TRAINING THE PLANNING SKILLS OF CHILDREN BY A PLAYING-BASED PROGRAM

Presented is a training program for elementary school pupils, which ai med to improve the meta cognitive processes of their planning ability. Starting with the idea that playing is an ideal setting to practice p lanning and controlling cognitive processes, the training program base d on various forms of playing such as role and phantasy plays, buildin g and construction plays. To evaluate its effects, a control-group-des ign was applied. The training group (n = 15) received the training pro gram, whereas the control group (n = 16) was looked after with an acti vity program at the same time. The results show that the training grou p improved their planning skills significantly.