Deborah J. Leong

Bio: Deborah J. Leong is an academic researcher from Metropolitan State University of Denver. The author has contributed to research in topics: Early childhood education & Child development. The author has an hindex of 20, co-authored 37 publications receiving 2198 citations.

Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education

Abstract: SECTION I The Vygotskian Framework: The Cultural-Historical Theory of Development Chapter 1 Introduction to the Vygotskian Approach Chapter 2 Acquiring Mental Tools and Higher Mental Functions Chapter 3 The Vygotskian Framework and Other Theories of Development and Learning SECTION II Strategies for Development and Learning Chapter 4 The Zone of Proximal Development Chapter 5 Tactics: Using Mediators Chapter 6 Tactics: Using Language Chapter 7 Tactics: Using Shared Activities SECTION III Applying the Vygotskian Approach to Development and Learning in Early Childhood Chapter 8 Developmental Accomplishments and Leading Activity: Infants and Toddlers Chapter 9 Supporting the Developmental Accomplishments of Infants and Toddlers Chapter 10 Developmental Accomplishments and the Leading Activity: Preschool and Kindergarten Chapter 11 Supporting the Developmental Accomplishments in Preschool and Kindergarten Chapter 12 Developmental Accomplishments and the Leading Activity: Primary Grades Chapter 13 Supporting the Developmental Accomplishments in the Primary Grades Chapter 14 Dynamic Assessment: Application of the Zone of Proximal Development Epilogue Glossary References Author Index Subject Index

Play and Self-Regulation: Lessons from Vygotsky

Abstract: The authors consider the analysis of the literature on play research by Lillard and others in the January 2013 Psychological Bulletin, an analysis that questioned the prevailing assumption of a causal relationship between play and child development, especially in the areas of creativity, reasoning, executive function, and regulation of emotions. The authors regard these connections as critical for teachers in early-childhood classrooms and for other advocates of child play. They claim that the conclusions of Lillard and her coauthors place these professionals in a difficult position because they already face sharp pressure to replace play with academic activities. The authors suggest that the difficulty researchers have in linking play to development partly results from a failure to account for both cognitive and non-cognitive developments across a complex trajectory. To help see the problem more clearly, they argue for a return to the Vygotskian and post-Vygotskian theories that differentiate between immature and mature play. The authors then describe their creation, an observational tool based on such theories, that helps researchers and practitioners judge the quality of pretend play. Keywords: Lev Vygotsky; mature play; Mature Play Observation Tool; play and child development; self-regulationIt may sound counterintuitive to turn to theories now almost a century old to answer questions about the current state of knowledge about play, but these long-standing insights first advanced by the Russian developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky in the early twentieth century now help us understand the role of play in child development in general and the development of self-regulation in particular. As we developed, implemented, and evaluated Tools of the Mind, the Vygotskian-based, early-childhood curriculum, we often found it necessary to defend the major role awarded to make-believe play in this curriculum (Bar- nett et al. 2008; Diamond et al. 2007). That we should even need to defend play arises from recent social changes, which we discuss later. But prevailing rules of educational research-today's allegedly practical approaches-now assume that the measurement of isolated skills over discrete intervals of time will accu- rately reflect the mechanisms of development. This assumption imposes high expectations on any play-based intervention, however, because it presupposes that a successful intervention will produce immediate results measurable by standardized instruments. Vygotsky, in contrast, took a longer view and also took account of the cultural setting of the classroom, including the relations between students and teachers.In 1927 Vygotsky explored the limitations of narrow empirical approaches in his foundational work The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology (Vygotsky 1997). Post-Vygotskians today maintain that the difference in meth- odologies underlying the design of Vygotskian-based interventions and the methodologies often now used to evaluate their effectiveness make it difficult to provide a definitive answer about which components of play do have an effect on specific areas of development.The familiar Vygotskian contention that in play a child becomes "a head taller than himself" has, over the last half century, been applied to a wide range of play and playful behaviors. Yet the basic question remains: how do we know if a child in fact functions at a higher level when engaged in play? Further, to understand the importance of play, we need to ask if Vygotsky's optimal zone of proximal development requires a specific kind of play. And if it does, we need to find which characteristics of play will prove most beneficial for child development. In this article, we examine the main principles of the Vygotskian and post-Vygotskian approach to play and focus on the relationship between play and self-regulation. We introduce the concept of mature make-believe play and attempt to measure "levels" of play based on Vygotsky's theories. …

Scaffolding Emergent Writing in the Zone of Proximal Development

Abstract: Scaffolded Writing is an innovative method of supporting emergent writing based on Vygotsky’s theory of learning and development. This article discusses the theoretical notions underlying the method: the zone of proximal develop ment, scaffolding, materialization, and private speech. A description of Scaffolded Writing is given along with classroom examples. A case study of 34 at-risk kindergarten children is reported that illustrates the effectiveness of this method in supporting children's emergent writing. Changes in the use of Scaffolded Writing by the participants of this study provide insight into the mechanisms of the transition from assisted to independent performance within the zone of proximal development.

Vygotskian and Post-Vygotskian Views on Children's Play.

Abstract: The authors argue that childhood played a special role in the cultural-historical theory of human culture and biosocial development made famous by Soviet psychologist Lev S. Vygotsky and his circle. They discuss how this school of thought has, in turn, influenced contemporary play studies. Vygotsky used early childhood to test and refine his basic principles. He considered the make-believe play of preschoolers and kindergartners the means by which they overcame the impulsiveness of toddlers to develop the intentional behavior essential to higher mental functions. The authors explore the theory of play developed by Vygotsky's colleague Daniel Elkonin based on these basic principlies, as well as the implications for play in the work of such Vygotskians as Alexei Leontiv, Alexander Luria, and others, and how their work has been extended by more recent research. The authors also discuss the role of play in creating the Vygotsky school's "zone of proximal development." Like these researchers, old and new, the authors point to the need to teach young children how to play, but they caution teachers to allow play to remain a childhood activity instead of making it a lesson plan. Key words: childhood devlopment; cultural-historical psychology; Lev S. Vygotsky; preschool play; zone of proximal developmentA well-known, often-quoted passage from Russian psychiatrist Lev S. Vygotsky states: "In play a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself. As in the focus of a magnifying glass, play contains all developmental tendencies in a condensed form; in play it is as though the child were trying to jump above the level of his normal behavior" (1967, 16).These lines, which come from a 1933 lecture on play, have recently regained the attention of scholars and practitioners. Interestingly, the interpretations of this paragraph can differ dramatically depending on the philosophical orientation of the interpreter. For example, some present it as an injunction for adults not to interfere in children's play, because-more than any other activity-play seems to allow a young child to "jump above the level of his normal behavior." Others find in these very same words from Vygotsky a call to use play as an eficient vehicle to deliver academic concepts and skills to preschoolers and kindergartners. Both interpretations, however, are inconsistent with the way Vygotsky and his students regard play, which is known as the cultural-historical approach. Our purpose in this article is to help the reader understand when and how Vygotsky's theory of play was developed and later built upon by his students and what this theory may mean for the contemporary study of play.Vygotsky on Play: The Blueprint of a TheoryTo understand fully Vygotsky's views on play, we need to place them in the larger context of Vygotsky's theory of human development and learning as well as in the broader cultural and historical context in which he and his students developed their approach to play. Vygotsky's scientific biography covers a short span of ten years from 1924 to1934, during which he produced a number of works now considered definitive in fields ranging from special education to art studies to psycholinguistics. The field of child development, however, occupies a special place in Vygotsky's scientific legacy. It was in the context of child development that Vygotsky discussed many of his well-known ideas, such as the zone of proximal development (the law of the development of higher mental functions) and the notion of instruction preceding and shaping development. Indeed, his theory of children's play cannot be separated from these broader theoretical constructs.Vygotsky's interest in play appeared evident from his early works published in the 1920s, such as The Psychology of Art (1971) and "The Prehistory of the Development of Written Language" (1997b), but he expressed his main ideas about play in the 1933 lecture from which we have already quoted, "Play and Its Role in the Mental Development of the Child" (1967). …

