Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood Chapter 9 from

Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood Chapter 9 from page 299

Piaget’s Theory: The Concrete Operational Stage �Concrete operational stage �Extends from about age 7 to 11 years �Marks a major turning point in cognitive development �Thought is much more logical, flexible, and organized than it was at earlier ages

Concrete Operational Thought: Conservation � The ability to pass conservation tasks provides clear evidence of operations �Operations – mental actions that obey logical rules � Children at this stage are capable of decentration �Decentration – the ability to focus on several aspects of a problem at once and relate them to one another �Ex. Recognizing that when 1 of 2 identical glasses of water is poured into a shorter wider container, that the amounts are still the same because even though it is now shorter, the width of the container makes up for the loss in height � They also demonstrate reversibility �Reversibility – the ability to go through a series of steps in a problem and then mentally reverse them and return to the starting point

Concrete Operational Thought: Classification � Between ages 7 and 10 children pass Piaget’s class inclusion problem � This indicates greater awareness of classification hierarchies � They can focus on relations between a general category and two specific categories at the same time �That is, on three relationships at once � Ex. Children can now understand that there are more “flowers” than “yellow flowers” because both blue and yellow flowers fall under the category of “flowers”

Concrete Operational Thought: Seriation � Seriation – the ability to order items along a quantitative dimension, such as length, weight, or height � To test for seriation, Piaget asked children to arrange sticks of different lengths from shortest to longest �Older preschoolers can put the sticks in a row, but they do so haphazardly, making many errors �But, 6 -7 year olds create the series efficiently, moving in an orderly sequence from the smallest stick, to the next largest, and so on � Concrete operational children are also capable of transitive inferences �Transitive inference – the ability to seriate mentally �This requires children to integrate multiple relationships at once �Ex. Piaget showed children parings of sticks of different colors �From observing that stick A is longer than stick B and that stick B is longer than stick C, children must infer that stick A is also longer than stick C

Concrete Operational Thought: Spatial Reasoning � School-age children’s understanding of space is more accurate than that of preschoolers � Evident from children’s cognitive maps – mental representations of familiar large-scale spaces, such as their neighborhood �Drawing a map of a large-scale space requires considerable perspective-taking skill because the entire space cannot be seen at once, children must infer its overall layout by relating its separate parts �Around ages 8 -10, children’s maps become better organized, showing landmarks along an organized route of travel �At the same time children become able to give clear, wellorganized instructions for getting from one place to another by using a “mental walk” strategy � “Mental walk” strategy – imagining another person’s movements along a route � By the end of middle childhood, children form an overall view of a large-scale space

Limitations of Concrete Operational Thought � Children at the concrete operational stage think in an organized, logical fashion only when dealing with concrete information that they can perceive directly � Their mental operations work poorly with abstract ideas that are not apparent in the real world � Ex. When shown the pairs of different size sticks, children are able to infer that stick A was longer than stick C, but they have considerable difficulty with a hypothetical version of the problem: “Susan is taller than Sally, and Sally is taller than Mary. Who is the tallest? ” � Children are not able to solve this problem until ages 11 -12 � School-age children master Piaget’s concrete operational tasks step by step � They work out the logic of each problem separately instead of coming up with general logical principles that they can apply globally � Ex. Children usually grasp conservation of number first, followed by conservation of length, liquid, and mass, and then weight � Rather than learning a general “conservation” principle, they figure out the logic of each problem individually

Follow-Up Research on Concrete Operational Thought �According to Piaget, brain development combined with experience should lead children everywhere to reach the concrete operational stage at about the same time �But, recent evidence indicates that specific cultural and educational practices have much to do with children’s mastery of Piagetian tasks �Information-processing research helps explain the gradual mastery of logical concepts in middle childhood

Follow-Up Research: The Impact of Culture and Schooling � In tribal and village societies, where children rarely attend school, even the most basic conservation tasks are often delayed until age 11 or later �This suggests that taking part in relevant everyday activities (like sorting your crayons by color or pouring your own glass of juice) helps children master conservation and other Piagetian problems �Specifically, the experience of going to school seems to promote master of Piagetian tasks � Based on the differences between cultures, some researchers have concluded that the forms of logic required by Piagetian tasks do not emerge spontaneously �Rather, they are heavily influenced by training, context, and cultural conditions

Follow-Up Research: Information Processing View � Some neo-Piagetian theorists argue that the development of operational thinking can best be understood in terms of gains in information-processing speed rather than a sudden shift to a new stage � With practice, cognitive schemes demand less attention and become more automatic � This frees up space in working memory so children can focus on combining old schemes and generating new ones � Ex. A child who sees water poured from one glass to another recognizes that the height of the liquid changes � As this understanding becomes routine, the child notices that the width of the water also changes � Soon children coordinate these observations, and develop conservation of liquid � As this logical idea becomes well-practiced, the child transfers it to more demanding situations � Once the schemes of a Piagetian stage are sufficiently automatic, enough working memory is available to integrate them into an improved representation � Allowing children to acquire central conceptual structures – broadly applicable principles that result in increasingly complex,

Evaluation of the Concrete Operational Stage � Disagreement continues over whether children’s cognitive development occurs as continuous improvement in logical skills or as discontinuous restructuring of children’s thinking, as Piaget’s stage idea assumes � Many researchers think that both types of change may be involved � In the school years, children apply logical schemes to many more tasks �In the process, their thought seems to undergo qualitative change, toward a comprehensive grasp of the underlying principles of logical thought � A blend of Piagetian and information-processing ideas holds the greatest promise for understanding cognitive development in middle childhood

Information Processing Perspective � Focuses on separate aspects of thinking rather than overall cognitive change �Attention and memory, which underlie every act of cognition are central concerns in middle childhood �Advances in metacognition and opportunities for self-regulation aid in development � Researchers believe that brain development contributes to basic changes in information processing that facilitate diverse aspects of thinking �Increases in information-processing speed and capacity – time needed to process information on a wide variety of cognitive tasks declines rapidly between ages 6 -12 � Suggests a biologically based gain in speed of thinking, possibly due to myelination and synaptic pruning in the brain � Faster thinkers can hold on to and operate on more information in working memory �Gains in inhibition – the ability to control internal and external distracting stimuli improves � Strides in inhibition occur in middle childhood possibly due to further development of the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex � Inhibition can prevent an individuals mind from straying to irrelevant thoughts, which supports many information-processing skills by preserving space in

Information-Processing: Attention � In middle childhood, attention becomes more selective, adaptable, and planful � Between ages 6 -10, children become better at deliberately attending to just those aspects of a situation that are relevant to their goals � Researchers study this by introducing irrelevant stimuli into a task and seeing how well children attend to its central elements � Older children can flexibly adapt their attention to task requirements � When asked to sort cards with pictures that vary in both color and shape, children age 5 and older can switch their basis of sorting from color to shape when asked to do so � Planning improves greatly in middle childhood � School-age children scan detailed pictures and written materials for similarities and differences more thoroughly than preschoolers � On tasks with many parts, they make decisions about what to do first and what to do next in an orderly fashion � Some children have great difficulty paying attention � Learning and behavior problems sometimes can be attributed to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Information-Processing: Memory Strategies � Memory strategies are deliberate mental activities we use to store and retain information � Rehearsal – involves repeating information to oneself � First memory strategy, appears in the early grade school years � Ex. Repeating each state’s capitol over and over again � Organization – grouping together related items � Second strategy to appear, increases recall dramatically � Ex. Remembering all state capitols in a specific region of the country � Elaboration – creating a relation between two or more items that are not members of the same category � Appears by the end of middle childhood, is highly effective techniques and requires considerable effort and space in working memory � Ex. If two words on a list to be remembered are “fish” and “pipe, ” a child might generate the verbal statement or mental image “the fish is smoking a pipe. ” � Gains in organization and elaboration permit older children to combine items into more meaningful chunks, allowing them to retain more information and further expand working memory � Additionally, when children link a new item to information they already know, they can retrieve it easily by thinking of associated items

The Knowledge Base and Memory Performance � During middle childhood, children’s long-term knowledge base grows larger and is organized into increasingly elaborate, hierarchically structured networks � Knowing more about a topic makes new information more meaningful and familiar so it is easier to store and retrieve � In one study, children were 4 th graders were classified as either experts or novices in knowledge of soccer and then gave both groups lists of soccer and nonsoccer items to learn � Kids in the expert group remembered far more items on the soccer lists, but not on the nonsoccer list, than kids in the novice groups � During recall, experts’ listing of items was better organized, indicated by clustering of items into categories � This better organization at retrieval suggests that highly knowledgeable children organize information in their area of expertise with little or no effort � Academically unsuccessful children fail to make use of previously stored information to clarify new material � By the end of the school years, extensive knowledge and use of memory strategies support one another

Culture, Schooling, and Memory Strategies � Memory strategies are usually used to remember information for its own sake � On many other occasions, memory occurs as a natural byproduct of participation in daily activities � People in non-Western cultures who lack formal schooling do not use or benefit from instruction in memory strategies because they see no practical reason to use these techniques � Tasks that require children to recall isolated bits of information, which are common in classrooms, strongly motivate use of memory strategies � In fact, Western children get so much practice doing this that they do not refine techniques relying on cues available in everyday life, such as spatial location and arrangement of objects � Ex. Guatemalan Mayan 9 year olds do better than their North American agemates when asked to remember the placement of 40 familiar objects in a play scene � North American children often rehearse object names when it would be more effective to keep track of spatial relations � The development of memory strategies, then, is not just a product of a more competent information-processing system � It also depends on task demands and cultural circumstances

The School-Age Child’s Theory of Mind � Theory of mind (metacognition) – set of ideas about mental activities – becomes more elaborate and refined during middle childhood � Unlike preschoolers, who view the mind as a passive container of information, older children regard it as an active, constructive agent that selects and transforms information � They have a much better understanding of cognitive processes and the impact of psychological factors on performance � Ex. They know that doing well on a task depends on focusing attention, concentrating, and exerting effort � School-age children realize that people can extend their knowledge not only directly but also by making mental inferences � An understanding that enables knowledge of false belief to expand, bringing a greater understanding of others’ perspectives � They are better able to pinpoint the reasons that another person arrived at a certain belief � Experiences that foster awareness of mental activities, such as teachers asking children to pay attention, also contribute to children’s more reflective, process-oriented view of mind

Cognitive Self-Regulation � School-age children are not yet good at cognitive self- regulation �Cognitive self-regulation – the process of continuously monitoring progress toward a goal, checking outcomes, and redirecting unsuccessful efforts �Ex. A child may know that she should group items when memorizing and that she should reread a complicated paragraph to make sure she understands, but she probably doesn’t do this all the time � Because monitoring learning outcomes is cognitively demanding, it develops gradually �By adolescence, self-regulation is a strong predictor of academic success � Parents and teachers can foster self-regulation �Particularly by explaining the effectiveness of strategies � Children who acquire effective self-regulatory skills develop a sense of academic self-efficacy �Academic self-efficacy – confidence in their own abilities � Negative messages from parents and teachers can undermine children’s academic self-esteem and self-regulatory skills

Applications of Information Processing to Academic Learning �Fundamental discoveries about the development of information processing have been applied to children’s learning of reading and mathematics �Researchers are identifying the cognitive ingredients of skilled performance, tracing their development, and pinpointing differences in cognitive skills between good and poor readers �They hope to design teaching methods that will improve children’s learning

Applications of Information Processing: Reading � Reading taxes all aspects of our information- processing systems, making use of many skills at once �We must perceive single letters and letter combinations, translate them into speech sounds, recognize the visual appearance of many common words, hold chunks of text in working memory while interpreting their meaning, and combine the meanings of various parts of a text passage into an understandable whole � Because reading is so demanding, most or all of these skills must be done automatically �If one or more are poorly developed, they will compete for space in our limited working memories, and reading performance will decline

Applications of Information Processing: Reading �As children make the transition from emergent literacy to conventional reading, phonological awareness continues to facilitate their progress �Other information-processing activities also contribute �Gains in processing speed foster children’s rapid conversion of visual symbols into sounds �Visual scanning and discrimination are also important and improve with reading experience �Performing all these skills efficiently releases working memory for higher-level activities involved in comprehending the text’s meaning

Applications of Information Processing: Reading � Until recently, researchers were involved in an intense debate over the best way to teach beginning reading �Proponents of a whole-language approach, argued that reading should be taught in a way that parallels children’s natural language learning � From the beginning, children should be exposed to text in its complete form – stories, poems, letters, posters, and lists – so that they can appreciate the communicative function of written language � According to this view as long as reading is kept whole and meaningful, children will be motivated to discover the specific skills they need �Others favored a phonics approach, in which children were first coached on phonics – the basic rules for translating written symbols into sounds � Only after mastering these skills should children get complex reading material � Many studies show that children learn best with a mixture of both approaches

Applications of Information Processing: Mathematics � Over the early elementary school years, children acquire basic math facts through a combination of frequent practice, experimentation with diverse computational procedures, reasoning about number concepts, and teaching that conveys effective strategies �Ex. When 1 st graders realize that regardless of the order in which 2 sets of numbers are combined (ex. 2+6=8 and 6+2=8), they yield the same result, they more often start with the higher digit (6) and count up, which minimizes the work involved � Arguments over how to teach mathematics resemble those about reading, pitting drill in computing against “number sense” or understanding �Again a blend of both is most beneficial, encouraging students to apply strategies and making sure they understand why certain strategies work well are essential for solid mastery of basic math �Ex. Students greatly benefit when they realize that multiplication problems involving 2 (8 x 2) are equivalent to addition doubles (8+8)

Individual Differences in Mental Development �Around age 6, IQ becomes more stable than it was at earlier ages, and it correlates moderately well with academic achievement, typically around. 50 to. 60 �Children with higher IQs are more likely when they grow up to attain higher levels of education and enter more prestigious occupations �Because IQ predicts school performance and educational attainment, it often enters into educational decisions �Do intelligence test accurately assess the school-age child’s ability to profit from academic instruction? = controversial issue

Defining and Measuring Intelligence � Virtually all intelligence tests provide an overall score (IQ) which represents general intelligence, or reasoning ability, and an array of separate scores measuring specific mental abilities �But, intelligence is a collection of many capacities, not all of which are included on currently available tests � Test designers use a complicated statistical technique called factor analysis to identify various abilities that intelligence tests measure �Identifies which sets of test items cluster together, meaning that test-takers who do well on one item in a cluster tend to do well on the others �Distinct clusters are called factors, each of which represents an ability

