Cognitive development/ Jean Piaget.pdf.p

Piaget's theory/ cognitive development

1. Literature and Childhood
Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Stages in learning

Piaget’s Cognitive
Satges
Characteristics Reading Strategies. Mother Tongue

The sensorimotor
stage
(birth to two years
old)
At birth infants are born with natural inherited reflexes. This
allows infants to learn about the environment and begin to
understand the world. Reflexes may include rooting, gripping,
toe curling, stepping, and sucking. By the end of the
sensorimotor stage of development infants practice the
knowledge acquired and begin learning how to use it.
Read the baby's favorite books multiple times.
Multiple readings teaches babies to recognize the
speech patterns needed to understand text and
facilitates the sensorimotor stage task of learning
to prolong enjoyable things.
Point out interesting details in books you are
reading. This teaches the words associated with
the pictures. It also teaches a baby how to organize
sensory information so that she can focus on the
most important elements of the story, which is
important for reading comprehension.

The preoperational
stage (two years of
age until age six or
seven.)
The main tools that a child masters at this age (2-7 years) are
figurative tools: sensory standards, various types of perceptual
models, schemes and plans. Children begin to generalize their
first-hand experience and identify the aspects of reality that
are most significant for solving new practical tasks. At the
same time, they form conscious and voluntary relationships to
reality” (pg. 81). Children begin to give objects human
characteristics and participate in pretend play. Often emotion,
thoughts, and intentions are exuded through play. Though
children possess the ability to play with one another, they lack
the ability to understanding one another. Expression can be
communicated through painting, dancing, expressive
movement, or fairy tale symbolism. Role playing, or modeling,
can also help reproduce the activity of adults in play. This
Continue to read often and be willing to read
favorite stories multiple times. A child at this stage
is beginning to generally understand past and
future, but needs frequent repetitions of familiar
stories to grasp sequences.
Ask open-ended questions about stories. Help the
child develop the ability to switch perspective and
understand the character's point of view.
Egocentric perspective is characteristic of the
preoperational stage. The ability to change
perspectives is necessary for good reading
comprehension because it enables readers to

2. Literature and Childhood
Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Stages in learning

activity encourages children to represent the understanding of
a role and express feelings toward it. This is also known as
symbolization.
understand both characters and plot lines .
Respond to the child's developing understanding of
symbolic thought with pre-reading activities.
Introduce letters and numbers. As children begin
to realize that words are symbols for ideas, point
out environmental words such as "stop" and
connect it with the action.
Reinforce the development of beginning logical
thought. Introduce story sequences and basic book
organization. Pre-reading tasks include the ideas
that capital and lowercase letters serve the same
phonetic function, and different fonts do not imply
different meanings.

The concrete
operational stage
(from six or seven
years until eleven)
Children in this stage rapidly develop as individuals. Teachers
must be aware that students needs change throughout the
year and must be willing to work with students to meet
competency goals.
Consider that logical and abstract thought are the
characteristic developmental tasks at this stage.
These cognitive skills form the baseline for reading
with comprehension to develop. Build on the
phonetic skills established during the
preoperational stage to teach independent
reading.
Use classroom discussions to reinforce emerging
reading skills. Use discussions to explore the
Piagetian tasks of learning to understand abstract

3. Literature and Childhood
Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Stages in learning

concepts through literature. Encourage your
student to use his emerging sequencing skills to
predict what happens after the story is over. Have
students share their ideas in discussion to
maximize both comprehension and abstract
reasoning.
Try dramatic reenactments to emphasize both
emerging empathy skills and reading
comprehension. Reenactments are especially
helpful for students struggling with the change in
perspective required to understand complex
characterizations in literature. Consider
reenactments especially for students who decode
well but are in the early concrete operational
stage. These students will sometimes have
difficulty with comprehension despite strong
decoding skills because they have not yet mastered
the ability to change perspective.

The formal
operational stage
(from age eleven to
sixteen and into
adulthood.)
During this stage adolescents develop abstract thinking and
reasoning. Skills such as logical thought, rational reasoning,
and systematic planning begin to emerge. During this stage
adolescents are able to make a hypothesis and revise the
hypothesis when new information is given. This process is also
known as the scientific method and it is practiced throughout
the curriculum spectrum.

4. Literature and Childhood
Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Stages in learning