Recent initiatives by child educators, school psychologists, and practitioners emphasize providing cognitive instruction and promoting cognitive competence in all children, not only the high-achieving or most intelligent students. This book reviews efforts of cognitively-oriented educators, with the objective of translating knowledge into improved practice for the teacher or other expert mediator. The chapters are as follows: (1) "Issues in Conceptualizing Children's Cognitive Competence"; (2) "Concepts of Child Competence: Themes, Variations, and Perspectives"; (3) "A Socio-Instructional Approach to Promoting Children's Cognitive Competence Development: A Vygotskian Perspective"; (4) "Promoting Children's Cognitive Capacities Through Mediated Learning Experiences: Glimpses into the Instrumental Enrichment Program, Inquiry Method, and a Philosophy for Children Program"; (5) "The Role of Metacognitive Knowledge and Metacognitive Experience in Children's Competence Development"; (6) "A Conceptual Analysis of Children's Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation Development as Related to Child Competence Development"; and (7) "Creating a Disposition to Higher Order Learning, Problem Solving and the Development of Critical and Creative Thinking Abilities of Children." Chapter 8, "Epilogue," recommends further research to deal with the following questions: (1) at what developmental level do children learn various aspects of critical thinking; (2) at what stage of cognitive development can students transfer knowledge learned in one context into a new context; and (3) how should instruction for competency skill development differ for students of different ability levels? References are listed at the end of each chapter. (BGC)