Words&Minds. Chapter 6 Development though dialogue

Mercer proceeds in this chapter to outlining the basic human instinct or condition of children acquiring language from adults and peers.  Reactions help steer the learner toward associations of right or wrong, favorable or unfavorable reaction. Even hints of sarcasm can guide a child in constructing meanings or outcomes that have multiple connotations. Parents have to be cognizant that the meanings they want children to understand are being remembered, so constant new information is being built upon subsequent knowledge or schemas. Jerome Bruner added that adults create a scaffold a hierarchy of how to accomplish something in the shortest time possible. Children then construct their own interpretation on the meanings from lessons learned. Lessons about etiquette are important in teaching children, yet the lessons adults teach about how to do something efficient are always a core philosophy to task mastery. Children also learn in zones of proximity to each other, and the tasks provided to a group. Yet the common denominator is language, without it many interactions about self and identity would be inhibited.

I feel this is a very important chapter, that probably should have been chapter 2 or 3 in this book not towards the end. The lessons of Piaget cannot be underestimated. Jean Piaget describes the acquisition of language in the preoperational developmental stage. Children’s language is largely egocentric with monologs being practice sometimes autonomously. There is language but not much communication occurring but the child does not realize this until further mental growth occurs. Through natural processes language develops from ego to a public or socialized orientation.

Teachers and parents teach children how to be efficient, through guided practice and moderation.  Parents don’t tell children to number every puzzle piece before start of assembly. They want the child to create a frame of the puzzle, which in a sense is a framework of completing the task before frustration occurs.  Teachers also perform the same fundamental task in the classroom routine everyday.