Paiget outlined four stages of development, the Sensori-motor period, the pre-operational period, the concrete-operational period and the formal-operational period.
Sensory motor stage begins at birth and carries through until two years old. The ages are given as a guide and early years workers should ensure they use them as such and not stick rigidly with the timeframe. During the sensory motor stage children learn through sight and touch and movement. Many play toys involve children laying down and looking at objects hanging above them, this is stimulating sight and encouraging movement from the child in order to reach the hanging objects. From eight to twelve months object permanence comes into play, they are aware an object still exists when out of sight. ( see placement diary March 05 Bridgend nursery) Trial and error are methods from which children learn at this stage.
From two to seven years Piaget believed children enter the pre-operations stage. Language will develop rapidly which enables them to process and present information in more complex ways. This stage can be broken down into two areas, the pre-conceptual stage from two to four sees hearing becoming increasingly important as information is not just collected from visual sources. Symbolic play is put into practice, for example while on placement a child was seen using a wooden peg as the father of the family in the dolls house. She role played a family scenario giving the peg character and used vocal expression. Children can only see things from their own point of view and cannot see others viewpoint. Another interesting aspect at this stage is the child believes every object has a consciousness. Children are often heard saying things like ‘you naughty step you tripped me up’ or ‘naughty table you bumped into me’. It would be interesting to have a conversation with a child of this age and tell them that the table could not have done this as it cannot move and note the child’s reaction. It would be assumed from Piagets theory the child would not be able to comprehend the adults viewpoint.
The intuitive stage is from age five to seven years of age. Language and hearing still increasing in importance in gathering information. During year one and two at infant school children are seen seated on the carpet for longer periods of time, more often than in foundation while the teacher explains and teaches through language. Foundation stage classrooms are predominantly learning through play. Of course play is still a major contributor in year one and two but according to Piaget children are able to gather information through hearing information. The poor behaviour often seen while children are seated on the carpet is usually the less mature children who struggle with sitting and listening for so long. These children have probably not reached the intuitive stage, as Piaget states these ages are as guides only and not precise. Children are very much reliant on immediate perceptions as abstract thought is difficult. Big books are used throughout teaching in infant school and objects are shown and passed around to give the child the visual image rather than using abstract visualisations. A child at this stage will be able to understand right and wrong in a simplistic way.
The third stage is the concrete operations stage from seven to eleven years old. Children are now more able to see things from others point of view. They can also understand and participate in play with rules. During upper primary rules and consequence are more in force. It is expected the child will understand the consequence of breaking a rule.
The fourth stage is the Formal operations stage which children come into from twelve years. This stage means children are able to think logically and think abstract thoughts with no need for props.
Piagets theory provides a basis for the child centred approach to learning. The child learns with an interaction with the environment that provides the right kind of learning experiences and progresses through each stage of development. Piaget believed teaching a child something stopped him or her from learning it on his or her own.
Vygotsky on the other hand agrees with Piagets theory of children learning through their environment but puts much higher regard on the social context. Vygotsky seems to sway more on the side of the nurturing part of the nature versus nurture debate. Vygotsky touches on the stages of development but believe children learn from encountering situations repeatedly and knowledge being gained each time. He never fully adopted the theory of stages. His theory suggests children learn from each other and the carers around them. He believed the childs level of ability should be judged on what they were capable of doing with help, rather than judged on what they could do alone. The time between learning and the next level of development he called the zone of proximal development. He believed the next level could only be reached through interaction with an adult. The child would then receive a more stimulating environment than if left to discover and learn alone. Unlike Piaget, Vygotskys belief is that the teacher plays a key role in the teaching of a child, this method is used in all schools today and also in pre-school and nurseries. The teacher or carer needs to be more knowledgeable that the pupil, the teacher also needs to provide guidance, direction, and support. This can be done by the teacher acting as a scaffold for the child, this is achieved by the teacher asking questions about what the child is doing. An example of this could be a teacher showing a pupil how to hold a paintbrush and painting a picture of a tree by demonstrating first then encouraging the child as the child copies the method. The QCA scheme of work supports this theory by giving guidance on what questions an early years worker should ask, it also guides on key vocabulary to be used. A child could also learn from watching and communicating with peers whilst in play, for example a child building a tower from bricks may place each brick more carefully and slowly, by watching his/her peer, the child who rushes his tower and does not take care may learn the method that works best. Another example of this is seen often in classrooms when children work together in groups reiterating learning through brainstorming sessions. This way the children are learning through each other.
Vygotsky's theory is the idea that the potential for cognitive development depends upon the "zone of proximal development" (ZPD): a level of development attained when children engage in social behavior. Full development of the ZPD depends upon full social interaction. The range of skill that can be developed with adult guidance or peer collaboration exceeds what can be attained alone.
(accessed 23/05/05)
Both Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theory about the way children learn can be very useful to parents carers and early years workers. Both studies help adults understand how children learn most effectively and therefore help them to help the children be more successful in their learning.
Jerome Bruner also sees the adult as facilitator being a learning tool for the child. He believed adults should have an active part to play alongside children through scaffolding and structuring learning. He agreed with the beliefs of Vygotsky and developed the idea of ‘scaffolding’, the process of an adult providing enough information for the child to progress, much more so than they would alone.
These beliefs help us to understand why planning and frameworks are in place. From the birth to three matters framework, the foundation stepping stones goals and to the National Curriculum. All take into account the stages of development and what children are likely to achieve and the appropriate time to teach them. Piaget called this ‘readiness to learn’ Well structured forms of play are offered through the frameworks all facilitated by trained adults.
From experience in working with children in placement, children do learn from their environment and they are active learners. They use social interaction on a regular basis to learn and ask many questions for example ‘What is that you are making’ (see placement dairy _________)
Both theorists come from different backgrounds and Paiget carried out his studies on his own children so their views come from different sources of study. They do have similarities and both theories impact greatly on early years education today.
Language Development
Some psychologists believe language is predominantly a genetically inherited skill such as Naon Chompsky. Others believe language is learned after a child is born such as Lev vygotsky. The nature v nurture debate with regards language development is inconclusive. There is some genetic sensitivity (nature) to language but children also develop language through their own experiences and interactions (nurture) after birth so there is both nature and nurture.
Chomspky believes we are all born with capabilities for language both physically e.g. tongue lips palette and intellectually e.g. part of the brain enables understanding of language. Chompsky calls this the Language Acquisition Device LAD.
Vygotsky stated the importance of the relationship between speech and writing. Children progress from drawing things to drawing speech thus showing an understanding of language and writing. The development only occurs through interaction and communication with others. He believed that language had a major role to play in learning. While listening to young children they will adapt their language and use words which they believe to be correct although they have not been heard from an adult. Many children adapt the past tense of bring to brung. They will have heard the past of sing to be sung and assumed the word brung was correct. There are many cases where children develop their own words and only correct themselves when adults tell them the correct word or they hear it spoken. This suggests that nature begins the process and nurture corrects it.
There are factors that do not allow language to develop naturally such as deformities and disease. Diseases that affect the brain, mouth and throat will have a detrimental affect on language development.
It is essential early years practitioners follow the guidance of the birth to three and the foundation stage and QCA guidelines. All are developed through research from the theorists. They ensure children are given the best opportunities to develop cognitive, sensory and language at the correct stages to suit the age range.