Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice - Edition 11 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2: Cognitive, Language, and Literacy Development © (2015, 2012, 2009) by Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice Edition 11 Robert E. Slavin Organizing Questions What are the Vygostkian and Piagetian theories of human development? What are the ways you can set up your classroom to promote literacy development in young children? What are the stages of language and literacy development during the elementary and middle school years? How Do Children Develop Cognitively? The term development refers to how people grow, adapt, and change over the course of their lifetimes and includes: Personality development Socioemotional development Cognitive development (thinking) Language development Which Aspects of Development Are Important for Teachers to Know? Children are not miniature adults. Children think differently and see the world differently than adults do. One of the first requirements of effective teaching is that you understand how students think and how they view the world. Effective teaching strategies must take into account students’ ages and stages of development. What Are Some Issues of Development? Two central issues have been debated for decades among developmental psychologists: The degree to which development is affected by experience: The Nature-Nurture Controversy Whether development proceeds in stages: Continuous-and Discontinuous Theories NATURE – NURTURE CONTROVERSY Is development predetermined at birth, by heredity and biological factors, or is it affected by experience and other environmental factors? Today, most developmental psychologists believe that nature and nurture combine to influence development, with biological factors playing a stronger role in some aspects, such as physical development. CONTINUOUS AND DISCONTINUOUS THEORIES A second issue revolves around the notion of how change occurs. Continuous theories of development, such as information-processing models, assume that development occurs in a smooth progression as skills develop and experiences are provided by caregivers and the environment. Discontinuous theories of development focus on inborn factors rather than environmental influences to explain change over time. This perspective assumes that children progress through a set of predictable and invariant stages of development and that all children develop skills in the same sequence. How Did Piaget View Cognitive Development? Piaget believed that all children are born with an innate tendency to interact with and make sense of their environments. Schemes: Young children demonstrate patterns of behavior or thinking, called schemes, that older children and adults also use in dealing with objects in the world. We use schemes to find out about and act in the world. Schemes: Figure 2.1 Stage Approximate Ages Major Accomplishments Sensorimotor Birth to 2 years Formation of concept of “object permanence” and gradual progression from reflexive behavior to goal-directed behavior. Preoperational 2 to 7 years Development of the ability to use symbols to represent objects in the world. Thinking remains egocentric and centered. Concrete operational 7 to 11 years Improvement in ability to think logically. New abilities include the use of operations that are reversible. Thinking is decentered, and problem solving is less restricted by egocentrism. Abstract thinking is not possible. Formal operational 11 years to adulthood Abstract and purely symbolic thinking is possible. Problems can be solved through the use of systematic experimentation. Sensorimotor Stage Birth to Age 2 The earliest stage is called sensorimotor because during this stage babies and young children explore the world by using their senses and motor skills. Dramatic changes occur as infants progress through this stage. Initially, all infants have inborn behaviors called reflexes. Infants soon learn to use these reflexes to produce more interesting and intentional patterns of behaviors. Object permanence is another hallmark of this stage. Object permanence is the understanding that an object exists even if it is out of sight. Preoperational Stage Ages 2 to 7 During the preoperational stage children have greater ability to think about things and can use symbols to mentally represent objects. One of Piaget’s most important discoveries is that young children lack an understanding of the principle of conservation. Conservation is the concept that certain properties of an object (such as weight) remain the same regardless of changes in other properties (such as length). Centration is the tendency to pay attention to only one aspect of an object or situation. (Children pay attention to the length of a row of blocks rather than the actual number of blocks.) Preoperational Stage continued Reversibility, the ability to change direction in one’s thinking to return to a starting point, is another facet of thinking not yet developed by preoperational children. If preoperational children could think this way, then they could mentally reverse the process of pouring the milk and realize that if the milk were poured back into the tall beaker, its quantity would not change. Preoperational children are egocentric in their thinking. Children at this stage believe that everyone sees the world exactly as they do. For example, children on one side of a display of three mountains were asked to describe how the scene looked to a doll seated on the other side. Children below the age of 6 or 7 described the doll’s view as identical to their own. Concrete Operational Stage Ages 7 to 11 Although the differences between the mental abilities of preoperational preschoolers and concrete operational elementary school students are dramatic, concrete operational children still do not think like adults. At this stage children develop the capacity for logical reasoning and understanding of conservation only in familiar situations. Inferred reality is a hallmark of this stage and is the ability to see things in the context of other meanings. Our text gives the example of showing a picture of a red car and then covering it with black film. A child who has mastered inferred reality knows the car is still red. Concrete Operational Stage continued One important task that children learn during the concrete operational stage is seriation, or arranging things in a logical progression. For example: Lining up sticks from smallest to largest. Once this ability is acquired children can master a related skill known as transitivity, which is a skill in which individuals can mentally arrange and compare objects: By the end of this stage children have the mental abilities to learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide; to place numbers in order by size and to classify objects by any number of criteria. Formal Operational Stage (age 11 to Adulthood) Sometime around the onset of puberty, children’s thinking begins to develop into the form that is characteristic of that of adults. The preadolescent begins to be able to think abstractly and to see possibilities beyond the here and now. These abilities continue to develop into adulthood. With the formal operational stage comes the ability to deal with potential