How children think and learn – according to Piaget
Jean Piaget, was a Swiss psychologist who studied child development. He was interested in the field of cognitive development and is still very well respected for his contributions to how children think and learn. In Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, he believed that children move through four different stages of thinking and learning.
Piaget’s four stages:
Sensorimotor stage: Birth to 2 years
Preoperational stage: Ages 2 to 7
Concrete operational stage: Ages 7 to 11
Formal operational stage: Ages 12 and up
According to Piagetian theory, your child is in the preoperational stage.
The preoperational stage is the second stage in his theory where he stated that children gain language and an understanding of symbolic play.
In symbolic play, your child will begin to use their imagination and language skills to play with toys in a way which means they represent something else, for example, a block might be a car or a pretend phone.
Within this stage, Piaget created two substages – symbolic function and intuitive thought.
Symbolic function is seen as coming first and is the ability to think about objects even when they are not visible right now, such as being able to bring to mind an image of a toy they can’t see.
This can start to help them solve problems, as they can make a mental representation of something instead of needing to have it in front of them, so if you ask what they need to wear to stay dry in the rain they might be able to think of and suggest welly boots even if they’re in another room.
In the intuitive thought substage, children’s language development supports a higher level of thinking and questioning, allowing them to think in more logical ways (although they won’t have the language to explain this at first).
You might notice your child using ideas based on other things they know to try and make sense of something, such as remembering where they found their lost toy yesterday and looking there again today to find it. You may also start to hear your child asking 'why' questions as they develop the skill of reasoning and the ability to predict what might happen in certain events and scenarios.
In this stage, they then develop a more reasonable mindset and apply real-world information to help them understand and explain situations or events.
Piaget's studies led him to think that when children become aware that they have knowledge but don't know where it comes from, it tickles their interest, their curiosity and desire to know more, which leads them to start checking what they’ve seen and been told so they can form a better understanding of their world.[1] Piaget believed that children begin to ask questions in order to improve their own learning.
This might sound familiar if you find yourself trying to answer questions throughout the day, “Where does the rain come from?”, “How did Bryn get to Scotland on holiday? Did it take a whole night?”, “Where do cows come from?” and so on...
Not everyone agrees with Piaget and over recent years some research has developed and challenged his theories, however, his key principles remain at the centre of much of the child development learning, and systems for learning, that we follow.
It's difficult to measure understanding, or the extent of your child's understanding about something, but by asking questions yourself about how they think and feel about a subject or event you will get an indicator of how they're processing the things they are finding out about the world.
Reference:
[1] Santrock, J.W. (2016) Children. 13th Edition. McGraw Hill.