Teaching Kindergarten Children to Apply Concept-Defining Rules.

This study sought (1) to discover ways to teach kindergarten children to listen to a rule that defines a concept and then to apply it, and (2) to learn if rule-learning is facilitated when the pupil is required to verbalize the rule while using it. The task used in the study (1) involves deductive reasoning, (2) requires rule utilization rather than rule verification, (3) requires the learning of four rules (negation, conjunction, disjunction, and joint denial) that were found to be appropriate for this population, (4) requires an understanding of certain function words, and (5) was presented at a level of complexity above that used in laboratory experiments. The subjects, 5-year-old Negro children, were divided into three groups: one group who received instruction in the rules that required them to verbalize the rules themselves (N=6), one which received no instruction (N=6), and one group which received instruction in the rules but who were not required to verbalize the rules themselves (N=8). The oral group scored significantly higher than the control group, but there was no significant difference between the Oral experimental group and the non-Oral experimental group. There was no reliable evidence that self-verbalization is superior to normal instruction. (MH)