California Preschool Learning Foundations - ECEZero2Three ...

trayal that is consistent with conclusions
from other foundations. Older
three-year-olds have developed a number
of social skills for interacting competently
with familiar adults—including
developing abilities to engage in
simple conversations, enjoy other
shared activities, and cooperate with
requests or instructions—and they
can exercise these skills particularly
in familiar and comfortable settings.
Older four-year-olds are not only more
advanced in most of these social skills
but also take greater active initiative in
interacting with familiar adults. Based
on these conclusions, most children
are becoming prepared for the variety
of social encounters that will characterize
their experience in kindergarten
and the primary grades.
Interactions with Peers
It was not so long ago that developmental
researchers and practitioners
underestimated the peer social skills
of young children, interpreting episodes
of conflict to reflect preschoolers’
egocentrism and limited social interest.
With the growing experience of
young children in preschool and early
childhood settings, researchers have
rethought peer interactions and have
discovered that they are far more
complex, sophisticated, and multifaceted
than earlier believed. This
discovery is consistent with the developmental
accomplishments described
in the other foundations. As preschoolers
achieve considerable insights into
others’ thoughts and feelings through
their growth in “theory of mind,” for
example, they are capable of greater
cooperation with other children and
more adept at using conflict resolution
strategies.
California Department of Education • Preschool Learning Foundations, Volume 1
The development of social skills with
peers is also important to the growth of
school readiness. A number of studies
have shown that the peer experiences
of children in kindergarten and the
primary grades are an important predictor
of children’s academic success
and school adjustment. Children who
experience greater peer acceptance
and positive peer relationships tend
to feel more positively about coming
to school, participate more in classroom
activities, and achieve more in
the classroom (Buhs and Ladd 2001;
Ladd, Birch, and Buhs 1999; Ladd,
Kochenderfer, and Coleman 1996,
1997; O’Neil and others 1997).
The period of ages three to five
years is a particularly significant one
for the growth of social skills with
peers, and these foundations illustrate
the multifaceted ways in which
peer relationships evolve during this
time (see reviews of this research by
Rubin, Bukowski, and Parker [2006]
and Rubin and others [2005]). Young
children initially acquire greater skill
and confidence in interacting with
other children in playgroups of two or
three; later, they do so in larger, wellcoordinated
peer groups. Among the
important achievements of the later
preschool period is the ability to initiate
peer sociability and smoothly join
others in play; to cooperatively and
spontaneously share with others; to
coordinate one’s behavior with that of
one or more other children; to communicate
in ways that other children
can understand; and to spontaneously
enlist procedures (such as turn-taking)
that reduce the chance of peer conflict
(Howes 1987, 1988; Vandell, Nenide,
and Van Winkle 2006).
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SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT