The Development of Five and Six Years Old - Article Example

The Development of Five and Six years Old Crystal M. Patterson Robert Gallo Abstract Children aged five and six years old manifest several changes in their physical, cognitive, social, emotional and moral development. Physically, their bodies have grown to approximate the proportions of an adult’s body and they have had acquired the gross and motor skills they need to move more independently and be productive in their activities. Cognitively, they step into Piaget’s Pre-operational stage of development characterized by representational thinking, although they still have tendencies to be illogical. Socially, they develop friendships with peers, slowly getting out of their egocentric state. Emotionally, they become more understanding of others’ feelings and adjust appropriately to these. Morally, they already show awareness of right and wrong. Adults must ensure that their potentials are optimized. The preschool years are times when children manifest rapid growth in all areas of development. The ages of five and six years, usually the oldest age group in preschool, show much development and maturity compared to their younger counterparts. This paper will be highlighting the developmental milestones of this age group to guide teachers and parents in understanding these children, deal with them the way they should be dealt with, and help these adults in planning developmentally-appropriate activities to optimize these children’s potentials. What prompted me to choose this age group is my daughter, Aaliyha, who is also five years old. I noticed how much she has learned in kindergarten and I am amazed at how fast she learns things. She can already write her name, numbers 1-10; she can discriminate all the letters of the alphabet, including their sounds; can read simple sight words; and can solve simple arithmetic problems appropriate for her age. To me, her learning is an enigma, which I want to study further so I can help her in her journey to learning more. I know she is in for more challenges and I want her to be ready. This paper shall discuss all the developmental aspects one by one, as I have learned from the book by Berk (2008), along with some relevant readings on the topic. It hopes to enlighten readers on the growth and development of five and six year old children. Much has been studied about the cognitive development of human beings covering the whole life span. However, foundations rooted in childhood are critical. Piaget has conceptualized the Stages of Cognitive Development, with preschool aged children falling into the Pre-Operational Stage. In this second stage (extends from 2 to 7 years), rapid growth in representation takes place, although the child’s thinking may still not be logical. According to Piaget (1959), literacy actively develops with a child’s interaction with the environment. Such interaction brings about learning, as concepts are constructed or changed, usually, differing from adult concepts. Still another perspective inspired by Vygotsky (1962), as he theorizes that a child learns literacy through conversation and involvement in literacy acts with an adult. This interaction between adult and child called ‘scaffolding’. This occurs when a knowledgeable adult gently guides a child through successive literacy activities while relinquishing autonomy little by little to the child until such time he can do in on his own. Berk (2008) identifies cognitive attainments of 4-7 year olds. Whereas before, magical thinking prevails, with children of this age group, they become increasingly aware that make-believe are representational of reality. Magical beliefs on fairy tales are challenged with plausible explanations, as children seek more realistic understanding of things. Piaget’s concept of conservation is defined as “the knowledge that the number, mass, area, length, weight, and volume of objects are not changed by physically rearranging the objects.” (Brewer, 2001). Simply put, conservation is being able to distinguish that two things are equivalent even if they do not appear to be the same. Children at the pre-operational stage still cannot conserve. They eventually master these tasks over the next cognitive stage of Piaget, the concrete operational stage (Berk, 2008). Number, mass and liquid conservation skills are gained sometime between the ages of 6 and 7 years, while weight conservation, between the ages of 8 and 10 years. In terms of memory, children improve theirs sharply between the ages of 3 and 6, especially for relations among stimuli. The ability for associating stimuli when encoding and receiving them comes with the development of a rich, relevant and meaningful vivid memory during early childhood (Berk, 2008). Memory scripts help children organize, interpret and predict everyday experiences. When these constructs are formed, they may be used to predict similar events in the future. Children also use these scripts to assist their recall when they listen or relate stories. These support their earliest efforts at planning as they represent the sequence of events leading to desired goals (Hudson, Sosa & Shapiro, 1997) Five to six year old children are capable of learning the letters of the alphabet and it corresponding sounds. They can also solve simple math problems. I know my daughter can do these things, and I am confident she is at par with her age level. According to Vygotsky, “Language is the foundation for all higher cognitive processes”, (Berk, 2008, p. 362). He claims that a child’s private speech, or the talk he uses on himself to guide him on what to do comes from social communication with adults or more skilled peers. Such interactions help young children in mastering challenging tasks within their zone of proximal development. Eventually, they become internalized as inner, verbal thought. Obviously, as one grows, vocabulary grows too. A