Developmental Psychology - Chapter 12

Concrete Operational Thought

Piaget's term for the ability to reason logically about direct experiences and perceptions.

Phonics Approach

Teaching reading by first teaching the sounds of each letter and of various letter combinations.

Whole-language Approach

Teacing reading by encouraging early use of all language skills - talking and listening, reading and writing.

Transitive Inference

The ability to figure out the unspoken link between one fact and another.

Metacognition

"Thinking about thinking," or the ability to evaluate a cognitive task in order to determine how best to accomplish it, and then to monitor and adjust one's performance on that task.

No Child Left Behind Act

A U.S. law enacted in 2001 that was intended to increase accountability in education by requiring states to qualify for federal educational funding by administering standardized tests to measure school achievement.

Knowledge Base

A body of knowledge in a particular area that makes it easier to master new information in that area.

Control Processes

Mechanisms that combine memory, processing speed, and knowledge to regulate the analysis and flow of information within the information-processing system.

Working Memory

The component of the information-processing system in which current conscious mental activity occurs (formally called short-term memory)

Sensory Memory

The component of the information-processing system in which incoming stimulus information is stored for a split second to allow it to be processed. (Also called sensory register)

Long-term memory

The component of the information-processing system in which virtually limitless amounts of information can be stored indefinitely.

Classification

The logical principle that things can be organized into groups (or categories or classes) according to some characteristic they have in common.

Pragmatics

The practical use of language that includes the ability to adjust language communication according to audience and context.

Hidden Curriculum

The unofficial, unstated, or implicit rules and priorities that influence the academic curriculum and every other aspect of learning in a school.