My ideas and opinions about early childhood
Think about some of the ideas you have about early childhood
Think about some of the opinions you hold about early childhood
Pair up with another person and discuss your thinking
Share with the whole group
Personal and Professional Opinions
What is a professional opinion? What is a personal opinion? It is our obligation to the children and families with
whom we work to base on decisions on professional opinion that is based on solid theory and research.
It is our obligation to leave our personal opinion at home if it is not supported by solid theory and research.
That is what makes us professionals What about other professionals?
Sensorimotor Stage: 0 – 2
Babies learn about the world by gathering information with all their senses
Curiosity is inborn and innate
Babies quickly learn concepts related to size, weight, shape, time, and space
Children in this stage are explorers!
Preoperational Stage: 2 - 7
Preschoolers begin to develop concepts more like adults, but these concepts are still incomplete
Language undergoes rapid growth
Symbolic behaviors emerge
Thinking is characterized by centration, irreversibility, and inability to conserve
Concrete Operational Stage: 7 - 11
Children are becoming conservers
Can make a mental reversal
Can handle abstract symbolic activities
The term concrete is important!
Formal Operational Stage: 11 - adulthood
Children learn to solve problems in a logical and systematic manner
Begin to understand abstract concepts; can solve abstract problems
This stage is not reached by everyone!
Lev Vygotsky
Recognized both developmental and environmental influences
Mental tools – signs Speech Writing Numbering After the age of 2, cultural influences are critical Zone of proximal development Scaffolding
Information Processing
This approach to learning theory arose in the 1960s
Mental hardware and mental software
Information based on Children by Robert V. Kail
Mental hardware
Mental and neural structures that are built-in These structures allow the mind to operate Three components
1. Sensory memory
2. Working memory
3. Long-term memory
Sensory Memory
Input (information) from the environment
Information is held in raw, unanalyzed form very briefly (no longer than a few seconds)
Working Memory
Ongoing cognitive activity
Carpenter’s workbench
Long-Term Memory
Limitless, permanent storehouse of knowledge of the world
Facts Personal events Skills Information is rarely
forgotten, although it might be hard to access
Mental software
Mental programs that are the basis for performing particular tasks
Understanding Searching Comparing Responding
Learning and Information Processing
Infants
Habituation
Classical conditioning
Operant conditioning
Imitation
Memory Preschool years
Attention
Memory
School Age Children
Strategies for remembering