Developments in Children

As the mother of an eight year old, I have a lot of experience with child development. I have always known that children go through different stages in life but Piaget’s theory really helped me see the mental development in children. According to Piaget, children go through different stages at different ages in life. Infants learn through their parents and movements, adolescents learn through hands on materials, and teenagers to adults learn by constructively doing.

My son, Brylen, will be in the 3^rd grade next year and this chapter really helped me understand how he thinks. Brylen is leaving the preoperational stage and heading into the concrete operational stage. From my understanding, he is beginning to answer the question why and see the world from a different point of view. When the school year started, Brylen always related his homework assignments to himself. If we were reading a story and answering comprehension questions, he would say he was the main character and make the story about him. Everything we did revolved around him and his needs. Now that he’s a year older, he’s beginning to see it is not all about him and other people are important as well.“Preoperational children are egocentric in their thinking (Slavin, p. 33).  He also used a lot of symbols this year. When we worked on learning the days of week, his teacher created flash cards with symbols to help him remember. 

Educational psychology should be important to every parent and teacher. By understanding how a child thinks, you can understand their behavior. By understanding their behavior, you can create fun but learning activities that we all can benefit from. “During the elementary school years, children’s cognitive abilities undergo a dramatic change (Slavin, p. 34). During these years, students begin to be more concrete thinkers and learners. I see this more and more when I work with Brylen on his reading. As an effective teacher, it’s important to understand how my students think and interpret things. It’s also important to teach my students the language and literacy skills they need to be successful. Students grow, adapt, and change because of unplanned situations in life. Just like they learn how to talk, they learn how to form sentences. “Children do learn in unplanned ways all the time, and many will learn from even the most chaotic lesson (Slavin, p. 6).

“International teachers use what they know about predictable patterns of cognitive, literacy, and language development to make instructional decisions (Slavin, p. 46). To be the best mother and teacher, I have to motivate, support, demonstrate, and lead in the most interesting and fun way as possible. Having conversations with students and asking them how they feel helps with their oral language skills. Students learn new words every year from social media, friends, and extra activities. Picking novels are grab interest helps with literacy development and being a good teacher helps them be successful.

Reference: Slavin, R. E. (2018). Educational Psychology: theory and practice (11th ed.). NY, NY: Pearson.