Kristina Fulgham & Susanna Vinson

EDU 3326 - Child Growth and Development

Fall 2004

To see the Annotated Bibliography as a Word document click here

Bodrova, Elena & Deborah J Leong. Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1996.

       Though I didn’t use this book very much, it helped to shed light on the meaning and use of mediators, especially in mediated memory. It discussed external mediators and internal mediators and described the process that a child goes through to move from using one type to using the other (the process of internalization). Like several other books I used, this one focuses on education and provides many examples and explanations dealing with the classroom.

Crain, William. Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications. Fifth Ed. New Jersey: Pearson: Prentice Hall, 2005.

 This book is a textbook that covers many of the theorists and their theories central to the extant understanding of child development, mostly focusing on the developmentalists, but including some learning theorists as well as some theorists who combine these two approaches, such as Lev Vygotsky. The chapters on Heinz Werner and Vygotsky gave useful overviews, explanations, and backgrounds for these men’s’ lives and work.

Dixon-Krauss. Vygotsky in the Classroom: Mediated Literacy Instruction and Assessment. New York:  Longman Publishers USA, 1996.

       This book was extremely helpful, both as a source for biographical information and as a succinct summary of the crucial aspects and vocabulary of Vygotsky’s sociohistorical theory. Psychological tools, or signs, semiotic mediation, the role and occurrence of enculturation in children, internalization, and other topics are discussed in an understandable way. Many of my definitions come from this book, since they are stated clearly and accurately but are usually easier to understand those in Vygotsky’s own work. Since the book is intended for teachers, there are real-life examples woven into to theoretical discussion.     

Grantham, Lori.  “Lev Semenovich Vygotsky.”  14 Oct. 2004.  <http://www.geocities.com/lorigranth/>

  This website is an extensive and well-organized overview of Vygotsky's life and theories, with an assimilation of material from a great variety of sources.  Innumerable and invaluable links have been provided throughout the material, which makes it easy to find more information pertaining to each of Vygotsky’s points.  It was helpful as a thorough examination of Vygotsky’s different theories and their application to education.

Kozulin, Alex. Vygotsky’s Psychology: A Biography of Ideas. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990.

 In Chapter Four of this work, “Tool and Symbol in Human Development,” the author discusses the research and organization of the “troika” (Vygotsky, Leontiev, and Luria, along with other students and colleagues), and then goes on to outline some of their basic concepts developed by this group. These include higher mental processes, mediation, internalization, and “primitive” processes. These concepts are explained in more detail and depth in this book than they are in some other ones; the structure of the thought processes and the complexity of their dynamic development in a social context.

Luria, A. R. The Making of Mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979. 25 Nov. 2004. Excerpts online at <http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed229/LuriaMakingofMind.doc>

 These short excerpts contain a description of one of A. Leontiev’s studies on memory in which he examined the use of auxiliary stimuli by children. In these studies internalized memory was not observed in children until the age of nine or ten. This cast some light on the limitations of our project, in which we used children between the ages of five and eight. Concepts such as “natural remembering,” different types of stimuli, and internalization of culturally developed thought processes are also involved in this study. 

Vygotsky, L.S. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.

       This book is wonderful! Reading Vygotsky’s own words concerning signs, memory, and other facets of his theory was enjoyable, clarifying, and intriguing. Vygotsky discusses one of Leontiev’s studies on mediated memory and the results (interesting in relation to our project!), “natural memory” and socially developed memory, the structure of sign operations and their natural history, and many other topics I did not explore. This was, understandably, one of the most helpful books in my process of forming an understanding of Vygotsky’s views on memory.

Werner, Heinz.  Comparative Psychology of Mental Development.  New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1940.

         A clear and fascinating book, Comparative Psychology of Mental Development was a perfect and most-used source for understanding Werner’s ideas on development in perception, thinking, and memory.  It also compared the development of children and humans in general with primitive races and even animals.  It was quite interesting to see the similarities and differences between children and adults, younger and older children, children and primitive races, and human and animal perception.

Danielson, R. R.  “Ch. 5 – Werner’s Organismic and Comparative Theory.”  21 June 2004.  25 Nov. 2004  <http://danielson.laurentian.ca/drdnotes/5106ch05.htm>.

         This website provided a helpful overview of Werner’s main theories and terms, by listing them in an outline format.  It was helpful in organizing Werner’s ideas and obtaining some clear definitions of Werner’s key terms.  However, some definitions were vague or only mentioned something relating to the term or idea, and some of the bullets did not correspond well with their heading.