Piaget: A Handbook for Parents and Teachers of Children in the Age of Discovery--Preschool Through Third Grade.

This handbook, primarily for parents and teachers of preschool through third grade children, provides some insights into Piaget's theories about how children think and learn and presents ideas for using Piagetian-type activities and games in the home or classroom. (The handbook does not attempt to give a comprehensive analysis of Piaget's theory or a complete survey of all Piagetian tasks.) Topics covered include Piaget the man, Piaget's theory, including the stages of cognitive development, the three types of learning (social, physical, and logico-mathematical), and the implications of the theory for education. There are also sections on understanding the preoperational and the early concrete operations child and on the importance of play. Another section includes specific learning activities related to language development, learning through questioning, visual perception and visual memory, premath experience, classification, seriation and conservation. There is a note about how to use and extend the activities, a glossary of terms, and references and suggested readings. (Author/MS)