Theories of Childhood, Second Edition (Carol Garhart Mooney) / quote 59 of 70
Concrete operations and reversibility
When children enter Piaget’s stage of concrete operations at about age seven, many changes in their thought patterns are visible. At this age (usually from about seven through eleven or twelve) children possess the characteristic of reversibility, which allows them to reverse the direction of their thought. For example, a child at this stage can retrace her steps on the school yard looking for a forgotten lunch box. Children no longer count on their fingers because they are beginning to be able to think abstractly. They begin to notice differences in classes of objects. For instance, at four every dog is a “doggie,” but at eight or nine there are differences between a collie and a poodle. The concrete-operational child can hold several qualities in mind, knowing that a boat is large, red, and a sailboat. She knows and really understands that her mother is also the daughter of her grandmother. With this new flexibility of thought, children can add, subtract, and multiply “in their heads.”