Preschool Perspective Taking

Are you teaching perspective taking in preschool?!

Perspective taking is critical for social development. Perspective taking involves making inferences about what the other person is thinking. Perspective taking develops around the age of 6-7 but is believed to begin developing at ages 3-4. (Dixon, Moore, 1990)

 

This week I’ve been using one of my fairy tales units, Goldilocks & The Three Little Bears. One of my favorite activities has been using the doll house furniture to retell the story.

As we’re retelling the story, some of my favorite questions to ask include: “What would Goldilocks think? What will the bears think? How do they feel? Do they feel the same way?”

I pulled out the emotions poster from my speech room. We moved the 3 bears and Goldilocks around the page as the story unfolded. We especially loved when both Goldilocks and the 3 bears both ended up on the surprised emotion!  It’s an easy way to ask the preschoolers to take on multiple perspectives from the story! How have you targeted perspective taking in the little people you work with?

Source:James A. Dixon and Colleen F. Moore, Child Development, Vol. 61, No. 5 (Oct., 1990), pp. 1502-1513, Published by: Wiley, Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/113075.