The Preoperational and Concrete Operations Stages of Development
Children in the preoperational stage are beginning to expand logicomathematical knowledge, but the process is hampered by their tendency to center or focus on one characteristic or feature of what they observe to the exclusion of others. For example, if a child looks at a picture of five dogs and two cats and the teacher asks, “are there more animals or dogs?” the child is likely to say, “more dogs.”
Further, they are egocentric, which means they tend to consider the appearance of objects from only their perspective. So if a teacher held a puppet with its face toward a child, the child would assume that the teacher also saw the puppet’s face rather than its back. Third, pr-operational children are easily deceived by appearances and unable to mentally conserve or retain the idea of fixed quantities. For example, if eight ounces of water is poured from a short, wide container into a tall, narrow one, the child is not likely to recognize that the amount of liquid remains the same; instead, he may think that the taller glass holds more (Figure 10.1).
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