Defining and Measuring Intelligence � Group-administered tests permit large numbers of pupils to be tested at once and are useful for instructional planning �Usually given to classrooms as a whole �Teachers need little training to administer them �Can identify children who require more extensive evaluation � Individually administered tests are used for more extensive evaluation of children �Require considerable training and experience to be given well �The examiner considers both the child’s answers and behavior and notes reactions such as attention to and interest in the tasks �These observations give insight into whether the test results accurately reflect the child’s abilities �Examples include the Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler, which are used to identify highly intelligent children and to diagnose children with learning problems

Defining and Measuring Intelligence � The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, 5 th Edition �For individuals from age 2 to adulthood �Assesses general intelligence and 5 intellectual factors: knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, working memory, and basic information processing (such as speed of analyzing information) �Each factor includes both a verbal and a nonverbal mode of testing, yielding 10 subtests in all �The knowledge and quantitative reasoning factors emphasize culturally loaded, fact-oriented information, such as vocabulary and arithmetic problems �But the visual-spatial processing, working-memory, and basic information processing factors are assumed to be less culturally biased because they require little specific information

Defining and Measuring Intelligence � The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV), 4 th Edition �The 1 st test to be standardized on children representing the total population of the U. S. , including ethnic minorities �Widely used for 6 -16 year olds �Measures general intelligence and 4 broad factors: verbal reasoning, perceptual (or visual-spatial) reasoning, working memory , and processing speed �Each factor is made up of 2 or 3 subtests, yielding 10 separate scores in all �Was designed to downplay culturally dependent knowledge, which is emphasized on only 1 factor, verbal reasoning �According to the test designers, the result is the most “culture -fair” intelligence test available

Recent Efforts to Define Intelligence � Some researchers combine the mental testing approach with the information-processing approach �Believe that once we identify the processing skills that separate those who test well from those who test poorly, we will know more about how to intervene to improve performance �They conduct componential analyses of children’s mental test scores � To look for relationships between components of information processing, such as basic working-memory capacity and children’s scores � Ex. Measures of basic working-memory such as digit span, correlate highly with mental test scores �Major problem with the componential approach: it regards intelligence as entirely due to causes within the child � Disregarding cultural and situational factors that are known to affect children’s thinking

Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Successful Intelligence �Triarchic theory of successful intelligence expands the componential approach into a comprehensive theory that regards intelligence as a product of both inner and outer forces �Identifies 3 broad, interacting intelligences: �Analytical intelligence – information processing skills �Creative intelligence – capacity to solve novel problems �Practical intelligence – application of intellectual skills in everyday situations �Intelligent behavior involves balancing all three intelligences to achieve success in life according to one’s personal goals and the requirements of one’s cultural community

Triarchic Theory: Analytical Intelligence �Consists of the information-processing components that underlie all intelligent acts: �Applying strategies, acquiring task-relevant and metacognitive knowledge, and engaging in selfregulation �However, on mental tests, processing skills are used in only a few of their potential ways, resulting in far too narrow view of intelligent behavior �Ex. Children in tribal and village societies do not necessarily perform well on measures of “school” knowledge but excel when processing information in out-of-school situations that most Westerners would find highly challenging

Triarchic Theory: Creative Intelligence �In any context, success depends not only on processing familiar information but also on generating useful solutions to new problems �People who are creative think more skillfully than others when faced with novelty �Given a new task, they apply their information- processing skills in exceptionally effective ways, rapidly making these skills automatic so that working memory is freed for more complex aspects of the situation �Consequently, they quickly move to high-level performance �Although all of us are capable of some creativity, only a few individuals excel at generating novel situations

Triarchic Theory: Practical Intelligence � Intelligence is a practical goal-oriented activity aimed at adapting to, shaping, or selecting environments � Intelligent people skillfully adapt their thinking to fit with both their desires and the demands of their everyday worlds � When they cannot adapt to a situation, they try to shape, or change, it to meet their needs � If they cannot shape it, they select new contexts that better match their skills, values, or goals � Practical intelligence reminds us that intelligent behavior is never culture-free � Children with certain life histories do well at the behavior required for success on intelligence tests and adapt easily to the testing conditions � Others, with different backgrounds, may misinterpret or reject the testing context � Yet such children often display sophisticated abilities in daily life � Ex. Telling stories, engaging in complex artistic activities, or interacting skillfully with other people can help children better adapt to testing conditions, which allows them to achieve higher scores

Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Successful Intelligence � Triarchic theory highlights the complexity of intelligent behavior and the limitations of current intelligence tests in assessing that complexity � Out-of-school, practical forms of intelligence are vital for life success and help explain why cultures vary widely in the behaviors they regard as intelligent �Ex. Researchers asked ethnically diverse parents to describe an intelligent 1 st grader �Caucasian Americans mentioned cognitive traits �Ethnic minorities (Cambodian, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Mexican immigrants) identified noncognitive capacities: motivation, self-management, and social skills � According to Sternberg, mental tests can easily underestimate, and even overlook, the intellectual strengths of some children, especially ethnic minorities