or hypothetical situations; the form is now separate from the context. Another ability that Piaget recognized in the young adolescent is the aptitude to reason about situations and conditions that have not been experienced. Figure 2.3 • A test of Problem-Solving Abilities The pendulum problem uses a string, which can be shortened or lengthened, and a set of weights. When children in the concrete operational stage are asked what determines frequency ( the number of times per minute the pendulum swings back and forth), they will tackle the problem less systematically than will adolescents who have entered the stage for formal operations. (The answer is that only the string’s length affects the frequency.) Criticisms and Revisions of Piaget’s Theory One important Piagetian principle is that development precedes learning and that developmental stages were largely fixed. Research has established that: Tasks can be taught earlier. There are exceptions to egocentricity. Earlier mastery of object permanence. Children develop skills in different ways on different tasks. Development is influenced by experience. Copyright © 2012 Allyn & Bacon Theory into Practice Developmentally Appropriate Education: an education with environments, curriculum, materials and instruction that are suitable for students in terms of their physical and cognitive abilities and their social and emotional needs. The main teaching implications drawn from Piaget are: Importance of the process of children’s thinking, not only its products. Recognition of the crucial role of children’s self-initiated, active involvement in learning activities. A de-emphasis on practices aimed at making children adult-like in their thinking. Acceptance of individual differences in developmental progress. Vygotsky’s View of Cognitive Development Vygotsky’s work is based on two key ideas: First, he proposed that intellectual development can be understood only in terms of the historical and cultural contexts children experience. Second, he believed that development depends on the sign systems that individual grow up with: the symbols that cultures create to help people think, communicate, and solve problems-for example: a culture’s language, writing system or counting system. How Development Occurs For Vygotsky, learning involves the acquisition of signs by means of information from others and deliberate teaching. Development occurs as the child internalizes these signs so as to be able to think and solve problems without the help of others, an ability called self-regulation. The first step in the development of self-regulation and independent thinking is learning that actions and sounds have a meaning. PRIVATE SPEECH: Vygotsky proposed that children incorporate the speech of others and then use that speech to help themselves solve problems. ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT: This term describes tasks that a child cannot yet accomplish alone but could accomplish with the assistance of more competent peers or adults. MEDIATION: The process of older children and adults helping learners by explaining, modeling, or breaking down complex skills, knowledge or concepts. SCAFFOLDING: The assistance provided by more competent peers or adults. COOPERATIVE LEARNING: Vygotsky’s theories support the use of cooperative learning strategies in which children work together to help one another learn. a. Learned task b. Assisted learning at zone of proximal development Figure 2.4 • teaching model Based on Vygotsky’s theory In (a), the child performs a learned task; in (b), the child is assisted by a teacher or peer who interacts with the child to help him move into a new zone of proximal development ( unlearned tasks at limits of learner’s abilities) with a new learned task. How Did Bronfenbrenner View Development? The focus of Bronfenbrenner’s model is on the social and institutional influences on a child’s development including: family, schools, churches, and neighborhoods. broader social and political influences such as mass media and government. Bronfenbrenner’s main contribution was in showing how development is influenced at each of the levels. The importance of the bioecological approach is in emphasizing the interconnectedness of the many factors that influence a child’s development. MICROSYSTEM Child Extended family Neighborhood play area Day-care center Peers Doctor’s office Church, synagogue, mosque Family School Neighbors Legal services School board Community health and welfare services Workplace Mass media Friends of family MACROSYSTEM Broad ideology, laws, and customs of one’s culture, subculture, or social class EXOSYSTEM MESOSYSTEM F2.5 • Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological theory , How Do Language and Literacy Develop? Although there are individual differences in the rates at which children acquire language abilities, the sequence of accomplishments is similar for all children. ORAL LANGUAGE: Development of oral language, or spoken language, requires not only learning words but also learning the rules of word and sentence construction. READING: Learning to read in the early elementary grades is one of the most important of all developmental tasks. EMERGENT LITERACY: preschoolers’ knowledge and skills related to reading. WRITING: Children’s writing also follows a developmental sequence and emerges out of early scribbles that are spread randomly across a page. How Do Language and Literacy Develop During the Elementary and Secondary Years? Language and literacy develop at a rapid rate for children in the elementary and secondary grades. Researchers estimate that the average student adds 3,000 words each year to his or her vocabulary. The emphasis in the early elementary grades is primarily on decoding and fluency. Students from second grade onward use strategies such as predicting, reviewing, summarizing, and generating their own questions. Directly teaching these strategies to students improves comprehension. THEORY INTO PRACTICE Research on strategies for increasing vocabulary finds that vocabulary building should be a focus throughout the school day: Get students excited about words. Encourage students to read, especially on topics of interest. Teach selected words that are both frequently used and broadly useful. Give students many opportunities to use new vocabulary words in their own writing, conversation and language. Use cooperative learning methods in which students have regular opportunities to study and use new vocabulary. Schemes: Figure 2.1 Stage Approximate Ages Major Accomplishments Sensorimotor Birth to 2 years Formation of concept of “object permanence” and gradual progression from reflexive behavior to goal-directed behavior. Preoperational 2 to 7 years Development of the ability to use symbols to represent objects in the world. Thinking remains egocentric and centered. Concrete operational 7 to 11 years Improvement in ability to think logically. New abilities include the use of operations that are reversible. Thinking is decentered, and problem solving is less restricted by egocentrism. Abstract thinking is not possible. Formal operational 11 years to adulthood Abstract and purely symbolic thinking is possible. Problems can be solved through the use of systematic experimentation.