Interventions Shown to Aid Executive Function Development in Children 4 to 12 Years Old

Abstract: To be successful takes creativity, flexibility, self-control, and discipline. Central to all those are ‘executive functions,’ including mentally playing with ideas, giving a considered rather than an impulsive response, and staying focused. Diverse activities have been shown to improve children’s executive functions – computerized training, non-computerized games, aerobics, martial arts, yoga, mindfulness, and school curricula. Central to all these is repeated practice and constantly challenging executive functions. Children with worse executive functions initially, benefit most; thus early executive-function training may avert widening achievement gaps later. To improve executive functions, focusing narrowly on them may not be as effective as also addressing emotional and social development (as do curricula that improve executive functions) and physical development (shown by positive effects of aerobics, martial arts, and yoga).

Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs

Abstract: This statement defines and describes principles of develop­ mentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs for administrators, teachers, parents, policy-makers, and others who make decisions about the care and education of young children. An early childhood program is any group program in a center, school, or other facility that serves children from birth through age 8. Early childhood programs include child care centers, family child care homes, private and public preschools, kinder­ gartens, and primary-grade schools. The early childhood profession is responsible for establishing and promoting standards of high-quality, professional practice in early childhood programs. These standards must reflect current knowledge and shared beliefs about what constitutes high-quality, developmentally appropriate early childhood education in the context within which services are delivered. This position paper is organized into several components, which include the following:

The collected works

Abstract: This is a review of Collected Works of John Tate. Parts I, II, edited by Barry Mazur and Jean-Pierre Serre. American Mathematical Society, Providence, Rhode Island, 2016. For several decades it has been clear to the friends and colleagues of John Tate that a “Collected Works” was merited. The award of the Abel Prize to Tate in 2010 added impetus, and finally, in Tate’s ninety-second year we have these two magnificent volumes, edited by Barry Mazur and Jean-Pierre Serre. Beyond Tate’s published articles, they include five unpublished articles and a selection of his letters, most accompanied by Tate’s comments, and a collection of photographs of Tate. For an overview of Tate’s work, the editors refer the reader to [4]. Before discussing the volumes, I describe some of Tate’s work. 1. Hecke L-series and Tate’s thesis Like many budding number theorists, Tate’s favorite theorem when young was Gauss’s law of quadratic reciprocity. When he arrived at Princeton as a graduate student in 1946, he was fortunate to find there the person, Emil Artin, who had discovered the most general reciprocity law, so solving Hilbert’s ninth problem. By 1920, the German school of algebraic number theorists (Hilbert, Weber, . . .) together with its brilliant student Takagi had succeeded in classifying the abelian extensions of a number field K: to each group I of ideal classes in K, there is attached an extension L of K (the class field of I); the group I determines the arithmetic of the extension L/K, and the Galois group of L/K is isomorphic to I. Artin’s contribution was to prove (in 1927) that there is a natural isomorphism from I to the Galois group of L/K. When the base field contains an appropriate root of 1, Artin’s isomorphism gives a reciprocity law, and all possible reciprocity laws arise this way. In the 1930s, Chevalley reworked abelian class field theory. In particular, he replaced “ideals” with his “idèles” which greatly clarified the relation between the local and global aspects of the theory. For his thesis, Artin suggested that Tate do the same for Hecke L-series. When Hecke proved that the abelian L-functions of number fields (generalizations of Dirichlet’s L-functions) have an analytic continuation throughout the plane with a functional equation of the expected type, he saw that his methods applied even to a new kind of L-function, now named after him. Once Tate had developed his harmonic analysis of local fields and of the idèle group, he was able prove analytic continuation and functional equations for all the relevant L-series without Hecke’s complicated theta-formulas. Received by the editors September 5, 2016. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 01A75, 11-06, 14-06. c ©2017 American Mathematical Society

Preschool Program Improves Cognitive Control

Abstract: Cognitive control skills important for success in school and life are amenable to improvement in at-risk preschoolers without costly interventions.