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences � Theory of multiple intelligences defines intelligence in terms of distinct sets of processing operations that permit individuals to engage in a wide range of culturally valued activities � Dismisses the idea of general intelligence � Proposes at least 8 independent intelligences (listed in table 9. 1, pg. 311 in text) � Gardner believes that each intelligence has a unique biological basis, a distinct course of development, and different expert, or “end-state, ” performances � Also emphasized that a lengthy process of education is required to transform any raw potential into a mature social role � Cultural values and learning opportunities affect the extent to which a child’s intellectual strengths are realized and the ways they are expressed � However, Gardner’s list of abilities has yet to be firmly grounded in research and neurological evidence for the independence of these abilities is weak � Still, Gardner’s theory highlights abilities not measured by intelligence tests (such as interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences)

Explaining Individual and Group Differences in IQ � When we compare academic achievement, years of education, and occupational status, it quickly becomes clear that some sectors of the population are advantaged over others � In trying to explain these differences, researchers have compared the IQ scores of ethnic minorities and SES groups �African American children score, on average, 12 -13 IQ points below white American children, although the difference has been shrinking �Hispanic children fall midway between black and white children � The IQ gap between middle-SES and low-SES (about 9 points) accounts for some, but not all, of the ethnic differences �When black and white children are matched on parental education and income, the IQ gap is reduced by 1/3 – 1/2 � In the 1970 s, the IQ nature-nurture debate drastically escalated after the publication of a book stating that heredity is largely responsible for variations in intelligence

Nature Versus Nurture � Based on evidence from kinship studies, which compare family members, especially twins, researchers estimate that about ½ of the differences in IQ among children is due to genetic makeup � However, because heritabilities risk overestimating genetic influences and underestimating environmental influences, disagreement continues over how large the role of heredity really is � Adoption studies offer a wider range of information �Findings consistently show that when young children are adopted into caring, stimulating homes, their IQs rise substantially compared with the IQs of nonadopted children who remain in economically deprived families � 2 adoption studies have found that African-American children adopted into well-off homes during the 1 st year of life scored very high on intelligence test (mean IQs of 110 -117, 20 -30 points above means for African-Americans living in poverty) �This indicates that poverty severely depresses the intelligence of large numbers of ethnic minorities

Cultural Influences �A controversial issue is whether or not ethnic differences in IQ are due to test bias �Experts disagree over whether intelligence tests are biased �Ethnic groups may not have equal opportunity to be exposed to information on the tests and the testing situation may impair the performance of some but not others �Some experts reject that the tests are biased, claiming that because IQ predicts academic achievement equally well for majority and minority children, IQ tests are fair to all groups �Others believe that lack of exposure to certain communication styles and knowledge, along with negative stereotypes about the test-taker’s ethnic

Cultural Influences: Communication Styles � Ethnic minority families often foster unique language skills that do not match the expectations of most classrooms and testing situations � In one study, a researcher spent many hours observing in low. SES black homes in a southeastern U. S. city �Found that African-American parents rarely asked their children the knowledge training questions typical of middle-SES white parents and of tests and classrooms � Ex. “what color is it? ” “What’s this story about? ” �Instead, they asked only “real” questions, ones they themselves could not answer � Often these questions were analogies (“What’s that look like to you? ”) or story-starter questions (“Did ya hear Miss Sally this morning? What did she tell you? ”), these types of questions call for elaborate responses about everyday evens and have no “right” answer � These experiences lead low-SES children to develop complex verbal skills at home � As a result, children may learn to communicate emotional and social concerns more than facts and may be confused by the “objective” questions found on tests

Cultural Influences: Test Content � Many researchers argue that IQ scores are affected by specific information acquired as part of a majority-culture upbringing �Consistent with this view, low-SES children often miss vocabulary words on mental tests that have alternative meanings in their cultural community � Ex. Interpreting the word frame as “physique” of an individual rather than a type of border or something that holds a picture �Toys such as blocks and video games increase children’s success on spatial tasks, however, low-SES minority children often grow up in more “people-oriented” than “object-oriented” homes and may lack the toys that promote certain intellectual skills �Also, just the amount of time a child spends in school predicts IQ � Thus, exposure to the factual knowledge and ways of thinking valued in classrooms has a sizable impact on children’s intelligence test performance

Cultural Influences: Stereotypes � Stereotype threat – the fear of being judged on the basis of a negative stereotype � Can trigger anxiety that interferes with test performance � Researchers gave African-American, Hispanic-American, and Caucasian-American 6 -10 year olds verbal tasks � Some children were told that the tasks were “not a test” and others were told they were “a test of how good children are at school problems” � Among children who were aware of ethnic stereotypes, African American and Hispanic American children performed far worse in the “test” condition than in the “not a test” condition � In contrast, Caucasian American children performed similarly in both conditions � Over middle childhood, children (especially those from stigmatized groups) become increasingly conscious of ethnic stereotypes � By junior high school, many low-SES minority students start to say that doing well in school is not important to them � Self-protective disengagement, sparked by stereotype threat, may be responsible � This weakening of motivation can have serious, long-term consequences

