The Role of Language in Cognitive Development.

**Theories in educational psychology promote the idea that language plays a critical role in cognitive development.  Examine Table 2.2 (p. 51), paying particular attention to the age range that you are interested in teaching.  Consider how you might incorporate or adapt the strategies presented for use with your own students.

Upon looking at the table on page 51, the grade levels that I will examine is K-2.  The suggested strategies for these ages are: 

-read age-appropriate storybooks as a way of enhancing vocabulary

-give corrective feedback when students' use of words indicates inaccurate understanding

-work on listening skills (sitting quietly, paying attention, trying to understand and remember)

-ask follow-up questions to make sure students accurately understand important messages

-ask students to construct narratives about recent events

I think there are many ways I could incorporate or adapt these strategies in my classroom, and many of them I observed from the Kindergarten classroom I have spent time in this semester. In the following few paragraphs I will highlight ideas or strategies used in this classroom.

A way that my teacher incorporates reading storybooks is with a story time incorporated into the classroom's daily routine.  During the literacy block of their day, she reads a book about what they will be writing about in their journal. For example: we read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish By Dr. Seuess and then asked the children to write about their favorite fish.

While I am present in the classroom, the strategy of giving corrective feedback is an ongoing practice throughout the day.  My teacher has made her classroom a safe environment, so when we give them corrective feedback they take it as constructive or as an improvement to their already wonderful writing.  There are even times when I have children asking me if their sentences make since or if a work is spelled right.  While you don't want them to become completely dependent of you telling them how to write or spell, I think this is a good trait for a child to have in their academic lives.

Working on listening skills is probably one of the biggest areas that my classroom focuses on.  Children at this age are still trying to figure out social cues like turn taking and pausing for an answer in conversations with their peers and teachers.  We have to teach children these strategies, and I think often times teachers forget that this is still an emerging skill for these children.  I would stress in my classroom the importance of being able to explain to me directions or comments I have previously told to you.  My teacher requires children to spend about 2-5 seconds before they answer something she asks or says to make sure they understand.  Seeing this in a classroom is very interesting to me, at first I didn't think that this would make a difference, but over a period of time it becomes habit and the children continue to do this on their own.

The last two somewhat go together in my thinking.  I believe that asking follow up questions to ensure understanding will lead the children to construct personal narratives.  Again, within our classroom my teacher will ask many children how things we learn can apply to their lives, or if there are any examples of it in their lives already.  I think that this promotes and supports their thinking and connections with the curriculum they are learning. 

I have truly enjoyed seeing all these aspects throughout my classroom, especially since I have not been "looking" for them.  In knowing all of these aspects are included in my Kindergarten classroom, I feel very confident in my teacher's ability to have the children's best interest in regards to their learning.  And that is always a reassuring feeling in our current world of education!

-S