Developmental Trends: Cognitive Strategies and Metacognition at Different Age Levels

Implications:

• Model strategies for simple memory tasks (e.g., pinning permission slips on jackets to remind children to get their parents’ signatures).
• Talk often about thinking processes (e.g., “I wonder if . . . ,” “Do you remember when . . . ?”).

Middle Childhood (6–10)

What You Might Observe:

• Use of rehearsal as the predominant intentional learning strategy
• Gradual increase in organization as a learning strategy
• Emerging ability to reflect on the nature of one’s own thought processes
• Frequent overestimation of one’s own memory capabilities
• Little if any self-regulated learning

Diversity:

• Chinese and Japanese children rely more heavily on rehearsal than their peers in Western schools; this difference continues into adolescence.
• Children with cognitive disabilities are less likely to organize material as they learn it.
• A few high-achieving children are capable of sustained self-regulated learning, especially in the upper elementary grades.

Implications:

• Encourage children to repeat and practice the things they need to learn.
• Ask children to study information that is easy to categorize, as a way of promoting organization as a learning strategy (Best & Ornstein, 1986).
• Ask children to engage in simple, self-regulated learning tasks; give them suggestions about how to accomplish the tasks successfully.

Early Adolescence (10–14)

What You Might Observe:

• Emergence of elaboration as an intentional learning strategy
• Few and relatively ineffective study strategies (e.g., poor note-taking skills, little if any comprehension monitoring)
• Increasing flexibility in the use of learning strategies
• Emerging ability to regulate one’s own learning
• Belief that knowledge about a topic consists of a collection of discrete facts

Diversity:

• Adolescents differ considerably in their use of effective learning strategies.
• Some adolescents, including many with cognitive disabilities, have few strategies for engaging effectively in self-regulated learning.

Implications:

• Ask questions that encourage adolescents to elaborate on new information.
• Teach and model effective strategies within the context of various subject areas.
• Assign homework and other tasks that require independent learning; provide sufficient structure to guide students’ efforts.
• Give adolescents frequent opportunities to assess their own learning.

Late Adolescence (14–18)

What You Might Observe:

• Increase in elaboration
• Growing awareness of which cognitive strategies are most effective in different situations
• Increasing self-regulatory learning strategies (e.g., comprehension monitoring)
• Increasing realization that knowledge involves understanding interrelationships among ideas

Diversity:

• High-achieving teenagers are most likely to use sophisticated learning strategies (e.g., elaboration); others typically resort to simpler, less effective strategies (e.g., rehearsal).
• Many teenagers with cognitive disabilities have insufficient reading skills to learn successfully from typical high school textbooks; furthermore, their study skills tend to be unsophisticated and relatively ineffective.

Implications:

• Continue to teach and model effective learning strategies both in and out of school.
• Assign more complex independent learning tasks, giving the necessary structure and guidance for those who are not yet self-regulating learners.
• Present various subject areas as dynamic entities that continue to evolve with new discoveries and theories.