The development of critical thinking skills in students is seen in this presentation as a significant and worthy objective of education, though the realization of this objective will be dependent upon many important factors. Among the factors cited here are, first, that recent major reform efforts have created no barriers to including critical…

The major components of playfulness in kindergarten children are physical, social, and cognitive spontaneity, manifest joy, and sense of humor. Children who are highly playful also show high scores in divergent and creative thinking. Piaget postulated that after the age of 7 or 8 this quality is replaced by assimilating the objective facts of the…

Research findings indicate that role play can contribute to children's language growth through furthering: (a) growth in imaging, (b) increased recall, (c) discriminative listening, (d) development of novel forms of communication, (e) learning of socially appropriate communication, and (f) motoric actions. Teachers can facilitate role-playing by…

This paper compares the effects of television viewing to the effects of imaginative play on children's cognitive development. The major developmental tasks which confront the growing child are presented and the significance of imaginative play as a critical feature of the child's cognitive and affective development is discussed. The cognitive…

A significant problem with inquiry teaching is that too much emphasis is placed on inquiry as a logical, scientific, and rational way of knowing. Feelings and mood are rarely dealt with except in rather off-handed remarks about intuitive leaps and creative encounters. Few consider what a model of inquiry based on mood and feeling might look like.…

Educators have worked long and strenuously, but a unified English curriculum has not yet been attained. The language arts-skills approach, the communications approach, and the tripod approach haven't worked. Recently, modern linguists have argued that language study belongs to the liberal arts, not to the behavioral sciences; behaviorists have…

This paper examines the developmental stages of haptic perception (the process of recognizing objects by the sense of touch alone), and attempts to clarify some conflicting results of studies of the effects of memory and object type. The paper also presents a specific study of haptic perception in 144 preschool and kindergarten children from…

A group of language class activities use photographs to encourage students to identify, describe, imagine, recount, and persuade in a variety of ways. (MSE)

Suggests ways in which students can elaborate upon activities for improving thinking skills to produce interesting and creative poetry. (JC)

A university second language program using associative learning and context to enhance retention of words, expressions, and structures is described. Observed results of this situational approach are discussed. (MSE)

This update of a bibliography published in Canadian Journal of Educational Communication (Fall 1982; Winter 1983) cites qualitative research seeking a more comprehensive, contextual account of children's television viewing. Specific items deal with viewing time, family role, habit modification, fright reaction, commercials, affective and language…

Written for the wide range of practitioners working with young children, this book offers guidance on both the theory and the practical management of drama in the early years. The book emphasizes the relationship between pretend play and the cognitive and affective development of young children, and highlights children's need to experience quality…

Extensive empirical research has documented the value of play for both cognitive and social development. In this collection, leading experts in play research, child development, and early childhood education examine recent policy decisions and demonstrate the importance of play in helping children learn basic literacy skills, social awareness,…

As head of the Department of Pedagogy at the University of Chicago, John Dewey established an elementary school where a new curriculum could be put into practice, evaluated, and refined. This paper discusses how the activities of the school put Dewey's theories into practice generally, and particularly how they were applied to music education.…

Seventeen children who had been removed from deleterious family backgrounds and placed in institutional care were exposed to imaginative play training. They showed significant increments in levels of imaginative play, positive emotionality, prosocial behaviors, and in measures of divergent thinking and story-telling skills, and decreases in levels…