Week 9 — Early Childhood: Physical and Cognitive Development

Why this matters

A preschool teacher at the art table and a children's librarian at story time both hear young children's surprising answers and read them as windows on thinking, not mistakes.

In plain language

This chapter is about how young children's bodies and minds change from about 2 to 6. Their running, hopping, drawing, and cutting all get stronger and steadier. Their thinking gains symbolic thought (letting one thing stand for another, such as a block used as a phone), and it also has limits, such as egocentrism (finding it hard to see from another person's point of view). You will meet two theories that explain this growth in different ways, and you will learn theory of mind (knowing that other people can believe things that are not true). By the end, a child's surprising answer will look less like a mistake and more like a window on how the child is thinking.

• Already covered: Week 8's play categories and time sample, and Week 6's sensorimotor stage.
• This week: motor skills, the preoperational stage, Vygotsky, theory of mind, early literacy.
• How they connect: the infant who held objects in mind now lets them stand for other things.
• Where we're going next: Week 10, early childhood social-emotional development.

Focus

How do young children's bodies and minds change from about 2 to 6, and how do Piaget and Vygotsky explain it?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• [ ] explain symbolic thought and egocentrism with a task
• [ ] explain centration and failing conservation
• [ ] explain private speech and credit scaffolding correctly
• [ ] read a false-belief answer as theory of mind
• [ ] compare Piaget and Vygotsky on one record

To-do

Plan your week

1. Read Chapter 9 (~40–50 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes).
3. Try the practice set (15–25 minutes).
4. Do the workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment, then the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: read record R5 with Piaget and Vygotsky in one plain sentence.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor if a step snags.

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