Reducing Cultural Bias in Testing � Many experts acknowledge that IQ scores can underestimate the intelligence of culturally different children �There is special concern about incorrectly labeling minority children as slow learners, after which they are placed in remedial classes which provide a less stimulating environment � Culturally relevant testing procedures enhance minority children’s test performance �Dynamic assessment – a innovative testing approach which is consistent with Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, the adult introduces purposeful teaching into the testing situation to see what the child can attain with social support �Children’s receptiveness to teaching and capacity to transfer what they have learned to novel problems contribute substantially to gains in test performance

Reducing Cultural Bias in Testing �But rather than adapting testing to support ethnic minority children’s learning needs, North American education is placing greater emphasis on traditional test scores �With the advent of the high-stakes testing movement that requires satisfactory test performance for progress through school �This emphasis on standardized testing has narrowed the focus of instruction (only teaching what’s on the test) and may widen SES and ethnic differences in educational attainment �Testing remains important to aid educational decisions, but intelligence tests need to be

Language Development �Vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics continue to develop in middle childhood �Although less obviously than at earlier ages �Additionally, school-age children’s attitude toward language under goes a fundamental shift �They develop language awareness �Schooling contributes greatly to these language competencies �Reflecting on language is extremely common during reading instruction �Fluent reading is major new source of language learning

Vocabulary � In the elementary school years, children learn about 20 new words a day, and vocabulary increases fourfold � Children continue to benefit from conversation with more expert speakers, especially when their partners use complex words and explain them � Reading contributes enormously to vocabulary growth �Children who engage in as little as 21 mins of independent reading per day are exposed to nearly 2 million words per year � School-age children think about and use words more precisely than preschoolers �Ex. In addition to the verb fall, they also use topple, tumble, and plummet � As school-age children learn to grasp the double meanings of some words, they develop an understanding of metaphors and of riddles and puns �Ex. “the refrigerator keeps food cool. ” and “what a cool shirt!” �Ex. “sharp as a tack” and “spilling the beans”

Grammar �Mastery of complex grammatical constructions improves in middle childhood �Ex. English-speaking children use the passive voice more frequently, and they more often extend it from an abbreviated form (“It broke. ”) into full statements (“The glass was broken by Mary. ”) �During middle childhood children also develop an advanced understanding of infinitive phrases �Ex. The difference between “John is eager to please. ” and “John is easy to please. ” �Appreciation of subtle grammatical distinctions is supported by an improved ability to analyze and reflect on language

Pragmatics � Improvements in pragmatics (the communicative side of language) occur as children’s conversational strategies become more refined � Children’s narratives increase in organization, detail, and expressiveness �A typical 4 -5 year old’s narrative states what happened � Ex. “Went to the lake. We fished and waited. Paul caught a huge catfish. ” � 6 -7 year olds include orienting information (time, place, and participants) and connections that give coherence to the story (“next, ” “then, ” “so, ” “finally”) �Gradually narratives lengthen into a classic form in which events not only build to a high point, but also resolve � Ex. “After Paul reeled in the catfish, Dad cleaned and cooked it. Then we at it all up!” �Evaluative comments rise dramatically, becoming common by age 8 -9 � Ex. “The catfish tasted great. Paul was so proud!” � Because children pick up the narrative styles of significant adults in their lives, their narrative forms vary widely across cultures

Learning in School �Schools are vital forces in children’s cognitive development �How does school exert such a powerful influence? �Factors include: �Class size �Educational philosophies �Teacher-student relationships �Larger cultural context

Class Size � Smaller class sizes are most beneficial � Teachers spend less time disciplining and more time teaching and giving individual attention � Children who learn in smaller groups show better concentration, higher-quality class participation, and more favorable attitudes toward school � In one study, more than 6, 000 Tennessee kindergartners were randomly assigned to 3 class types, in which they remained until 3 rd grade � Small – 13 -17 students � Regular – 22 -25 students � Regular with a teacher plus a full-time teacher’s aide � Results � Small-class students (especially ethnic minority children) scored higher in reading and math achievement each year � Placing teacher’s aides in regular-size classes had NO impact � Being in small classes from kindergarten through 3 rd grade predicted substantially higher achievement from 4 th-9 th grades, even after children had returned to regular-size classes � Smaller class size also predicted greater likelihood of graduating from high school

Educational Philosophies �Each teacher brings an educational philosophy to the classroom, which plays a major role in children’s learning � 2 philosophies have received the most research attention �Traditional vs. Constructivist �They differ in what children are taught, the way they are believed to learn, and how their progress is evaluated

Traditional Versus Constructivist � Traditional – teachers are the sole authority for knowledge, rules, and decision making and does most of the talking �Students are relatively passive – listening, responding when called on, and completing teacher-assigned tasks �Students progress is evaluated by how well they keep pace with a uniform set of standards for their grade � Constructivist – encourages students to construct their own knowledge �Many are grounded in Piaget’s theory, that views children as active agents who reflect on and coordinate their own thoughts rather than absorbing those of others �Constructivist classrooms provide richly equipped learning centers and allow small groups and individuals to engage in problem solving �Students are evaluated in terms of their progress in relation to their own prior development

Traditional Versus Constructivist �In the U. S. , the pendulum has swung back and forth between traditional and constructivist views �Older elementary school children in traditional classrooms score slightly higher in achievement tests �But, constructivist classrooms are associated with many benefits such as gains in critical thinking, academic motivation, social and moral maturity, and positive attitudes toward school �In preschool and kindergarten, teacher-directed instruction undermines academic motivation and achievement, especially in low-SES children

New Philosophical Directions �New approaches are grounded in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory �Capitalize on the rich social context of the classroom to spur children’s learning �Social-constructivist classrooms �Children participate in a wide range of challenging activities with teachers and peers, with whom they jointly construct understandings �As children acquire knowledge and strategies from working together, they become competent, contributing members of their classroom and advance in cognitive and social development

New Philosophical Directions � Important themes in social-constructivist classrooms include: �Teachers and children are partners in learning � A classroom rich in both teacher-child and child-child collaboration transfers culturally valued ways of thinking to children �Children experience many types of symbolic communication in meaningful activities � As children master reading, writing, and mathematics, they become aware of their culture’s communication systems, reflect on their own thinking, and bring communication and thoughts under voluntary control �Teaching is adapted to each child’s zone of proximal development � Assistance that both responds to current understandings and encourages children to take the next step helps ensure that each child makes the best progress possible � According to Vygotsky, more expert peers can spur children’s learning �Evidence confirms that this approach is effective in the context of cooperative learning – in which small groups of classmates work toward common goals

Teacher-Student Interaction �In classrooms where teachers are caring, helpful, and stimulating, children make gains in motivation, achievement, and positive peer relations �But, too many U. S. teachers emphasize repetitive drill over higher-level thinking, such as grappling with ideas and applying knowledge to new situations �Teachers don’t treat all students the same �Well-behaved, high-achieving students typically get more encouragement and praise �Unruly students have more conflicts with teachers and are criticized more

Teacher-Student Interaction � Unfortunately, once a teachers’ attitudes toward students are established, they can become more extreme than is warranted by students’ behavior �Can lead to an educational self-fulfilling prophecy in which children start to live up to their teachers’ positive or negative views of them �This effect is especially strong when teachers emphasize competition and publicly compare children, regularly favoring the best students � Ex. Posting a list of student accomplishments in the classroom � Inaccurate views held by teachers affect low achievers more than high achievers �When a teacher is critical, high achievers can fall back on their history of success �Low-achieving students’ sensitivity to self-fulfilling prophecies can be beneficial when teachers believe in them, but, biased teacher judgments are usually slanted in a negative direction

Grouping Practices � In many schools, students are assigned to homogeneous groups of classes in which children of similar ability levels are taught together (ex. Reading groups) �This can be a strong source of self-fulfilling prophecies �Low-group students, who as early as 1 st grade are more likely to be low-SES, minority, and male, get more drills on basic facts and skills, engage in less discussion, and progress at a slower pace �Gradually, they decline in self-esteem and motivation �Not surprisingly, homogeneous grouping widens the gap between high and low achievers � Partly because of these findings, some schools have increased the heterogeneity of classrooms by combining 2 or 3 adjacent grades �In these multigrade classrooms, academic achievement, self- esteem, and attitudes toward school are usually more favorable than in single-grade classrooms

Teaching Children with Special Needs �So, we’ve seen that effective teachers flexibly adjust their teaching strategies to accommodate students with a wide range of characteristics �These adjustments are especially challenging when dealing with the very low (children with learning difficulties) and very high (gifted children) ends of the distribution

Children with Learning Difficulties � U. S. legislation mandates that schools place children who require special supports for learning into the “least restrictive” (meaning as close to normal as possible) environments that meet their educational needs � Inclusive classrooms – students with learning difficulties are placed in regular classrooms for all or part of the school day � This practice is designed to prepare them for participation in society and to combat prejudices against individuals with disabilities � Largely as the result of parental pressures, an increasing number of students experience full inclusion – full-time placement in regular classrooms � Some students in inclusive classrooms have mild mental retardation: their IQs fall between 55 -70, and they also show problems in adaptive behavior, or skills in everyday living � But, the largest number have learning disabilities – great difficulty with one or more aspects of learning, usually reading � As a result, their achievement is considerably behind what would be expected on the basis of their IQ

Children with Learning Difficulties � Although some students in inclusive classroom situations benefit academically, many do not � Achievement gains depend on both the severity of the disability and the support services available � Furthermore, children with disabilities are often rejected by regularclassroom peers � Often these children do best when they receive instruction in a resource room for part of the day and regular classroom for the remainder � In the resource room, a special education teacher works with students on an individual and small-group basis � Then, depending on their progress, children join regular classmates for different subjects and amounts of time � Special steps must be taken to promote peer relations in inclusive classrooms � Cooperative learning and peer-tutoring experiences, in which classmates and teachers work together with children with learning difficulties, often lead to friendly interaction, improved peer acceptance, and achievement gains

Gifted Children �Gifted children display exceptional intellectual strengths, including creativity and talent as well as high IQ � 1 or 2 students in every grade have IQ scores above 130, the standard definition of giftedness based on intelligence test performance �High-IQ children have keen memories and exceptional capacity to solve challenging academic problems �Yet recognition that intelligence tests do not sample the entire range of human mental skills has led to an expanded conception of giftedness

Gifted Children: Creativity and Talent � Creativity – the ability to produce work that is original yet appropriate � Something others have not thought of that is useful in some way � Children with high potential for creativity can be designated as gifted � Tests of creative capacity tap divergent thinking – the generation of multiple and unusual possibilities when faced with a task or problem � Divergent thinking contrasts convergent thinking – involves arriving at a single correct answer and is emphasized on intelligence tests � Because highly creative children (like children with high IQs) are often better at some tasks than at others, a variety of tests of divergent thinking are available � Verbal measures might ask children to name uses for common objects � Figural measures might ask them to create drawings based on a particular theme � “real-world-problem” measures require students to suggest solutions to everyday problems � Responses can be scored for the number of ideas generated and their originality � But, critics of these measures point out that they are poor predictors of creative accomplishment in everyday life because they only tap one of the complex cognitive contributions to creativity � Also involved are defining new and important problems, evaluating divergent ideas, choosing the most promising, and calling on relevant knowledge to understand solve problems

Gifted Children: Creativity and Talent � To understand why people usually demonstrate creativity on only one or a few related areas, consider this: � Even individuals designated as gifted by virtue of high IQ often show uneven ability across academic subjects � This is partly why definitions of giftedness have been extended to include talent – outstanding performance in a specific field � Talents usually appear in early childhood, but talents must be nurtured � Parents should be warm and sensitive, provide a stimulating home life, be devoted to developing their child’s abilities, and should also provide models of hard work � These parents should be reasonably demanding but not driving or overambitious and arrange for caring teachers while the child is young and more rigorous master teachers as the talent develops � Many gifted children are socially isolated, partly because their highly driven, nonconforming, and independent styles leave them out of step with their peers and partly because they enjoy solitude � Still, gifted children desire gratifying peer relationships and some (more often girls than boys) try to become better liked by hiding their abilities � Although many talented youths become experts in their fields, few become highly creative, because rapidly mastering an existing field requires different skills than innovating in the field

Educating the Gifted � Debate about the effectiveness of school programs for the gifted typically focuses on factors irrelevant to giftedness � Whether to provide enrichment in regular classrooms, pull children out for special instruction (the most common practice), or advance brighter students to a higher grade � Overall, the extent to which programs foster creativity and talent depends on opportunities to acquire relevant skills � Meaningful activities, each tapping a specific intelligence or set of intelligences, serve as contexts for assessing strengths and weaknesses and, on that basis, teaching new knowledge and original thinking � Ex. Linguistic intelligence might be fostered through storytelling or playwriting � Ex. Spatial intelligence through drawing, sculpting, or taking apart and reassembling objects � Ex. Kinesthetic intelligence through dance, acting, or pantomime � Although evidence is still needed on how effectively these programs nurture children’s talents, they have been successful in highlighting the strengths of some students who had previously been overlooked � Especially talented low-SES and minority children

How Well Educated Are North American Children? � Many factors, both within and outside schools, affect children’s learning (societal values, school resources, quality of teaching, and parental encouragement) � Nowhere are these multiple influences more apparent than when schooling is examined in a cross-cultural perspective � U. S. students fare poorly when their achievement is compared to that of children in other industrialized nations � Studies of reading, mathematics, and science achievement � Internationally: Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are consistently at the top � Among Western nations: Canada, Finland, Netherlands, and Switzerland are in the top tear � Students in the U. S. usually perform at the international average and sometimes below it � Why? � Compared with students in the top-achieving nations, many more U. S. students report studying by memorizing rather than by relating information to previously acquired knowledge � Achievement also varies much more among U. S. schools, reflecting an uneven distribution of quality of education

How Well Educated Are North American Children? � To clarify the factors that support high achievement, research has been conducted on learning environments in Asian nations � Emphasis on effort – where as North American parents and teachers tend to regard natural ability as key to academic success, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese parents and teachers believe that all children can succeed academically with enough effort � Parents devote many more hours to helping children with homework, and children (due to the collectivist values) typically view striving to achieve as a moral obligation to their family and community � High quality education for all – ability grouping is absent from Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese elementary schools; all students receive the same nationally mandated, high-quality education, delivered by teachers who are better paid than in the U. S. � Lessons are well-organized and presented in ways that capture children’s attention, and also encourage high-level thinking � Further, Japanese elementary school teachers are 3 times as likely as U. S. teachers to work outside class with students who need extra help � More time devoted to instruction – in Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, the school year is more than 50 days longer than in the U. S. ; and on a day-to-day basis, Asian teachers devote much more time to academic pursuits but still allow time for recess and field trips � Overall, families, schools, and the larger society must work together to upgrade U. S. education