Cognitive Stages and Age Characteristics Activities/ Strategies

1. Sensorimotor The infant learns by 1. In the later steps of this

(Birth to 24 months) doing: looking, stage, a child learns by trial
touching, sucking. and error. Therefore,
The infant also has a providing a rich stimulating
primitive (rattles, blocks, etc.) is
understanding of helpful.
cause and effect 2. Peek-a-boo is also a helpful
relationships. And
learning game in this stage.
the object
permanence will
appear around 9
months. The infant
can also
differentiates self
from objects.
2. Pre-Operational The child uses 1. Encourage hands-on
( 2- 7 years old) language and symbols, ctivities with physical
including letters and objects that change shape.
numbers. Egocentrism This moves the child
in this stage is also toward understanding
evident. Conservation conservation and two-way
marks the end of the logic.
pre-operational stage 2. Have students play wi clay,
and the beginning of water, sand or play-dough.
concrete operational 3. Talk with students about
stage. what they are experiencing
as they play with these
objects.
3. Concrete The child 1. Give students
Operational demonstrates opportunities to group and
( 7- 11 years old) conservation, classify objects and ideas
reversibility, serial on complex levels
ordering and a mature 2. Give students sentences on
understanding of pieces of paper, have them
cause-and-effect group into paragraphs.
relationships. Thinking 3. Use outlines and analogies
at this stage is still to show the relationship of
concrete. new material to already
acquired knowledge.
4. Formal Operational The individual 1. Students should work in
(12- adulthood) demonstrates abstract pairs, one is the listener,
thinking, including one is the problem
logic, deductive solver. The problem
reasoning, comparison solver works problem out
and classification. loud, the listener checks
to see that all steps are
 followed and seem
logical.
2. Put a few essay questions
on tests, which requires
the student to give more
than one final answer or
simply answer from rote
memory.
3. Suggest alternative
approaches to problems