younger preschooler may express himself with just a few words, but a child at five or six may be more elaborate in his verbal expression. At that age, he has about 10,000 in his vocabulary (Berk, 2008), ready for use in his daily communication, with correct grammar to boot! Clay (1998) posits that all children must take an active part in negotiating meanings. Conversations with adults are essential in the language learning of children. Piaget and Vygotsky, key people in the study of language and thought, believe that development will not take place unless children engage in rich, meaningful conversations with others by which language is internalized to more complex thinking (Neuman & Roskos, 1993). Both theorists uphold that through language, children begin to decipher particular words from objects or actions and then words begin to stand for ideas. Next, thought begins to take on a symbolic function (Neuman & Roskos, 1993). Babies and toddlers are usually cuddly with all the body fat that covers them which eventually decline as they grow older. Normally, this baby fat drops off further in the preschool years, as children slim down with girls retaining more of the body fat than boys who become slightly more muscular. Their torso lengthens and widens to give more room to their internal organs and straightening spine. By age 5, their bodies approximate the proportions similar to an adult. Also at this age, children usually lose their baby teeth to give way to their adult teeth. By the time a child steps into the early childhood stage, his brain has attained 90% of its adult weight by age 5 (Berk, 2008). Socially, there are children who may be inherently shy or gregarious, as is likewise dictated by their genetic make up or as an effect of exposure to shy or gregarious parents. However, as children get older, they gain more opportunities to be with other people and learn to deal with different personalities. That is why, children move from being very egocentric in their infancy and toddlerhood stages to becoming more others-oriented when they get into preschool. Here, they learn that they are not the center of the universe as they may have believed, because there are other people who, like them, have exactly the same needs and wants, and the only thing that would maintain peace and harmony in relating with them is to compromise. Thus, preschoolers learn to share, take turns and accept others’ points of view (Piaget & Inhedler, 1969). The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (1975) have identified some behavioral patterns in their overview of patterns in Children’s Development for five and six year olds. These children have more self-awareness. They show a growing sense of self-reliance. They move away from being too egocentric and develop more altruistic feelings for others. They become aware of racial/ ethnic and sexual differences in people. These children have strong feelings and loyalty toward home and family. In terms of play, cooperative play begins with other children. Having imaginary playmates are fairly common, but having best friends with selected peers are more prevalent, however shortlived. Quarrels with other children are often but do not linger. At that stage, children are able to share and take turns with others (Brewer, 2001) Five and six year old children are eager to participate in school experiences. They consider their teacher very important, and more often than not, uphold her word more than any other adult, even their parents. Children at this stage manifest better emotional understanding. This means they become more insightful of the ability to interpret, predict and influence other’s emotional reactions. Gaining more skills, they also become better at resolving conflicts and solving problems. They can follow others’ and create their own relevant rules and behaviors that bespeak of morality (Berk, 2008). These children express rigid ideas about sex roles. Gender-stereotypes are upheld at this age, especially when it works for them. An example is the kind of toys boys and girls are expected to like and thus share or keep for themselves. Children at this age prefer same-sex playmates and sometimes form their own exclusive cliques. My daughter, Aalihya’s best friend since she was three years old is Hailey. In kindergarten, she has made a new friend also named Haley. Their motor skills also develop in accordance to their developmental needs. This means, the older they get, the more things they are expected to do, so they develop physical skills to be able to do such tasks. Younger children’s fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination and body coordination are much less developed and more awkward than their older counterparts. As they grow, they also gain more control of their fine motor muscles to enable them to do more things with their hands, such as cutting, drawing and writing. With regard to their gross motor development, as children grow older, they are more able to move their large muscles in more well-coordinated movements so they are able to do more challenging things with their bodies such as skipping, running with agility, dancing with flexibility, tumbling and the like. Children at age 5 and 6 are physically active and agile. Their gross motor skills improve much for them to be able to do many things with their bodies such as more mature flexibility in throwing and catching a ball, running with directionality, galloping and skipping smoothly, climbing, pedaling on bicycles, etc. Fine motor skills likewise improve as grasp on writing instruments develop from using the whole palm to a tripod grip with the fingers. They are able to do self-help skills such as dressing themselves up and engaging in clothes’ fastening materials such as buttons, zippers, laces, etc. They are able to feed themselves with eating utensils, including the use of a blunt knife to cut soft food. Drawing, copying and writing becomes a prevalent fine motor skill as they write their names, some numbers, simple words and draw more complex and more detailed pictures. Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages Theory proposes that in each stage of a person’s life, an individual encounters various conflicts pertaining to his developmental stage. For children aged three to six, fall under the Initiative vs. Guilt stage. In this stage, preschoolers are so into doing things on their own and showing everyone how much they have grown in many ways. Thus, they initiate help. However, at this stage, children may be awkward, and their good intentions may backfire as in destroying some things in the process. When this happens, they are filled with guilt (Brewer, 2001). Their emotional development is also connected to their moral development. A man named Kohlberg (1984) even came up with a theory of moral development based on a hypothetical moral situation calling on children’s decision-making skills, and his theories attracted much attention from moral philosophers. He theorized that young children conceptualize morality in terms of obedience to adults’ rules and regulations. They know that it makes them good children. This is so because they think in concrete, egocentric ways. On the other hand, older children think of morality in terms of cooperation with peers because they are cognitively able to comprehend the views of others and already understand concepts such as reciprocity and cooperation because their social worlds consist mainly of interactions with peers. Kohlberg based his work on this theory of cognitive development and emphasized reasoning as the key to moral development. It is essential that adults guide young children accordingly in terms of morality. Children as young as five or six notice after a moral offense peers react in response with strong emotions, describing their own loss, telling another peer to stop or retaliate (Berk, 2008 p.386). An adult who intervenes is likely to make the child realize the rights and feelings of the victim. The kind of environment and child rearing a child is exposed to determines much of his personality as he grows up. The permissive child-rearing style may be comfortable for both parent and child, being high in acceptance, but may be overindulging or inattentive, low in control and sometimes, inappropriately lenient with the child (Beck, 2008). The child gets away with anything, leading to low discipline. On the other extreme, the authoritarian child-rearing style is low in acceptance and involvement, high in coercive control and is very restrictive, rarely allowing autonomy in the child (Berk, 2008). Parents are cold and rejecting and often degrade their children especially if they disobey. They do not hesitate to resorting to force and punishment. As a result, children grow up anxious, unhappy and low in self-esteem and self-reliance. Another child-rearing style that results in negative effects is the uninvolved child-rearing style which “combines low acceptance and involvement with little control and indifference to autonomy granting” (Berk, 2008 p.400). Parents are usually emotionally detached, negligent and oblivious of their children. Children feel as if they are not love and invisible in their parents’ eyes. Children raised in such a home environment have poor emotional self-regulation, school achievement problems and antisocial behavior. The ideal child-rearing style is the authoritative style which is high in acceptance and involvement but emphasizes discipline. Parents have firm control of the situation, with patience in explaining consequences of behavior. It promotes gradual, appropriate granting of autonomy of the child (Berk, 2008). Authoritative parents are warm, attentive, loving and sensitive to the needs of their children. The parent-child relationship is a democratic one. In turn, children grow up to be fair, reasonable and very stable emotionally and socially. They are confident and have high self-esteem. . The concept of being educated in preschools used to be dominated by expectations of developing academic skills at a very early age. However, Margaret Edgington (2002), an early years specialist believes in a more social curriculum. She argues that play-based early childhood education programs that encourage the development of cognitive, emotional and social skills through children’s discovery and exploration have better long lasting social and educational benefits. Edgington also suggests that curricula designed with clearly defined academic goals in reading, writing and number, and instructs children in more formal and stringent methods yield children who are more likely to suffer from social and behavioral problems in later years. Curriculum in preschools must be developmentally-appropriate, fun and interesting, not to mention, meaningful and relevant to the children and their families. We believe in experiential learning. They experiment, go on field trips, have simple cooking activities, role-play, handle a lot of manipulative materials, indulge in art activities, enjoy music and movement activities, etc. Children’s creativity must be encouraged by asking them open-ended questions and giving them the freedom to think “out of the box”. Their ideas, no matter how strange, must be accepted and supported, in the belief that there is creative significance in it. An educational approach that adheres to a constructivist philosophy, is usually based on the theories of Piaget or Vygotsky. A Piagetian-based classroom promotes discovery learning, sensitivity to children's readiness to learn, and acceptance of individual differences (Berk, 2008). A Vygotskian-based classroom on the other hand, emphasizes assisted discovery, in which both teacher guidance and peer, .collaboration, are virtually important (Berk, 2008). Taken together, both will highly benefit the preschool