Middle

Childhood
The Primary
Schooler
Middle Childhood
A stage where children move into
expanding roles and environments.
Children begin to spend more time away
from their family and spend more time in
school and other activities.

• This is the stage between 6 to 12 years

old.
• Started their elementary grades from
Grade 1 to 3.
Physical Development of Primary Schoolers
Physical development involves many different
factors:

• Height
• Weight
• Appearance
• Visual
• Hearing
• Motor Abilities
 Physical growth during the primary school
years is slow but steady.

Physical development involves:

1. Good muscle control and coordination.
2. Developing eye-hand cordination.
3. Good personal hygiene
4. Aware of good safety habits.
Height and Weight
Height:
• Gradual and steady growth.
• A little over 2 inches average
per year.

Weight:
• 6.5 pounds average per year.
• Slimmer appearance
compared to pre-school years.
Factors that indicate how much a child
grows or how much changes in the
body will take place:

• Genes
• Food
• Climate
• Exercise
• Medical Condition
• Diseases/Illness
 Bones and Muscles
This is the best time to teach children of good dietary and
exercise habits to help them have a strong and healthy bones
throughout their lives. Increase calcium intake.

• Childhood years are the peak bone-producing years.

• Bones grow longer and broader.
• Replacement of primary teeth known as baby teeth.
Replacement starts around 6 to 7 years old up to 12 years
old.
• Large muscle control is at bigger play over fine motor.
Example: Difficulty in writing.
• Bone and muscle growth are still not complete or avoid
strenuous activities.
Motor Development
• Young school-aged children are gaining
control over major muscle of their bodies and
they like testing their muscle strength and
skills.
• Their gross motor skills are already
developed as such they can run, skip, hop,
jump, tumble, roll, and dance.

• They can perform unimanual (use of one

hand) and bi-manual (using two hands).
 Motor Development Skills

• Coordination
Series of movement organized and timed to occur in a
particular way to bring a particular results.
• Balance
Child’s ability to maintain the equilibrium or stability of
his/her body in different position

 Static balance - ability to maintain equilibrium in a

fixed position.
 Dynamic balance - ability to maintain equilibrium
while moving.
Motor Development Skills
• Speed
Ability to cover a great distance in the shortest
possible time.

• Agility
Ability to quickly change or shift the direction of the body.

• Power
Ability to perform a maximum effort in the shortest
possible time.
Issues affecting Physical Development

Childhood
Nutrition

Obesity Sleep
 Implications to child care,
education, and parenting
 Encourage children to join or enroll in related
programs (sports) during free time or summertime.

 Advocate better nutrition in foods in school.

 Balance rigorous physical play and quiet activities

in the classroom.
 Implications to child care,
education, and parenting
 Create exercise plan for children.

 Maintain daily sleep schedule and consistent bed

time routine.

 Bedroom should conducive for peaceful sleep.

Cognitive Development of Primary Schoolers

• Children in middle childhood between

ages of 6 to 11 years, have major
changes in memory, language, and
mental processing.
• Children also make improvements in
short term and long term memory.
• Jean Piaget is the foremost theorist of
cognitive development.

• According to Piaget, the child is

entering a new stage of cognitive
development where they are
improving their logical skills.

• According to him, intelligence is the

basic mechanism of ensuring balance
in the relations between the person
and environment.
Jean Piaget’s ConcreteOperational Stage

Concrete operation is the third stage in Piaget’s theory

of cognitive development.

 When children use mental operations, such as

reason to solve actual problems, children enter
the stage of concrete operation.
Logic
• Concrete operational thinkers, according to
Piaget, can already make use of inductive logic.
Inductive logic involves thinking from a specific
experience to general principle. But at this stage,
children have great difficulty in using Deductive
logic or beginning with general principle leading
to specific event.
 Reversibility
One of the most important development in this stage is an
understanding of reversibility, or awareness that can be reversed.

Example:
Teacher: Jacob, do you have a brother?
Jacob: Yes.
Teacher: What is his name?
Jacob: Marjun.
Teacher: Does Marjun have a brother?
Jacob: Yes.
 Cognitive Milestone
Elementary -aged children encounter
developmental milestone. The skills they
learn are in a sequential manner, meaning
they need to understand numbers before
they can perform a mathematical equation.

