Preoperational Stage
Piaget’s second stage, extending from 2-7, when children undergo an increase in representational or symbolic activity, although thought is not yet logical
Sociodramatic play
make-believe play with others that is under way by the end of the second year and that increases rapidly in complexity during early childhood
Dual Representation
The ability to view a symbolic object as both an object in its own right and a symbol
Egocentrism
Failure to distinguish the symbolic viewpoints of others from one’s own
centration
Piaget - the tendency of preoperational children to focus on one aspect of a situation while neglecting other important features
Irreversibility
The inability to mentally go through a series of steps in a problem and then reverse direction, returning to the starting point
Conservation
The understanding that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when their outward appearance changes
Hierarchical Classification
The organization of objects into classes and subclasses on the basis of similarities and differences
What does a Piagetian Classroom promote?
- Discovery learning
- Sensitivity to children’s readiness to learn
- Acceptance of individual differences
Private Speech
Self-directed speech that children use to plan and guide their own behavior
Intersubjectivity
The process by which two participants who begin a task with different understandings arrive at a shared understanding
Scaffolding
Adjusting the support offered during a teaching session to fit the child’s current performance. As competence increases, the adult gradually and sensitively withdraws support, turning responsibility over to the child
What does a Vygotskian Classroom promote?
- assisted discovery (teacher and peer guidance)
- make-believe play = influential zone of proximal development
Describe young children’s memory
- recognition memory is remarkably accurate
- listlike information memory is poor (less effective use of memory strategies)
Memory Strategies
Deliberate mental activities that improve the likelihood of remembering
Episodic memory
memory for everyday experiences – improves greatly in early childhood
Scripts
General descriptions of what occurs and when it occurs in a particular situation, used to organize, interpret and predict routine experiences
Overlapping Waves Theory
A theory of problem solving, which states that when given challenging problems, children try out various strategies and gradually select those that are fastest and most accurate
metacognition
Thinking about thought; awareness of mental activities – begins in preschool
Are preschoolers good at inferring what other people know or are thinking about?
No; preschoolers regard the mind as a passive container of information
What theory are children with autism impaired in?
theory of mind, including mastery of false belief
False Belief
the ability to understand that other people can have beliefs that are different from reality and their own knowledge (this enhances children’s capacity to reflect on the thoughts and emotions of themselves and others)
emergent literacy
Children’s active efforts to construct literacy knowledge through informal experiences
Phonological Awareness
The ability to reflect on and manipulate the sound structures of spoken language as indicated by sensitivity to changes in sounds within words, to rhyming, and to incorrect pronunciation; strong predictor of emergent literacy
