Question

How could you use play in light of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory? How could you use play in light of Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development theory?

Answer 1

In Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory,play is an important part of early childhood. Vygotsky believed that play promotes cognitive, social, and emotional development in children.In the  Vygotskian definition., play is limited to the dramatic or make-believe play of preschoolers.

The most important application of Vygotsky's theory to education is in his concept of a zone of proximal development. This concept is important because teachers can use it as a guide to a child's development. It allows a teacher to know what a student is able to achieve through the use of a mediator and thusenables the teacher to help the child attain that level by themselves.

A second important aspect of Vygotsky's theory is the role of play in his theory. According to this perspective teachers need to provide children,especially young children, many opportunities to play. Through play, and imagination a child's conceptual abilities are stretched. Vygotsky argued that play leads to development. "While imitating their elders in culturally patterned activities, children generate opportunities for intellectual development. Initially, their games are recollections and reenactments of real situations; but through the dynamics of their imagination and recognition of implicit rules governing the activities they have reproduced in their games,children achieve an elementary mastery of abstract thought." (Cole, 1978).

Since language holds a central role in Vygotsky's theory, and is essential to the development of thinking, the school needs to provide many opportunities that allow children to reach the third stage of speech, which is inner speech, sinceit is this stage which is responsible for all higher levels of functioning.

Piaget proposed four major stages of cognitive development, and called them (1) sensorimotor intelligence, (2)preoperational thinking, (3) concrete operational thinking, and (4) formal operational thinking. Each stage is correlated with an age period of childhood, but only approximately.

1. Use concrete props and visual aids whenever possible.

2. Make instructions relatively short, using actions as well as words.

3. Do not expect the students to consistently see the world from someone else’s point of view.

4. Be sensitive to the possibility that students may have different meanings for the same word or different words for the same meaning. Students may also expect everyone to understand words they have invented.

5. Give children a great deal of hands-on practice with the skills that serve as building blocks for more complex skills like reading comprehension.

6. Provide a wide range of experiences in order to build a foundation for concept learning and language.