Creative and problem solving thinking of gifted and talented young children observed through classroom dialogues

The preschool period is one of fast growth for a child’s mental capacity and a key developmental period for their language, motion, and social interaction capabilities. Understanding children’s learning characteristics helps us facilitate development of cognition for every child. In this study, we examined the creative and problem solving thinking of 8 young science talented children aged 4 to 6 through the dialogues and archives/ artworks in the classroom. Through this study, we hope to gain a better understanding of the characteristics of gifted young learners. The participated students in our study have attended an extra-curricular enrichment program with 2 hours of science class time per week for a total of 72 hours in one school year. The dialogues and archives/ artworks were collected from six units of science learning activities. All the oral data were videotape recorded, transcribed, validated, and coded by the researchers. The results showed that as compared to similar-age children, the participated children possessed keen observation ability and a wider general knowledge. They also exhibited superior verbal expressive, logical reasoning, elaborative, creative and flexible problem solving skills. In addition, the children were highly humorous and imaginative. Judging from the dialogues and performances, we believed that the earlier talented children are provided with appropriate programs and interaction with peers, the better their chances of fully actualizing their potential and enhancing higher order thinking skills.