Chapter 9
ENCOURAGING THE DEVELOPMENT OF COGNITIVE SKILLS AND
LITERACY
OUTLINE
I. What Is Cognition?
II. Basic Cognitive Processes
A. Attention
B. Perception
C. Memory
III. Development of Cognitive Skills
A. The Developmental Theory of Piaget
IV. Demonstration of Cognitive Skills Through the Developmental Stages of
Children’s Play
A. Simple Manipulation
B. Exploratory Play
V. Facilitating the Development of Cognitive Skills in Infants and Toddlers
A. Intentionality
B. Means-End Behavior
VI. Facilitating the Development of Cognitive Skills in Preschoolers
A. Symbolic Representation
B. Problem Solving
VII. Working with Children Who Have Cognitive Disabilities
A. Characteristics of Children with Significant Cognitive Disabilities
B. Adapting Instruction
VIII. Facilitating Cognitive and Information-Processing Subskills Related to Academic
Achievement
A. Facilitating Children’s Engagement
B. Structuring Learning Experiences
IX. Emergent Math and Science
A. Classification, Seriation, and Concept Development
B. Facilitating Classification
X. Development of Literacy
A. The Precursors of Reading and Writing
B. Relationship Between Oral Language and Literacy
C. The Nature of School Language
XI. Cultural Differences in Early Language and Literacy Experiences
A. Differences in Children’s Early Use of Narrative
XII. Strategies for Facilitating Emergent Literacy
A. Whole-Language Versus Phonological Approaches to the Development of
Literacy
B. Teaching Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
XIII. Summary
XIV. Discussion Topics and Activities
ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS AND VOCABULARY
Accommodation
Adaptation
Alphabetic principle
Assimilation
Cognition
Concrete operations
Deferred imitation
Literate-style language
Means-end behavior
Mental representation
Metacognitive
Metalinguistic
Object permanence
Perception
Phonemic awareness
Phonics
TEST QUESTIONS – CHAPTER 9
Multiple Choice
1. Piaget identified the sensorimotor period of development as
a. Between birth and age 5
b. Between ages 2 and 6
c. Between birth and age 2
d. After age 3
2. The three basic cognitive processes are
a. Attention, perception, memory
b. Phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, symbolic ability
c. Construction of reality, intentionality, problem solving
d. Focus, assimilation, accommodation
3. When young children learn to discriminate in shape, size, distance, and color, they are getting
ready for
a. Object permanence
b. Symbolic representation
c. Short-term memory storage
d. Phonemic awareness
4. The 18- to 24-month-old toddler shows that he or she has the ability to think by showing
a. Intuitive ability and intentionality
b. Deferred imitation and pretend play
c. Concrete operations and formal operations
d. Acting out future scenarios
5. The child who uses simple manipulation in play by banging and throwing objects is showing
a. Intentionality
b. Intuitive ability
c. Imitation
d. Functional play
6. Typical children begin to act out “what would happen if..” scenarios at about age
a. 1 or 1½ years
b. 2 or 3 years
c. 4 or 5 years
d. 6 or 7 years
7. In the preoperational stage, children can
a. Perform logical thinking and reasoning
b. Engage in symbolic, pretend play
c. Use processes for hypothesis testing
d. Decenter
8. _________, or ordering according to relative differences, is thought to be an early step
towards understanding number concepts.
a. Assimilation
b. Cognition
c. Object permanence
d. Seriation
9. Children with significant cognitive disabilities
a. Have short-term memory deficits and language problems
b. Have difficulty focusing and sitting still
c. Have difficulty solving problems and using symbolic play
d. Have significant motor problems and are talkative
10. In a structured learning experience centered on fine motor activities in an inclusive early
education classroom, which is the desired makeup of children and adults in groups?
a. One large group with adults in groups
b. Small groups with the children with disabilities making up one group with one adult
c. Small groups composed of children with and without disabilities in each group with one
adult.
d. Small groups composed of children with and without disabilities in each group without an
adult.
True-False
1. Preschool programs should emphasize the direct instruction of reading with reading readiness
activities.
2. A cognitive skill appropriate for a preschool child is symbolic representation.
3. The term “developmental delay” can be misleading because it implies that children will
eventually “catch up” to their non-disabled peers.
4. Most teachers tend to teach predominately through talking.
5. Children are able to master rote memory almost from birth.
6. Object permanence is mastered in typical children by the sensorimotor substage 3 at 5 to 8
months.
7. Teaching must be activity-based.
8. A good game for object permanence is peek-a-boo.
9. Symbolic play usually comes before functional play.
10. The most obvious characteristic of children with cognitive delay is their slower rate of
development.
Short-Answer
1. Piaget believed that cognitive development is a product of the interaction between the
2. In sensorimotor substage 1, from 0 to 1 month, the infant interacts with the world through
4. The approach to development of literacy in which reading, writing, speaking, and listening
5. The play stage that is closely tied with trial-and-error in sensorimotor substage 5 is
Comprehensive Essay
1. You are a teacher of young children. A parent comes to you and complains that all the
children are doing is “playing.” Write a dialogue of how you would respond to this parent. Be
precise. Leave nothing to the imagination.
2. Explain how you could teach matching, sorting, and seriation using a set of blocks.
3. For the above lesson, state how you would adapt it for a child with a hearing impairment, one
with a visual impairment, and one who has a motor impairment (cerebral palsy).
4. Explain Piaget’s two concepts of schema and adaptation in how children learn. Pay particular
attention to the part that assimilation and accommodation play in adaptation.
5. Give three examples of ways you would create the desire or need to perform intentional acts
in young children with disabilities. Be specific as to materials you would use and things you
would do.
6. You want to develop deferred imitation in a child. Outline a lesson including a concrete
sequence of en-route steps of what you would do to reach the terminal objective.
7. How is problem solving different from academic learning? Give an example of each.
8. Give three examples of a teacher’s “staging” or contriving problems to be solved in the
preschool classroom. What would you set up for the problem and how would you present the
problem to your class?
9. “School language” may be difficult for a child from a nonmainstream culture. Give three
examples of some problems that a child from a different culture may encounter in an American
middle-class environment. Identify the culture of the child or various children and tell why the
problem occurs.
10. List five things that middle-class American parents do that give their children literacy events
in early childhood.
CHAPTER NINE – ANSWER KEY