As a child grows up, they will go through several different stages of development that will shape them as their own individual person and prepare them for further developmental processes. Cognitive development, or the development of a child's perception, thinking, learning, and memory, is the basis for how a child will continue learning both in school and from the environment around them. In order to build a child's cognition, adults involved in the child's learning experiences (relatively parents and their teachers) must foster the child's cognitive processes, or the change in their thinking, intelligence, and language skills. A specific area of cognitive development which requires instruction and assistance from adults is zone of proximal development, the term for tasks that are too difficult for children to master alone but can be mastered with assistance from adults or more-skilled children.
In zone of proximal development, there is the lower limit, the actual zone of proximal development (or ZPD), and the upper limit. The lower limit is the level of problem solving reached on tasks by a child working independently, the zone of proximal development is the range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master alone but can be learned with guidance and assistance, and the upper limit is the level of additional responsibility the child can accept with assistance of an able instructor. The challenges of zone of proximal development range in severity child to child, but are relatively the same for everyone. Assessing where a child's skills currently are and how much challenge they can handle with assistance may be difficult. Because language and thought are the first two aspects of zone of proximal development, it may be hard to gauge where a child's current understanding of dialogue lies. According to psychologist Vygotsky, who is responsible for the idea of zone of proximal development, language and thought first develop independently and then merge during further development.
The zone of proximal development is something that children are born having, being that from the moment they are born, they will begin to collect information from their environment and those who they are surrounded by. Of course, for any skill, children will start in their lower limit. In the development of language and thinking, it is important for parents, or any beings around the child, to speak to them. Even when a child is still too young to respond back to someone speaking to them, it helps the child develop an understanding for language: who the people around them are (mom, dad, brother/sister, etc), what their surroundings are (this is home, this is daycare, this is the playground, etc), and what is around them (toys, books, bottle, etc). Scaffolding, the term used to describe the practice of changing the level of support provided over the course of a teaching session, with the more-skilled person adjusting guidance to fit the child's current performance level, is an idea closely linked to zone of proximal development which is vital in teaching a child any skill. According to Vygotsky, children have rich but unsystematic, disorganized, and spontaneous concepts which are addressed in dialogue, but are further met with the systematic, logical, and rational concepts of a skilled helper.
Children use language not only to communicate with others, but also to solve tasks, plan, guide, and monitor their behavior. This type of language is called private speech, and can be better understood as the language children use in self-regulation. Developing a child's language allows not only stronger social communication, but allows the child to have internalized egocentric speech, or inner speech, meaning they can begin to focus on their own thoughts. Teaching language is not simply teaching a child how to talk, but also how to think, behave, and interact with what is around them.
To teach language and thought, it is best to first assess the child's zone of proximal development by giving the child different tasks of ranging difficulties to determine the best level of instruction to give moving further. It is important to teach towards the child's upper limit, this way the child can reach the goal with help and achieve a higher skill set and knowledge. The more skilled person should be observant when the child is completing the task, taking note of which parts of the task are difficult for them and asking the child if they need help. It is also important that the more skilled person provide encouragement, as it can be easy for children to give up when something seems to be "too hard." A mix of adults and older children helping is beneficial for all children involved, it teaches new skills to both, and for the child with less skill, it can be more relatable and inspirational to receive help from someone closer in age to them.
As a parent, the best way to help your child develop within their zone of proximal development is to always be interactive with them from the time they are an infant and throughout their childhood and even adolescence. Conversing with your child is the easiest way to help them, but other ideas could be implementing daily activities which reinforce skills taught in school, or if they are not in school yet, exposing them to entry level skills so they may be more well prepared when they do enter school. With the use of technology, parents can allow their children time with a tablet or in front of a television and stream fun, educational videos, with a wide variety of subjects, characters, and ways the child can interact along with the video. For further benefit, the parent should show the child how to interact with the video, so they can learn how to do so on their own.
Out of personal experience, when I was a child my mother bought cassette tapes with songs that taught me how to count and learn our home phone number and address. She often would also let me watch shows like Barney, which teach children colors, shapes, and more. As I got older, my mother bought "Hooked on Phonics," a program with videos, games and flash cards to teach children phonics, and she'd spend an hour or so with me doing the activities every day. To this day, English and writing are my two strongest aspects in my education, and I am confident it is because my mother helped me develop in my zone of proximal development.
Of course, schools should center all education around developing a child's zone of proximal development. Because children are hands-on and active learners, it is important that teachers implement activities into the curriculum which require student participation, beyond just asking and answering questions. Math can be taught using blocks, history taught by acting out events, and the environment taught by taking a "field trip" around the school, taking note of recycling bins and anything else students notice around them. Activities should challenge a child's current skills and should be well explained and guided by the teacher or instructor.
One way school systems can help children develop within their zone of proximal development is by having older students spend time with younger students, such as dedicated recess time where older students teach simple skills from sports like kickball or basketball, giving younger children basic concepts of playground sports while also teaching them to think in a task-oriented manner. This challenges the child to consider more than one simple task at a time, a skill easily applied in the classroom, playroom, and day-to-day activities. Another example: a class of younger students joins a class of older students for reading, paired one older student to one or two younger students, reading books beyond the younger child's zone of proximal development but within the older student's. This exposes younger students to a higher range of vocabulary, while encouraging involvement between students regardless of age, and may encourage each student to spend more free time reading.
Developing a child's zone of proximal development is essential. Activities promoting this development must be done from the time a child is an infant and throughout their childhood. If parents, teachers, and peers of a child all work together in developing a child's zone of proximal development, by the time the child reaches late adolescence, they will have a strong skill set preparing them to be independent. Although developing a child's zone of proximal development has its challenges, it must not be overlooked.
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Originally published by Anne Reboa on Vocal.media.