Chapter 12- Middle Childhood: Cognitive Development
Piaget and School-Age Children
Concrete operational thought- the ability to reason logically about direct experiences and perceptions.
Classification- things can be organized into groups (or categories or classes) according to some characteristic they share.
The research does not confirm a sudden shift between preoperational and concrete operational thought.
School-age children can use mental categories and subcategories more flexibly, inductively, and simultaneously than younger children.
Building on Theory
Vygotsky and School-Age Children
Vygotsky regarded instruction as essential.
Children are "apprentices in learning" as they play with each other, watch television, eat dinner with their families, and engage in other daily interactions.
Language is integral as a mediator, a vehicle for understanding and learning.
International Contexts
Vygotsky believed that cultures teach
children’s understanding of arithmetic depends on context
culture affects the methods of learning
Information Processing
Like computers people take in information and then:
−seek specific units of information
−analyze the information
−express their conclusions
The brain’s gradual growth confirms the information-processing perspective.
Requires memory
Memory
Working memory- Current, conscious mental activity occurs. (Also called short-term memory.)
Long-term memory- Virtually limitless amounts of information can be stored indefinitely.
Working memory improves steadily and significantly every year from age 4 to 15 years.
The capacity of long-term memory is virtually limitless by the end of middle childhood.
Memory storage (how much information is deposited in the brain) expands over childhood, but more important is retrieval (how readily stored material can be brought into working memory).
Metacognition- "Thinking about thinking"; the ability to evaluate a cognitive task in order to determine how best to accomplish it, and then to monitor and adjust one’s performance on that task.
Knowledge base- a body of knowledge in a certain area that makes it easier to master new information in that area
Language
By age 6, children know most of the basic vocabulary and grammar of their first language, and many speak a second or even a third language.
Some school-age children learn as many as 20 new words a day and apply grammar rules they did not use before.
Adjusting Vocabulary to the Context
Pragmatics- the practical use of language that includes the ability to adjust language communication according to audience and context.
This advances quite a bit in middle childhood.
Differences in Language Learning
Family poverty
Research shows a strong correlation between academic achievement and socioeconomic status
− language exposure
− adult expectations
Teaching and Learning
Differences by nation:
literacy & math are valued everywhere
curriculum varies by nation & community
evident in results of tests, subjects taught & power of parents, teachers, etc.
Hidden curriculum- The implicit rules and priorities that influence the academic curriculum and every other aspect of learning in school
Teaching and Learning
Learning a Second Language
Immersion - all subjects are taught in the child’s second language
Bilingual schooling- Subjects are taught in the child’s original and second languages
ESL- children who do not speak English are taught together in an intensive class to learn basic English so they can be mainstreamed later
Teaching and Learning
Religious education: in some nations, public schools teach religion; in others, it is only in private schools
No Child Left Behind Act (2001): a U.S. law intended to increase accountability in education by having states qualify for federal money based on standardized tests
Who Determines Educational Practice?
Charter schools - funded and licensed by states or districts and private sponsors, run as a public school but has its own standards.
Voucher - allows parents to choose the school for the child (private or public) with all or part of the cost being paid by the local government