Preschool children's joint block building during a guided play activity
Section snippets
Block building during the preschool years
Children's ability to create sophisticated structures with blocks develops during the preschool and school-age years. Reifel and Greenfield (1982) describe how the spatial relations within children's buildings, defined as “the dimensionality” and “hierarchical integration of block constructions,” become more complex with age. Structures of toddlers and young preschoolers are typically limited in their spatial dimensionality, with structures being mainly composed of a single block or several
Participants
Participants were 76 preschool children: Forty 4-year-olds (M = 4 years 5 months, SD = 0.30; with 50% girls) and thirty-six 5-year-olds (M = 5 years 4 months, SD = 0.23; with 50% girls). Children were recruited primarily from child-care centers in a medium-sized city. The centers serve families who are predominantly middle class; 87% were Caucasian, 10% Asian, and 3% Hispanic. Participants were recruited for a larger study on peer cooperation that involved two sessions (Ramani, 2012). Children's
Results
The analyses are divided into four sections. First, the descriptive statistics of the children's structures, peer communication, and building behavior are presented. Second, gender differences in the structures the children built, the peer communication, and building measures are reported using t-tests and multivariate analyses of variances (MANOVAs). Third, correlations are used to examine the associations between children's talk, building behavior, and structures. Fourth, hierarchical linear
Discussion
The goal of this study was to examine preschool-aged children's peer communication and building behaviors during a guided block building activity with a same-age, same-sex peer. Specifically, we were interested in examining the processes involved in preschoolers' construction of a house, including their individual block placements, and how they communicated and coordinated their efforts throughout the interaction with their building partner. We also examined whether gender differences existed
References (59)
An introduction to categorical data analysis
(1996)- et al.
Cooperative problem solving and teaching in preschoolers
Social Development
(1998) Peer interaction and problem solving: When are two heads better than one?
Child Development
(1988)Behavioral observation and coding
- et al.
The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
(1986) Shared cooperative activity
Philosophical Review
(1992)- et al.
Changes in cooperation and self-other differentiation during the second year of life
Child Development
(1990) - et al.
Collaboration among toddler peers: Individual contributions to social contexts
- et al.
Becoming a social partner with peers: Cooperation and social understanding in one- and two-year-olds
Child Development
(2006) - et al.
Interpreting kappa in observational research: Baserate matters
American Journal on Mental Retardation
(2006)
Children's play preferences, construction play with blocks, and visual-spatial skills: Are they related?
International Journal of Behavioral Development
The development of spatial skills through interventions involving block-building activities
Cognition and Instruction
The power of block building
Teaching Children Mathematics
Young children's discourse strategies during block play: A Bakhtinian approach
Journal of Research in Childhood Education
Peers and infant social/communicative development
Block talk: Spatial Language during block play
Mind, Brain, and Education
Taking shape: Supporting preschoolers' acquisition of geometric knowledge through guided play
Child Development
Relational language and relational thought
Mathematics education for young children: What it is and how to promote it
Sex differences in the play constructions of preschool children
Smith College Studies in Social Work
The development of hierarchic organization: The reproduction, planning, and perception of multiarch block structures
Are your data nonindependent? A practical guide to evaluating nonindependence and within-group agreement
Understanding Statistics
Developmental aspects of block play
Children's developing commitments to joint goals
Child Development
Young children's block construction activities: Findings from 3 years of observation
Journal of Early Intervention
The relationship between preschool block play and reading and maths abilities in early elementary school: a longitudinal study of children with and without disabilities
Early Child Development and Care
A Mandate for playful learning in preschool: Presenting the evidence
Gender differences in mathematics performance: A meta-analysis
Psychological Bulletin
Mediational analysis
Cited by (65)
Mathematical language and mathematical abilities in preschool: A systematic literature review
2022, Educational Research ReviewCitation Excerpt :For instance, to benefit from a number-order activity (e.g., “The number 4 comes after number 3”), children must understand the words after and before. Indeed, studies have emphasized the importance of these more restricted terms in children's early numeracy abilities (Barner et al., 2009; Ramani et al., 2014). Failures in understanding these linguistic terms, for example quantifiers (e.g., all, most, some) have been associated with difficulties in understanding specific mathematical concepts such as cardinal number knowledge (Barner et al., 2009).
VIC — A Tangible User Interface to train memory skills in children with Intellectual Disability
2022, International Journal of Child-Computer InteractionCitation Excerpt :Another typical approach to stimulate spatial memory by means of physical objects is to engage children in building 3D structures. Some authors have theorized that stacking and placing individual blocks can develop children’s abilities related to understanding and memorize spatial relations (Casey & Bobb, 2003; Guanella, 1934; Ramani, Zippert, Schweitzer, & Pan, 2014), an hypothesis that is supported by empirical studies. For example, the study reported in Casey, Andrews, Schindler, Kersh, Samper, and Copley (2008) investigated the development of spatial abilities through building blocks.
Emergent patterns in the development of young children's object play
2022, Acta PsychologicaCitation Excerpt :More recent studies of object play generally focus on children who are developing with delays (e.g., Williams et al., 2001; Wong & Kasari, 2012). Similarly, more recent studies of preschool age children focus on play with peers in contrast to object play (e.g., Kennedy-Behr et al., 2013; Ramani et al., 2014;), parent engagement in pretend play with toddlers (e.g., Lillard & Witherington, 2004; Marjanovic-Umek et al., 2014), and the sociocultural construction of symbolic play (Göncü & Gaskins, 2011). Most recently, Herzberg et al. (2021) directed their study to the considerable number of object interactions of toddlers in their homes.
Children's real-time behaviors during a model replication task
2022, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology