge gap
between childs current understanding and what is
almost understood
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15Theory of Mind
- We each have our own personal understanding of
human mental processes, and child develops this
too - complex interaction of human mental processes
- emotions
- thoughts
- perceptions
- actions
16Emergence by Age 4
- Social referencing
- Sudden understanding that mental phenomena may
not reflect reality - people can be deliberately deceived or fooled
17Children develop ability (3 to 4 yrs.)
- Distinguish between mental phenomena and physical
events (thinking about something is different
from experiencing it) - Appreciate how mental phenomena can arise from
experiences (beliefs, desires arise from
experiences) - Understand mental phenomena are subjective
(others cant see your thoughts) - Recognize that people have differing opinions and
beliefs - Realize beliefs and desires form basis for human
action (person running to avoid being late for
school) - Realize emotion arises not only from physical
events but also from goals expectations
18Contextual Influences on Theory of Mind
- Brain maturation (prefrontal cortex)
- General language ability
- An older sibling
- Culture that anticipates the future
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20Language
- Emergent literacyskills needed to learn to read
- Is early childhood a sensitive or a critical
period for language development? - ages 2 to 6 do seem to be a sensitive perioda
time when a certain type of development (in this
case, emergent literacy) occurs most rapidly
21Number Skills
- Number connection between numbers objects
very tenuous in early years of symbolic thought - When counting, young preschoolers likely to
delete numbers from sequence (1,2,4,8), count the
same item more than once, or omit some items from
the count - Mastering counting principles takes time
- Stable-order principle
- One-to-one principle
- Cardinal principle
- Counting improves progressively (2 1/2 year olds
vs. 4 year olds)
22How Number Skills Develop
- Brain development that continues throughout
childhood - Maturation of language, enabling preschoolers to
conceptualize express number - Maturation in the sense emphasized by Piagetthe
flowering of childs innate curiosity
exploration of the world of objects - Cultural context specific family guidance
(structure scaffolding) play role
23Vocabulary
- 2 to 6 olds learn average of 10 words per day
- 2-year-olds vocabulary consists of 500 words
- 6-year-olds vocabulary consists of 10,000 or
more words - Fast mappingspeedy and not precise way a child
assimilates new words by mentally charting them
into interconnected categories - logical extension, or application of newly
learned word to other unnamed objects in same
category, closely related to fast mapping
(Dalmatian cow) - fast mapping aided by the way adults label new
things for children
24Vocabulary, cont.
- Fast mapping, cont.
- children use basic assumptions about syntax and
reference to fast map - children cannot comprehend every word they hear
- difficulties may occur
- words expressing comparisons (tall and short
near and far high and low shallow and deep) - with words expressing relationships of time and
place (here, there, yesterday, tomorrow)
25Grammar
- The grammar of a language includes the
structures, techniques, and rules used to
communicate meaning - Young children learn grammar so well they tend to
apply its rules when they should not, a tendency
called overregularization - examples plural nouns (foots), past tense
(breaked the glass)
26Learning Two Languages
- Two points of view
- bilingualism is an asset, even a necessity,
- child should become proficient in own 1st
language - How easy is it to be bilingual?
- many 6-year-olds have difficulty pronouncing
certain sounds - but auditory sensitivity helps young children
master pronunciation over time, a much harder
task if language learned after puberty
27Learning Two Languages, cont.
- Best solution children become balanced
bilinguals, fluent in 2 languages - research confirms children can become equally
fluent in 2 languages - easiest way for child to become bilingual is if
parents speak 2 languages - ideally, each parent represents 1 language and
helps child with mastery - sending child to preschool where 2nd language
taught also effective
28Early-Childhood Education
- Controversy over whether, when, and where
29Many Types of Programs
- Distinct educational curricula have been
developed - Maria Montessori (100 years ago) developed
structured, individualized projects for poor
children
30Child-Centered and Readiness Programs
- Many newer programs are child-centered or
developmental - use a Piaget-inspired model that allows children
to discover at their own pace - Alternative programs stress academic readiness
- some readiness programs explicitly teach basic
school skills
31Reggio-Emilia
- Reggio-Emiliaa new form of early-childhood
education pioneered in the Italian city of that
name - children encouraged to master skills not normally
seen until age 7 - artistic expression, exploration of the
environment, and collaboration between parents
and teachers encouraged
32Reggio Emilia, cont.
- Early childhood is the prime learning period for
every child and some learn even more - The above has led to conclusion nations should
provide quality early education - Head Start
- has provided half-day education for millions of 3
to 5 year olds, boosting abilities and skills, at
least temporarily and probably for longer
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34Quality Learning
- Three research projects have shown excellent
longitudinal data - High/Scope (Michigan)
- Abecedarian (North Carolina)
- Child-Parent Centers (Chicago)
- Children in these programs have scored higher on
math and reading achievement tests than other
children from same backgrounds, schools, and
neighborhoods
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36Quality Learning, cont.
- High-quality early education is associated with
positive outcomes for all children - what is high-quality education?
- safety, adequate space, and equipment
- low adult-to-child ratio
- trained staff
- curriculum geared to cognitive development
- learning includes creative/constructive play