child. Preschoolers are just awed with storybooks. Parents and teachers should take time out to read them stories, with engaging storytelling techniques such as using of facial expressions, exaggerated gestures and voice changes. This not only makes the story more captivating, but enlivens the listeners’ imaginations. Comprehension is developed and honed when the story is discussed at length, encouraging children to give their own opinions and insights. Thoroughly discussing the sequence of the story also helps them organize their thoughts. Follow up activities such as drawing scenes from the story or “writing” part of it in the child’s own version will strengthen the concept that words may be expressed in print too. Teachers may talk about letters by name and sounds while matching it to pictures. A literacy-rich environment filled with print and pictures would stimulate a child’s interest in reading and writing. It is important for children to be provided with lots of opportunities for literacy-related play activities such as role-playing, book-making, filling out story charts, and experimentation with writing on their own. The teacher can help a child recognize how print works by demonstrating directionality and discussing the differences between the information that can be obtained from the pictures in books and the printed words (Brewer, 2001). The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)’s position statement “Technology and Young Children—Ages 3 through 8,” (1996) notes that “professional judgment is required by teachers to determine whether technology is age appropriate, individually appropriate, and culturally appropriate for the children in their care. NAEYC recommends the integration of technology into the learning environment as one of many options to support children's social and cognitive abilities but cautions that computers should not replace other valuable learning centers, such as blocks, art, sand or water play, books, dramatic play, or exploratory areas in the classroom. “ Five and Six year old children belong to Piaget’s Preoperational Period which marks the time when a child becomes able to represent objects and knowledge through imitation, symbolic play, drawing, mental images and spoken language As mentioned earlier, lack of conservation skills is also characteristic of this stage (Brewer, 2001). Information processing theorists do not agree with Piagetian theories of children’s cognitive development going through various developmental stages. Instead, they believe that children develop their cognitive processes and abilities over time through trends in sensation and perception, attention, working memory, long-term memory, thinking and reasoning (McDevitt & Omrod,2004). As children grow older, their senses become more discriminating that they know which ones to use to gain more information about things. As their brains develop, so do their capacity and skill for focused attention. With age, their attention spans improve, making it less distractible. Sustaining attention depends on the child’s temperament, if the task is self-chosen and interesting to them, and the presence or absence of interference. As a child grows older, he gets to focus his attention more on things that he needs to in order to learn what he needs to know, and gets better at ruling out the things that may distract his focus. As children develop cognitively, their working memory becomes more efficient in three ways. The first trend is that processing speed increases as children grow older. This means, when children learn things and master them, they spend much less time thinking about them in their working memories to give way to more new learning that would entail more processing time. Another trend is that they learn more effective cognitive processes. Being more comfortable in their previous knowledge of things, they may discover short-cuts in thinking of these and incorporate it into new learning. The more effective processes definitely cuts down the time it takes to process incorporated information. Still another trend is that the physical capacity of the working memory may increase with time. This may be due to the speed and efficiency of their cognitive processes as they mature rather than an increase in memory space (McDevitt & Omrod, 2004). Young children grow up faster than we expect. Sooner than we think, the cuddly babies we used to nurture will become independent adults who will not need our guidance anymore. We must take every opportunity now to show them our love, support and guidance as they grow and be molded into the persons they were meant to be. References Berk, L. (2008). Infants and Prenatal through Middle Childhood (6th edtion). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Brewer, J. (2001) Introduction to Early Childhood Education. Allyn & Bacon. Clay, M.(1998) By Different Paths to Common Outcomes, Stenhouse Publishers, Maine, pp. 5-32 Edgington, M. (2002) ‘High levels of achievements for young children’ in Fisher, J. (ed.) The Foundations of Learning, Buckingham, Open University Press. Kohlberg, L. (1984). Essays in moral development: Vol. 2. The Psychology of Moral Development. New York: Harper & Row. McDevitt, T.M. & Ormrod, J.E. (2004) Child Development: Educating and Working with Children and Adolescents, Second Edition. Pearson Education, Inc. Neuman, S. B., & Roskos, K. A. (1993) Language and Literacy Learning in the Early Years: An Integrated Approach, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Fort Worth, TX, pp. 27-31, 34-61. Piaget, J. (1959) The Language and Thought of the Child. London: Routledge & Kegen Paul. Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. (1969) The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books Vygotsky, L.S. (1962) Thought and Language (E. Hanfmann and G. Vaker, Eds & Trans.) Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press Read More