The Learning Child: Guidelines for Parents and Teachers

by Dorothy Cohen

Overview

Hailed as a classic in developmental psychology, The Learning Child is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1972, if not more so. Drawing on the findings of psychologists like Piaget, and on the author's own experiences teaching child development at New York’s Bank Street College, Cohen explores the crucial links between learning and the successive stages of childhood, and shows parents and teachers how to turn a child’s natural instinct for inquiry into a talent for learning that will last a lifetime.
 
“If American parents will read and listen to Dr. Cohen’s sensible, wise analysis of the way young children learn, my faith in human beings will be restored! . . . It was refreshing and reassuring to read a book by someone who approaches childhood with love and profound wisdom.” —Eda LeShan, author of When Your Child Drives You Crazy

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780805208566
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/12/1988
Series:	Bank Street College of Education Child Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	388
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

DOROTHY COHEN was a brilliant teacher, a prolific writer, and an internationally known educator whose books The Learning Child, Kindergarten and Early Schooling, and, with Virginia Stern, Observing and Recording the Behaviour of Young Children are classics in the fields of child development and education. She traveled widely in the United States and abroad and was a frequent public speaker on behalf of the political and social principles that were her life-long passion.

Dr. Cohen was a Bank Street student in the 1930s, then studied at Teacher's College and New York University, where she received her doctorate. She returned to Bank Street College in the 1960s as a member of the graduate faculty, advising, teaching, and writing until her death in 1979.

Throughout her professional career Dorothy Cohen inspired and encouraged generations of graduate students, teachers, parents, daycare workers, and colleagues to participate with her in broadening the notion of education, to, in her own words, "safeguard the humanness of our children."

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Introduction	xv
	What Does Innovative Mean?	3
	What Changes Do We Need?	27
	Developmental Aspects of Five-Year-Olds, Including Learning Style	50
	Kindergarten: Underpinning for Academic Learning	72
	Kindergarten and the Parent	98
	Developmental Aspects of Sixes and Sevens	119
	Intellectual Life in the Primary Grades	144
	The Meaning of the Skills: I. Reading	165
	The Meaning of the Skills: II. Writing	188
	The Meaning of the Skills: III. Mathematics	195
	Eight to Eleven: The Intermediate Years	205
	How Much Can They Learn?	240
	What Shall They Learn in the Intermediate Grades?	257
	Parent and Child During the Intermediate Years	297
	Beyond the Home to School and Community	329
	Index	351

Editorial Reviews

"If American parents will read and listen to Dr. Cohen's sensible, wise analysis of the way young children learn, my faith in human beings will be restored! . . . It was refreshing and reassuring to read a book by someone who approaches childhood with love and profound wisdom."
—Eda LeShan, author of When Your Child Drives You Crazy

From the Publisher