Chapter Outline

The Story of Reggio Emilia's Children

Cognitive Developmental Changes

• Piaget's Preoperational Stage
  • Exploring What "Preoperational" Means
  • Symbolic Function Substage
  • Intuitive Thought Substage
• Vygotsky's Theory of Development
  • The Zone of Proximal Development
  • Scaffolding
  • Language and Thought
  • Teaching Strategies Based on Vygotsky's Theory
  • Evaluating and Comparing Vygotsky's and Piaget's Theories
• Information Processing
  • Attention
  • Memory
  • Scripts
  • Strategies
• The Young Child's Theory of Mind
  • Becoming Aware That the Mind Exists
  • Understanding Cognitive Connections to the Physical World
  • Detecting Accuracies/Inaccuracies of the Mind
  • Summary

Language Development

• Developmental Changes
• Literacy and Early Childhood Education

Early Childhood Education

• Variations in Early Childhood Education
  • The Child-Centered Kindergarten
  • The Montessori Approach
  • Developmentally Appropriate and Inappropriate Practices in the Education of Young Children
  • Education of Children Who Are Disadvantaged
  • The Effects of Early Childhood Education
  • Nonsexist Early Childhood Education
• Does Preschool Matter?
• School Readiness