Category: zone of proximal development

Cognitive Brain Development Theories

Current research confirms earlier brain development theorist that suggested brain development takes place in a structured systematic fashion. For years researchers have suggested that individual’s cognitive processing skills develop in a layered manner. Now we have fresh research conducted with new forms of technology not available to most of these researchers to validate their theories. Four relevant cognitive development theories concluded before current technology are described below.

The first theory was developed by Binet and Simon in 1916. Their work established the intelligence guidelines that we use today. Educators at the time were struggling to accurately label struggling students or why students did not all respond to same types of curricula at different levels of education. Binet and Simon’s research determined how the brain functioned at different age levels. The results of their research show that a student gains cognitive processing skills or cognitive intelligence in a systematic manner. For example, they discovered that a picture could determine a child’s intellectual age of three, seven, and twelve. Three-year-old children give simple explanations of the people within a picture, but not the background or happenings of the people within the picture. Binet and Simon noted, “At three years, therefore, the child is at the stage recognition and identification of objects” (p. 190). The answers are usually given in simple one-word sentences. Children at the intellectual age of seven can examine a picture and describe the relationship of the people and objects within the picture. Binet and Simon noted that the answer is given in complete sentences. At the intellectual age of twelve, children are able to give an interpretation of the picture. These interpretations are expressed in a written description of their feelings that are attached to the description of the picture. Children begin to view the whole picture and the meaning of the picture as they grow intellectually.

The second theory was developed by Vygotsky through his research from 1926 to 1930 that focused on “the mechanism of transformation of natural psychological functions into the higher functions of logical memory, elective attention, decision making, and comprehension of language” (Vygotsky, 1934, p. xxvii). Vygotsky’s research in educational psychology led to cognitive rehabilitation practices. He focused on the mental age and the functioning age of children and discovered that ages were not always the same. Vygotsky also discovered that children maturate in a stratified, blended pattern. Vygotsky’s cognitive development theory rests on the amount and type of social interaction that takes place during the maturation process. Vygotsky (1934) argued that children will exhibit higher cognitive functions in an enriched environment. Cognitive functions of children will increase as they master social processes. Vygotsky’s research led to two major findings of cognitive development, the zone of proximal development and inner speech.

The third theory was realized by Piaget (1966), who worked for Binet in the mid-1920s. His findings were not made known until the mid-1960s. Piaget argued that when children’s bodies go through the maturation process, their brains also move into higher levels of cognitive processing. Piaget (1966) concluded that “mental growth is inseparable from physical growth: the maturation of the nervous and endocrine systems, in particular continues until the age of sixteen” (p. xvii). Piaget considered cognitive development within the womb to be more genetically linked than environmentally linked. For Piaget the environment takes on a larger role of development of cognitive intelligence outside of the womb. Piaget (1966) argued that individuals develop their cognitive processing skills at different ages, each level building on the previous level. Piaget established four major levels of cognitive development: sensori-motor, semiotic or symbolic, concrete operations, and propositional operations or pre-adolescent.

The fourth theory was formed through Fowler’s (1983) research that focused on the effects of stimulation on cognitive processing development. A portion of his research focused on language development and the cognitive process of learning how to read. Fowler (1983) theorized that cognitive development was founded on two major explanations that involved the environment and genetics. According to Fowler (1962), the inherited design unfolds itself through “ordered stages of maturation” and is modified through the child’s environmental experiences (p. 143). Fowler argued that the cognitive processing skills of children will grow through the acquisition of layered skills and that children must be able to question before they can reason. Fowler argued that cognitive development is dependent on three main skills as well as motivation. He suggested that these skills were knowledge, codes, and problem-solving strategies and styles. Formal knowledge is how the information is processed, used, and stored within the brain. Codes refers to the use of codes, which are the connections within the brain that allow children to catalog, store, and retrieve vast amounts of information. The complexity of the code connections grows as children maturate. Strategies represent the style of processing information. All children demonstrate different tempos for processing information. All children have different forms of analyzing and integrating information into brains. Fowler (1983) recognized Piaget’s basic stages of cognitive development, but he felt that cognitive development occurred in a blurred rather than a rigid formation. He felt that all new cognitive processing skills are developed based on previously developed cognitive skills.

Current research that supports the theories explained above will be described in my next blog.

References

Binet, A. & Simon, T. (1915). A method of measuring the development of the intelligence of  your children. Chicago Medical Books.

Binet, A. & Simon, T. (1916). The development of intelligence in children. Williams & Wilkins Co.

Fowler, W. (1962). Cognitive learning in infancy and early childhood. Psychological Bulletin, 59(2). 116-152.

Fowler, W. (1983) Potentials of childhood, Vol 1. Heath & Co.

Piaget, J. & Inhelder, B. (2000). The psychology of the child. Basic Books.

Vygotsky, L. (1934). Thought and language. MIT Press.

 

 

 

 

Composing Written Words

Writing is an exercise that requires higher cognitive processing abilities. These skills take time to develop, as children need to first build the foundations or connections necessary to speak words and sentences. This skill begins to appear around age two when children are beginning to build their own oral sentences. Some children will begin earlier; some children will begin later. Student brain connections begin developing under the direction of their genetics gained at conception. They are listening and observing others to learn how different sounds convey meaning. The brain continues to build roads, highways, and by-ways according to their genetics and their environment. They will build the necessary connections to survive in their immediate environment under the direction of their genetics. This means making the connections to coordinate information between the necessary parts of the brain for speaking and writing language. This means developing connections to synthesize stored and new information. A child’s immediate environment will either increase or hinder their oral language growth. A child’s oral language ability usually dictates their reading and writing ability. There will be exceptions, like students with dyslexia.

Brain development occurs in a systematic or ordered fashion, like a flower growing from a seed. The flower grows systematically in stages. We can observe some stages of the flower’s development, while other stages are invisible or internal. Some flowers take longer to mature; other flowers are slower to mature. Writing skills are developed in a similar fashion. There are five stages that students move through while learning how to write (Voyager Sopris Learning, 2025). The first stage is pre-phonemic – scribbling/drawing, usually not legible. The second stage is early phonemic – begins to recognize and emulate letter shapes. The third stage is strings of random letters – able to write letters, writing nonsense words. The fourth stage invented/transitional spelling – encoding words, putting phonemes together based on the sounds of a word. The fifth stage is conventional writing and spelling – able to write coherent sentences and passages, often relying on their phonics knowledge. The growth is both seen and unseen.

Often student brain connections or routes have not developed enough for them to transfer their oral language to paper. Vygotsky (1934/2002) theorized that children first process and compose their verbal language aloud through others in their environment. At this stage of development individuals in the student’s environment are more likely to hear unfiltered verbiage, like he stinks or their shirt is dirty. At this stage their brain is relying on just one route of thought called interpsychological. Around ages 7-9 the student brain will begin using a second thought processing route that Vygotsky (1934/2002) referred to as intrapsychological or inner speech. Students compose their own thoughts without filtering them through their environment. They begin to individualize their thoughts relying more heavily own data bank of information instead of those in their environment. Students begin refraining from sharing their exact thoughts.

In the formal classroom, students are often shut down or not allowed to talk while independent writing is taking place. Most students in the primary grades need to express themselves orally before putting words on paper. Their brains have not moved from one processing route or verbally thinking to having two routes to process their thinking. Creating a writing environment that gives opportunity for a variety of different volume levels allows students to orally express and discuss composing their writing, and it gives an opportunity to focus on putting their oral composition onto to paper.

A student who seems to be lazy or unengaged is typically struggling to write words on paper. These students are still gaining the foundational writing skills in stages 1-3. They are building the necessary connections to write words on paper. These students are usually frustrated and feel degraded. They begin to navigate ways around the task.

If a student is struggling to verbally express a coherent sentence, then direct, explicit instruction in a small group needs to take place. You become their co-author. You become their sounding board. You become their scribe. The student should write the scribed sentence in their own handwriting. This helps students to build their handwriting connections to put words on paper. Small group instruction allows the instructor to work with students more at their zone of proximal development. When students are ready for this instruction with the assistance of someone of higher cognitive processing. They will likely be stuck for some time without your assistance. This is also a form of scaffolding.

References

Voyager Sopris Learning (2025). What are the stages of writing development? Voyager Sopris Learning. https://www.voyagersopris.com/vs/blog/stages-of-writing-development.

Vygotsky, L. (1934/2002). Thought and Language. MIT Press.

The Art and Science of Scaffolding

Scaffolding is “a supportive instructional structure that teachers use to provide the appropriate mechanisms for a student to complete a task that is beyond their unassisted abilities” (Ray, 2017, p.14). The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is known as the space just beyond a student’s unassisted ability. Student ZPD may be discovered through who, why, what, where, and how questions posed by the teacher. The teacher analyzes student answers to the posed questions to determine at what point they begin to need assistances in completing the task. The number of questions that need to be asked and analyzed may be different for each student and task. This is usually dependent on teacher knowledge of task and student ability. Student ZPD a living entity that is always changing.

There are three stages to scaffolding process that require constant adjustments. The first stage is contingency. In this stage the teachers model how to complete the task. Teachers also differentiate instruction to meet student learning abilities. The second stage is fading. In this stage, teachers assist students in completing the task. This might mean answering a few questions. This might mean collaborating with the student. This might mean remodeling parts of the task. Students may spend more time in this stage. The third stage is transfer of responsibility. In this stage, students work independently to complete the task. Students may move back and forth between stages multiple times before they have true ownership of the task. At times they might move through to independent without going back and forth between the stages of scaffolding. This is dependent on student background, abilities, and personality or learning style.

Many teachers use the art of scaffolding in their teaching. Scaffolds are used intentionally and unintentionally at all learns levels. Scaffolds are used to assist students for varying reasons. Students may have gaps in their knowledge. Students may have gaps in their skills. Students may have a disability that inhibits them from learning at the speed of their classmates. For example, if you can ride a bicycle, you most likely used a form scaffolding to learn how to ride a bike. Your parent may have held the bike until you were pedaling and could keep the bike upright and moving forward. You may have also used training wheels until you felt comfortable enough to try the skill of riding a bike by yourself. You may have taken the extra wheels off and realized that you still need them to accomplish your goal. You might have needed more or less assistance in learning how to ride a bike than other individuals. Your parents and friends provided the scaffolding you needed to learn how to ride a bike. We use similar scaffolds in the classroom to assistance students.

  • Teachers might provide students with an alphabetic strip at their desks.
  • Teachers might provide students with a multiplication chart.
  • Teachers might provide students with a word wall.
  • Teachers might provide a dictionary.
  • Teachers might also provide manipulatives for math.

References

Ray, J. (2017). Tiered 2 interventions for students in grades 1-3 identified as at risk in reading. (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3826/

van de Pol, J., Volman, M., & Beishuizen, J. (2010). Scaffolding in teacher-student interaction: A decade of research. Education Psychology Review, 22, 271-296. doi:10.1007/s10648-010-9127-6.

Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding

Student optimum learning level or zone of proximal development (ZPD) was first introduced in Vygotsky’s 1929 cultural-historical theory of psychological development. Vygotsky’s theory maintains that cognitive development includes (a) the processes of mastering the external means of cultural development and thinking in relation to language, writing, counting, and drawing, and (b) the processes of higher mental functions, which include the concepts of logical memory, categorical perception, voluntary attention, and conceptual thinking. Vygotsky believed that each student has a unique learning level or ZPD that is based on past interactions with adults, peers, culture, and environment. He defined ZPD as “the distance between the level of actual development, determined with the help of independently solved tasks, and the level of possible development, defined with the help of tasks solved by the child under the guidance of adults or in cooperation with the more intelligent peers” (Vygotsky, 1935/2011, p. 204). ZPD is the bud or potential growth that can develop into ripened fruit or ownership of skill (Vygotsky, 1978), when feed the necessary nutrients. These are skills that are in the process of maturing and will need the assistance of an individual of higher cognitive processing level to complete. This is a student’s unique, ideal instructional or learning level that is constantly changing, as they work with individuals of higher cognitive processing levels and interact with their natural environment.

Student zone of proximal development (ZPD) is important to the scaffolding process, as student learning is most effective at this level. Instruction should begin just beyond what they already know or have mastered. Teachers use student ZPD to begin modeling how to complete a task not yet mastered. Teachers add scaffolds to assist the student(s) in learning new information and task completion. The scaffolds should be removed as student begins to show confidence or take ownership of unknown information. This may mean adding and subtracting the same or similar scaffolds before student becomes completely confident or has mastered the task. Student ZPD is most prevalent during the fading stage of the scaffolding process. Scaffolding is a process that includes three major stages—contingency, fading, and transfer of responsibility. The scaffolding process is described in further detail in my July 5th post—titled, Scaffolding Instruction.

Student ZPD can be located through assessment. Vygotsky suggested using assessments to measure student’s capabilities, that included (a) you demonstrate how to complete a task and observe the student mirror this demonstration, (b) you start a task and ask the student to complete the task, (c) ask the student to complete a task in collaboration with a higher functioning student, and (d) demonstrate metacognition in solving the task (Gredler, 2009). Teachers may also use formative, summative, and/or diagnostic assessments to help determine student’s approximate ZPD. Teachers can also use anecdotal notes or observations of student capabilities to help determine students ZPD. Teachers can also use student’s answer to questions about the current task posed by the teacher or person of higher cognitive ability to fine tune learner’s ZPD regarding a concept or task.

References
Gredler, M. (2009). Learning and Instruction Theory into Practice. Upper Saddle Creek, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Vygotsky, L. (1929). The problem of the cultural development of the child II. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 36, 415-434. Vygotsky Reader, Blackwell. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1929/ cultural_development.htm
Vygotsky, L. S., & Kozulin, A. (1935/2011). The dynamics of the schoolchild’s mental development in relation to teaching and learning. Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 10(2), 198-211. http://ia-cep.org/journal/jcep
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. Mind and Society, 79-91. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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