drew.pecunia.article1

Vygotsky L. (1978). Interaction Between Learning and Development. In Gauvin & Cole (Eds.) Readings on the Development of Children.  New York: Scientific American Books pp. 34-40.

The essential view proposed in this paper is that there exists a zone of proximal development or (ZPD).  That is that learning occurs best when there is interaction between people in his or her environment and specifically in cooperation with his peers.  Independent developmental achievement happens when a child internalizes the process of environment and traditional learning.

So then learning happens when the learning is not considered as the development but development is a process that is impossible to separate from learning through interaction.  (ZPD) happens when the lagging developmental process coincides with the learning process.  So it is less about when a child masters a word that development is complete and more about the fact that that is the precise moment in which a child begins the actual process of learning. 

I have seen this in my own practice when ENL children begin to find that they have mastered a word it is just then that they begin to move to faster development.  That is that that when these children feel supported in a developmental and social emotional process they feel ready to learn and expand.  It is the specific interactions with the teacher that result in the fastest gains.  So as students move along their developmental process they reach points in which they can reach their highest potential or (ZPD)