Early Childhood: Vygotsky

Vygotsky says little about how

________basic motor, perception, attention, memory, and problem- solving skills contribute to socially transmitted higher cognitive processes.

Piaget called children’s self- directed utterances

________egocentric speech.

Teachers guide children’s learning with

________ explanations, demonstrations, and verbal prompts.

Children are more likely to use private speech for

________ self- guidance when tasks are within their zone of proximal development, or range of mastery.

Vygotsky’s largest contribution

Zone of Proximal Development

Scaffolding

a sensitive process of providing the support that helps the child learn what is just out of reach of his abilities

Vygotsky viewed private speech as self-talk

the foundation for higher cognitive processes

Children with varying abilities engage in

peer collaboration, working together in groups

In a study, researchers increased the difficulty of a problem-solving task. Private speech rose as

the task became moderately difficult, then declined as it became highly difficult.

Private speech/self-talk is used more and over a longer period by

children with learning problems

Bruner further developed Vygostky’s concept of the ZPD to describe

what the adult does to help children learn.

Once the child understands, the scaffolding is

no longer needed, and the child can now carry out the task independently

Vygotsky believed

all learning and ideas begin in the social world.

Central to Vygotsky’s theory is the idea that

children learn through the process of social collaboration with someone who is more knowledgeable than they are.

Bruner borrowed the engineering concept of

a scaffold, which is designed to support the construction of a building and applied it to teaching.

Private speech/self-talk is used more when

tasks are appropriately challenging

A challenge to Vygotsky’s ideas is that verbal dialogues are

not the only means through which children learn

With age, private speech/self-talk is

internalized as silent, inner speech

New research shows private speech/self-talk has

benefits in regards to regulation

Since learning is collaborative and social-based according to this view, Vygotsky also considers

cultural differences