Linking teachers' memory-relevant language and the development of children's memory skills.

Abstract

This longitudinal study was designed to (i) examine changes in children’s deliberate memory across the first grade; (ii) characterize the memory-relevant aspects of their classrooms; and (iii) explore linkages between the children’s performance and the language their teachers use in instruction. In order to explore contextual factors that may facilitate the development of skills for remembering, 107 first graders were assessed three times with a broad set of tasks, while extensive observations were made in the 14 classrooms from which these children were sampled. When the participating teachers were classified as high or low in terms of their “mnemonic orientation,” in part on the basis of their use of metacognitive information and requests for deliberate remembering during instruction in language arts and mathematics, differences were observed in the use of mnemonic techniques by the children in their classes. By the end of the year, the children drawn from these two groups of classrooms differed in their spontaneous use of simple behavioral strategies for remembering and in their response to training in more complex verbally-based mnemonic techniques.

Developmental differences in episodic memory across school ages: evidence from enacted events performed by self and others

“…Furthermore, most developmental research on memory involves verbal tasks (e.g., Coffman et al, 2008). Therefore, the performance of older children, who have superior language skills and knowledge, is overestimated compared to the performance of younger children.…”

“…First, knowledge facilitates the use of memory strategies. The use of memory strategies develops rapidly from elementary school through high school (Coffman, Ornstein, McCall, & Curran, 2008), i.e., older children use more strategies for encoding and retrieving events and items than younger children (e.g., Kron-Sperl, Schneider, & Hasselhorn, 2008;Schneider, Kron-Sperl, & Hünnerkopf, 2009;Schneider, Kron, Hünnerkopf, & Krajewski, 2004).Second, knowledge makes memory items more discriminable and vivid and improves item-specific processing, indicating. It means that knowledge enhances the distinctiveness of specific items and produces age differences in children's the memory performance of children.…”

Children's Ability to Recall Obligatory and Optional Acts within a Script and Over Time

“…Therefore, identifying children with these difficulties can be beneficial while planning intervention with speech language pathologists and educators alike. Coffman, Ornstein, McCall, & Curran (2008) have shown that, as children get older, they become more capable of using strategies like script knowledge to help them encode, store, and retrieve information. Therefore, as these abilities improve it is important that the environments children are surrounded by enhance the growth of mnemonic strategies even further.…”

“…Psychologists as well as educators need to have a general understanding of the capacity of children of different ages to learn and remember information in order to assist in their overall memory and language development (Gatherole, Pickering, Ambridge, & Wearing, 1998;Montgomery, Magimairaj, & Finney, 2010;Newbury, Klee, Stokes, & Moran, 2016). As children age, they become more proficient in their ability to use strategies for encoding, storing, and retrieving information (Coffman, Ornstein, McCall, & Curran, 2008). By understanding their capacities at different ages, educators and specialists will be able to create educational experiences that maximize all students' abilities to learn.…”

A Review of Reminiscing in Early Childhood Settings and Links to Sustained Shared Thinking

“…In doing so, we acknowledge that there are a number of important dialogic features identified in research with older children which reflect important features of elaborative style or reminiscing. This includes open questions (Albanese and Antoniotti 1997), reformulations and elaborations in teacher talk (Cullen 2002;Gillies and Khan 2008;Lee 2007;Roediger and Pyc 2012), affirming or repeating a child's utterance to incorporate it into a shared discourse (Cullen 1998;2002), and the use of memory-rich language (Coffman et al 2008;Grammer et al 2013). However, as mentioned previously, our focus is exclusively on the 0 to 5 age range, where reminiscing and elaborative style in parent-child interactions has demonstrated positive impact on children's outcomes.…”