The Vygotskian Developmental Cognitive Curriculum for Early Years Key to Learning by Galina Doyla[1].pdf

“Being ready for school now doesn’t necessarily mean

being able to read, write and count, but being ready to

learn how to read, write and count.” Leonid Venger

K ey to Learning is based on the work of

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), “the Russian

Mozart of Psychology”. The ideas he

developed in the course of an astonishingly

brief career have not lost their relevance

over time. His work did not reach a wider global

audience until the 1960s. When it did, his insight

into the social and communicative roots of cognition

and development transformed the way we think

about teaching and learning. Key to Learning is the

culmination of 70 years of research in Russia and more

recently, internationally. This has involved relecting

on and reining the practical application of Vygotsky’s

ideas. Working together in real classrooms, researchers

and teachers have been able to help children develop

learning abilities that they will be able to use for the

rest of their lives. Ongoing research projects conirm

that the Key to Learning curriculum has a profound

and positive impact on young children’s achievements.

The Vygotskian Developmental Cognitive

Curriculum for Early Years “Key to Learning”

Developing Learning Abilities, Unlocking Possibilities

Galina Doyla

Understanding Abilities

What are learning abilities? Where do they come from?

The answer to these questions may appear obvious.

Learning abilities are whatever it is that determines the

speed and lexibility with which we acquire and are able

to apply new knowledge and skills. We all know how

abilities reveal themselves. Some children are more

able than others. They are quick to learn new things,

surprise us with their verbal luency, their precocious

achievements in reading and mathematics, in art or

in music. If they surprise us enough, we may call them

gifted or talented. If they do not, by the time they are

seven, we may have decided that they are ‘just average’

(the majority), or even ‘less able’ and already marked

down for educational failure.

All of us ind ourselves thinking about and judging

young children’s different abilities in this way from time

to time. We also tend to believe that while children’s

educational and life experiences may affect for better

or for worse the way they put their abilities to use, the

abilities themselves are a given. We behave as though

they are a part of our genetic inheritance, like the colour

of our eyes, or the number of ingers on our hands.

However, Vygotsky considered that we must view human

psychological development as a social achievement

rather than an individual one. Young children’s abilities

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Where Does Key To Learning Come From?

f e a t u r e s

are not innate, or simply determined by biology.

Children acquire their abilities with and from the others

around them - from the social, cultural and educational

context of their lives.

The core of what young children learn is not a

particular body of knowledge or a speciic set of skills.

After all, the skills and knowledge children need for

survival depend on where they happen to be born,

and varies from place to place. At the heart of what all

young children learn, are the universal higher mental

functions required to analyse reality. How deeply and

securely children are able to acquire them ultimately

determines differences in their abilities.

develop the ability not simply to solve conventional

problems in old ways, but to innovate and sometimes

to change or create the tools themselves. Creativity and

independent thought are not where we start. They are

the results of our learning.

A Developmental Curriculum

According to the Russian psychologist Alexander

Zaporozhets, there are two parallel cultural universes -

the adult’s and the child’s. Consequently, there are

two possible approaches for child educators. We can

attempt to take children by the scruff of the neck and

drag them into the adult culture, attempting to move

them prematurely to the next stage of development.

Alternatively, we can allow children to live through their

childhood as fully as possible, but work to help them

deepen and enrich their child’s eye view. Here we have

the essence of a concept known as ‘developmental

education.’

A developmental curriculum must help children to

move forward. To do this it must provide challenging

experiences that are enjoyable and achievable given

DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHER MENTAL FUNCTIONS

LOWER FUNCTIONS

Inborn, shared with higher

animals

HIGHER FUNCTIONS

Unique to humans, passed on

by teaching

Reactive attention

Focussed attention

Associative memory

Deliberate memory

Sensorimotor thought

Symbolic thought

Leonid Venger, Olga Diachenko, Nickolai Veraksa

and other Russian psychologists and educationalists

extended and adapted Vygotsky’s ideas about learning

and development in young children. Their work has led

to the development of principles, curriculum content

and methods aimed at developing the cognitive abilities

of young children (age three to seven). The approach

makes it possible to substantially increase the

developmental effect of education and its inluence on

the development of cognitive abilities.

The Mechanism Of Abilities

“The child looks at the world through the glasses of

Human Culture.” Alexander Zaporozhets

Children learn to ‘read’ reality through the glasses of

human culture. These glasses are cultural tools, for

example, concepts, visual signs, symbols, models,

plans, texts, maps, formulae, and above all language.

It is these that provide us with the universal ‘mental

habits’ and human qualities required for success in

any skilled cultural activity. It is through these tools

that new psychological qualities that we call abilities

emerge.

the right support. This is what we mean by teaching

within the child’s learning zone (the ‘Zone of Proximal

Development’). For young children it is imaginative play

that creates the learning zone. As Vygotsky points out,

children’s greatest achievements are possible in play.

It is in play that children become ‘a head taller’ than

their current selves; they leap ahead of their everyday

capability. For example, impulsive children who cannot

sit still during circle time may be able to stand still for

quite a long time if they are pretending to be guards at

the palace gates.

The Key to Learning Curriculum builds on features

of young children’s spontaneous activity to promote

active learning. Prominent Russian psychologists and

educationalists, led by Leonid Venger, Olga Diachenko

and Nickolai Veraksa have developed principles,

curriculum content and methods that amplify the

world children naturally inhabit to make sure that they

explore every corner of it in as much depth as possible.

Although the aim of the Key to Learning curriculum is

to help children develop communicative, self-regulative

and cognitive abilities, it does this indirectly, through

sequences of planned activities that are emotionally

vibrant, playful and enjoyable. Only the teacher knows

that teaching is going on.

PSYCHOLOGICAL TOOLS

This is not a passive process but an active

Maps

Charts

Plans

Graphs

Schemas

Formulae

Diagrams

Signs

Tables

Symbols

Numbers

Letters

Music Notation

Models

appropriation. Where the process is at its best,

cultural tools are not merely learned in isolation

as skills, but offered to and grasped by children as

purposeful practical activity. When children are able

to take over cultural tools so that they own them, they

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V Y G O T S K I A N D E V E L O P M E N T A L C O G N I T I V E C U R R I C U L U M

Twelve Programmes, One Practice

In terms of content the Developmental Cognitive

Curriculum Key to Learning offers breadth and

diversity for children between the ages of 3 and 7. There

are twelve programmes in the complete curriculum:

 Sensory Mathematics

develops the ability to analyse the external, visual

qualities of objects using sensory standards such

as colour, shape and size. It builds the foundation

for the development of mental abilities

 Logic

develops the ability to analyse objects and events,

see their invisible sides, identify their most

essential characteristics, think sequentially, draw

conclusions, classify and systematise information

 Visual-spatial

develops spatial awareness and the ability to ‘read’

maps. Children look at objects in space, use

symbols to represent what they and others see

through visual models - maps, schemes and plans

 Mathematics

using visual models children discover the language

of Mathematics and concept of measurement,

compare different quantities and qualities of objects

and explore the relationships more, less, equal

 Creative Modelling

through shared activity children discover symmetry

and pattern by manipulating geometric shapes

to create artistic compositions of the world around

them. Develops co-operative and social skills

 Story Grammar

develops a love of story, ownership of story

language and a profound understanding of story

structure by following a speciic set of procedures

known as visual modelling

 Construction

develops mathematical language and goal directed

behaviour. Children analyse the structure of

objects , plan, articulate their plans and execute

them using wooden modular building blocks

 Developmental games

playing in small and large groups children develop

productive imagination, symbolic literacy, language

and communication skills, lexible thinking, creative

problem solving, self-regulation and self-esteem

 Exploration

through games, stories and simple yet powerful

experiments children discover important scientiic

concepts - states of matter, different qualities of

substances and transformations

 Artographics

cultivates the essential skills required both for

writing and creative artistic expression.

Develops ‘art vision’ and introduces different

symbolic tools - composition, rhythm and colour

 Expressive Movement

develops emotional intelligence, non-verbal

communication skills, creativity and productive

imagination through body movement, gestures,

facial expressions and music

About the author

Galina Doyla

 You - Me - World

using symbols and visual models children learn

about themselves as physical, emotional and

social beings; about the natural and material world,

about living things and inanimate objects

Galina Dolya is the Curriculum Director of

Key to Learning, which has developed an

innovative Vygotskian approach to Early

Years Education. She is an acknowledged

world leading expert on the practical

application of Vygotsky’s Theory of

Learning and Development. She has

worked at every level from Early Years

to University and trained hundreds

of teachers and trainers world-wide.

Currently she is a Researcher in the

Department of Psychology and Pedagogy of Abilities

at the Research Institute of Development of Preschool

Education, Russian Academy for Education, Moscow. She

is currently based in the UK.

Each programme consists of 60 sessions: 30 for younger children

(Caterpillars), 30 for older children (Butterlies). It provides opportunities

for child-initiated and teacher-structured activities. There are, in addition,

suggestions for follow up activities that can be shared with parents. It creates

right conditions for minds to open, for learning to become a pleasure and for

creativity to lourish.

If you wish to know more about Key to Learning you can visit the web site

www.keytolearning.com or read Galina Dolya’s books, Vygotsky in Action in

the Early Years and Ideas for Parents both of which may be ordered from the

website or by contacting Galina on 01582 8313160. Support for parents and

teachers’ professional development is available through conferences and

training.

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