Learning to Draw Recognizable Graphic Representations During Mother-Child Interactions

The present study investigated the role of mother-child collaborative drawing in children’s creations of recognizable representations. Thirty-two 4- and 5-yearolds played a cooperative game with their mothers in which they were instructed to take turns drawing pictures of farm animals for the other to guess. Mothers and children often talked about their drawings, and many aspects (e.g., discussing features essential for identifying referents) of these conversations were related to microgenetic changes (over the course of the game) in the sophistication of children’s pictures. Children also appropriated features from their mothers’ drawings into their own drawings over the course of the game. This was particularly the case for “rudimentary” drawers. Results demonstrate that young children learn to create graphic representations through utilizing information from their mothers’ drawings and from conversations with their mothers about drawings, although the extent of children’s learning is related also in part to their level of drawing performance

Conversations about science across activities in Mexican-descent families

Parent-child 'everyday' conversations have been suggested as a source of children's early science learning (Ash, 2003; Callanan & Jipson, 2001). If such conversations are important then it would be pertinent to know whether children from different family backgrounds have different experiences talking about science in informal settings. We focus on the relation between parents' schooling and both their explanatory talk in science-related activities, and the styles of interaction they use with their children. Families from different schooling backgrounds within one underrepresented group in science education – Mexican-descent families – were included in this study. Forty families were observed in two science-related activities. In the sink-or-float task, families were asked to predict which of a variety of objects would sink and which would float, and then to test their predictions in a tub of water. The second activity was an open-ended visit to a local children's museum. Results showed similar patterns in scientific talk on the sink-or-float task across the two groups. However, interaction style varied with schooling across the two activities; parents with higher schooling were more directive than parents with basic schooling. Interaction style was also found to vary with task structure, with more open-ended tasks affording more collaborative interactions. Such research into parent-child conversations in science-related activities can help begin to guide us in bridging children's learning environments – home, school, and museum – and potentially fostering children's science learning, particularly in those groups underrepresented in the sciences

Mother-Child Conversation and Children\u27s Understanding of Biological and Nonbiological Changes in Size

This article explores the ways that mothers and children from primarily middle-income European American backgrounds reason about events in which biological and nonbiological objects change in size. In Study 1, mother–child conversations were examined to investigate the events mothers described as growth, as well as the ways mothers explained events occurring in different domains. Findings indicate that although mothers primarily discussed events in domain-specific ways, they exhibited some domain blurring in their talk to children. In Study 2,3-year-old children (M = 3 years, 2 months) and 5-year-old children (M = 5 years) provided descriptions and explanations of the same events. Results suggest that preschool children have begun to develop domain-specific understandings. Results are discussed in light of the role that social interaction plays in children’s conceptual development

Learning Words through Overhearing

Recent research indicates that toddlers can monitor others\u27 conversations, raising the possibility that they can acquire vocabulary in this way. Three studies examined 2-year-olds\u27 (N= 88) ability to learn novel words when overhearing these words used by others. Children aged 2,6 were equally good at learning novel words— both object labels and action verbs—when they were overhearers as when they were directly addressed. For younger 2-year-olds (2,1), this was true for object labels, but the results were less clear for verbs. The findings demonstrate that 2-year-olds can acquire novel words from overheard speech, and highlight the active role played by toddlers in vocabulary acquisition

Similarity Comparisons and Relational Analogies in Parent-Child Conversations About Science Topics

This article explores analogy as a communicative tool used by parents to relate children’s past experiences to unfamiliar concepts. Two studies explored how similarity comparisons and relational analogies were used in parent-child conversations about science topics. In Study 1, 98 family groups including 4- to 9- year-olds explored two science museum exhibits. Parents suggested comparisons and overtly mapped analogical relations. In Study 2, 48 parents helped first- and third-grade children understand a homework-like question about infections. Parents suggested relational analogies and overtly mapped analogical relations for children. Use of relational analogies was positively associated with scores on a post-task measure of understanding. These studies suggest that parents help children learn about unfamiliar science topics by suggesting personally relevant or culturally pervasive analogies and by elaborating unfamiliar and non-obvious analogical relations

Shared Scientific Thinking in Everyday Parent-Child Activity

Current accounts of the development of scientific reasoning focus on individual children\u27s ability to coordinate the collection and evaluation of evidence with the creation of theories to explain the evidence. This observational study of parent–child interactions in a children\u27s museum demonstrated that parents shape and support children\u27s scientific thinking in everyday, nonobligatory activity. When children engaged an exhibit with parents, their exploration of evidence was observed to be longer, broader, and more focused on relevant comparisons than children who engaged the exhibit without their parents. Parents were observed to talk to children about how to select and encode appropriate evidence and how to make direct comparisons between the most informative kinds of evidence. Parents also sometimes assumed the role of explained by casting children\u27s experience in causal terms, connecting the experience to prior knowledge, or introducing abstract principles. We discuss these findings with respect to two dimensions of children\u27s scientific thinking: developments in evidence collection and developments in theory construction

Parents explain more often to boys than to girls during shared scientific thinking

Abstract — Young children’s everyday scientific thinking often occurs in the context of parent-child interactions. In a study of naturally occurring family conversation, parents were three times more likely to explain science to boys than to girls while using interactive science exhibits in a museum. This difference in explanation occurred despite the fact that parents were equally likely to talk to their male and female children about how to use the exhibits and about the evidence generated by the exhibits. The findings suggest that parents engaged in informal science activities with their children may be unintentionally contributing to a gender gap in children’s scientific literacy well before children encounter formal science instruction in grade school. Prior to their first science instruction in school, many children are exposed to science through informal educational contexts such as museums, television shows, Web pages, and books (Gelman, Massey, & McManus, 1991; Korpan, Bisanz, Bisanz, Boehme, & Lynch, 1997)

Scientists not Sponges: STEM Interest and Inquiry in Early Childhood

Young children are fascinated by the natural world. They explore endlessly, with both a sense of wonder and determination, usually in self-directed investigations or informal interactions with peers and adults. Capitalizing on this early period of spontaneous interest and inquiry is critical to efforts to promote lifelong STEMliteracy. To inform education and public outreach efforts, it is important to consider common assumptions about how children of this age learn and consider how such assumptions influence the ways we support children’s learning. Four metaphors for children learning are investigated in this paper: the young child as sponge, the young child as unlit match, the young child as scientist, and the young child as apprentice. As we critically evaluate these views on learning, we share research findings from developmental psychology that demonstrate that children’s engagement with STEM begins well before kindergarten, that children between three and five years of age develop surprisingly sophisticated scientific reasoning capacities and conceptual knowledge, and that parents play an important role in structuring and supporting preschool children’s learning