By six, most can read words or

combination of words.
 Up until age 8, a child can learn new
skills at a rapid pace.
Information Processing
Skills

• Several theorists argue that like the computer,

the human mind is a system that can process
information through the application of logical
rules and strategies.
• They also believe that the mind receives
information, performs operations to change
its form and content, store locates its and
generates responses from it.
Implications to child care, education,
and parenting

• Helping children draw on their strengths and promote

growth in their weaknesses.
• Planning lessons that cater to multiple intelligences
based on instructional objectives.
• Encouraging children to read more everyday to increase
their vocabulary.
• Bringing children to museums, art exhibits and
historical landmarks to widen their perspective about
the world and people.
• Lessening children’s screen time and increasing their
personal and face - to - face interactions.
 Exploration of the natural
world begins in early
childhood, flourishes in the
middle childhood, and
continues in adolescene as
a pleasure and a source of
strength for social action.

- David Sobel
 Socio-Emotional Development of
Primary Schoolers

• During middle childhood, children make great

strides in terms of their ability to recognize
emotions, control their own emotions, and
communicate about emotions. By this age, most
children have developed their capacity for
regulating their own emotions.
• They are likely to show more independence from
their parents and family. Think more about the
future, understand more about their place in the
world, pay more attention to friendships, and
want to be accepted by their peers.
• The developmental theorist, Erik Erikson,
formulated eight stage of man’s
psychological development. Each stage is
regarded as a “psychological crisis”
which arise and demands resolution
before the next stage could be achieved.

• Preschool children belong to the fourth

stage of Erikson’s psychological stage.
Children have to resolve the issue on
Industry vs Inferiority.
Erik Erikson’s Fourth stage of Psychosocial development

Industy vs Inferiority

Industry refers to child’s nvolvement in situations where long,

patient work is demanded of them. While, inferiority is the feeling
created when childs gets a feeling of failure when they cannot finish
or master their school work.
 ke
Understanding the Self i
i l ing
be n l
a ua i like m
div y
in body
Self-concept
i like my
sense of “ is the knowledge about the
self, such as beliefs regarding
humor
personality traits, physical
characteristics, abilities, values,
a goals and roles”.
I am od my
go nd i like frie
frie how I like nds
me
look
 In the transition from pre- School years
elementary to primary school,
children tend to become:
Increasingly self-confident and able
to cope well with social interaction.
They are also aware of the needs
and desires of others.
Fairness and equality become
important to them.
Characteristics like loyalty and
reliability are being considered as
well as responsibility and kindness.
 Building Friendships
Making friends is a crucial but
very important part of children
social and emotional growth.

During this stage, they most likely

belong to a peer group.
“What is a FRIEND? A
Peer groups are characterized by single soul dwelling in two
children who belong bodies.”
approximately to the same age
- Aristotle
group and social economic status.
Antisocial behavior

• Children at this stage are still

forming their own world views
and other children may seem
like a curiosity that they need to
explore.
• Children poke, pull, hit or kick
other children when they are
first introduced.
 Parents and teachers can help
children make friends:

 Expose the children to kid - rich environment (e.g.

playgrounds, park).
 Create a play group in your class and let the children mingle
with their classmates.
 When your children hit other children, remind them that
their behavior hurts others.
 Coordinate with the parents and other teachers so that
children will have greater opportunity to interact with other
children.
 Implications to child care,
education, and parenting
 Gain understanding of their child’s socio-emotional
strengths and weaknesses by observing the
child’s behavior at home.
 Work collaboratively with the child’s parents and
health-care provider to expand one’s insights on
the child development.
Provide a supportive setting where children have
opportunities to practice emotional regulation and
social skills with peers.
 Implications to child care,
education, and parenting
 Give children activities when they can practice
taking turns, sharing, and playing cooperatively.
 Be a role model of health emotions and
expressing these emotions appropriately.
Demonstrate calmness and staying in control of
one’s own feeling.
t ha n k y o u. . .
Physical development
Julie Villahermosa
Cecil Silvestre

Cognitive development
Kimberly Delgado
Ires Alexanne Orencio

Socio-emotional development
Martin Jamison
Ronald Agustin Jr