A Piaget Primer: How a Child Thinks; Revised Edition

by Dorothy G. Singer and Tracey A. Revenson

Book Overview

Offers a fascinating and understandable account of childhood development for anyone--education and psychology students, day care center workers and nursery school teachers, and parents. Jean Piaget is arguably the most important figure of the twentieth century in the field of child psychology. Over more than six decades of studying and working with children, he brilliantly and insightfully charted the stages of a child's intellectual maturation from...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452275652
• ISBN13: 9780452275652
• Release Date: July 1996
• Publisher: Plume Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Good insight into Piaget.

Piaget's theories are complex and hard to understand without interpretation. This is exactly the book I needed as it was advertised. Often Piaget's words were of his own coining...since he was a pioneer in child development....or he uses different definitions not available in a dictionary. Also, this book uses examples from children's literature to illustrate points. Excellent resource.

At last!

At last, Piaget's concepts are presented in an enjoyable, memorable manner. For decades, teachers have drilled themselves on mastering the concepts of this famous psychologist as they diligently sought to help children make the most of their capacities to learn. This author explains many of Jean Piaget's ideas by using examples from children's literature. It's even illustrated with cartoons. Writers for children have used this book to help them connect their writing to memories of how they thought as children.

Accessible Piaget

This is a very nice book that uses children's literature, popular comics, and very good writing to demystify Piaget for beginners. I tried to read parts of Piaget's How a Child Thinks and had to put it down. The authors recognize the difficulty in reading Piaget's original works and have written this book for non psychology students. This was a very useful book for a research paper on Piaget for a special education graduate course.

Clever use of comics and stories for illustration

Piaget is the most influential figure in child psychology ever known. However, it can be rather daunting to plough through his monumental works. So we have books like A Piaget Primer that come to our rescue-books that help to explain the concepts in simpler, more reader-friendly terms. Of course, we cannot expect such books to do justice to the scope and breadth of the original works, but for a thin volume like A Piaget Primer, it has done reasonably well to introduce the most essential concepts of Piaget's theory on child development. Among the essential ideas are assimilation and accommodation, various stages of development, play, language development, number concept, and moral development. There is also a last chapter on the implications and applications of Piagetian theory in the education of our young. What I find most impressive about this volume is its witty use of comics such as Peanut and stories such as Alice in the Wonderland to illustrate many of the confusing concepts. Wish I had this book when I was doing my psychology course.

Wonderful book!

The author provides very clear explanations of Piaget's theory of thought and play. Complete with comic strips about children, this book is a must for new teachers who are learning about Piaget and also for parents who do not know how children think and learn thru' play. You won't want to put the book down after picking it up, because the contents are so simple yet interesting.