— mental actions that allow the child to do mentally what was done physically before. Concrete operations are also mental actions that are reversible. In a well- known test, the child is presented with two identical balls of clay. One ball is rolled by the experimenter into a long thin strip and the other ball remains in its original shape.
On being asked which has more clay, the child of or years, would answer that, both have the same amount of clay. This is because the child imagines the ball rolled into thin strip and then into a ball, that means s/he is able to imagine reversible mental action on concrete/real objects. What do you think a preoperational child would have done? S/he is likely to focus on only one aspect-length or height.
Concrete operations allow the child to focus on different characteristics and not focus on one aspect of the object. This helps the child to appreciate that there are different ways of looking at things, which also results in the decline of her/his egocentrism. Thinking becomes more flexible, and children can think about alternatives when solving problems, or mentally retrace their steps if required. Even though the preoperational child develops the ability to see relationships between different properties of an object, s/he cannot do abstract thinking, i.e.
s/he still cannot manipulate ideas in the absence of objects. For example, steps required to complete algebraic equations, or imagining line of longitude or latitude of the earth. The growing cognitive abilities of children facilitate the acquisition of language. You will read in Chapter , how children develop vocabulary and grammar.
Take two transparent glasses of the same size and pour same amount of water in both. Ask a child of Class II and Class V of your school: whether the glasses contain the same amount of water? Take another tall thin glass and in front of the child empty water from one of the earlier glasses to the third glass. Now ask her/him which glass has more water?
Did you find any difference in their responses?