LSC 300 L
Literature for Children
Department of Library Science and Instructional Technology
Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven CT

CONTENTS:
Child Development Home

Vygotsky's ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT

• Lev Vygotsky was a Soviet cognitive development psychologist.
• His concept of the "zone of proximal development" maintains there is a zone of learning marked at the bottom by assisted performance and at the top by individual manipulation.
• Within this zone, the child learns to manipulate ideas and skills independently by being assisted in varying degrees, as need by the individual child at the specific time. For example, a child is unable to tie his or her own shoelaces. However, by mimicking the steps performed by other, or by following each step as reminded verbally by another, the child is able to complete the task. Another form of assistance may be reminders of steps through questioning, for example, "Where do we lay the right lace?" "How do we make the right lace go under and over the left lace?"
• Assisted performance permits the child to successfully accomplish tasks that might otherwise be beyond the abilities of the child.
• [Reference: Mind in Society, 1978, Harvard University Press]
• Vygotsky is sometimes spelled Vygotski