According to Piaget's theories on development, students in Preschool through Second Grades fit into the general stage, "Preoperational." Piaget defined the characteristics of these children as:

• Develop greater abilities to communicate through speech and to engage in symbolic activities such as drawing objects and playing by pretending and imagining
• Develop numerical abilities such as the skill of assigning a number to each object in a group as it is counted
• Increase their level of self-control and are able to delay gratification, but are fairly egocentric
• Unable to do what Piaget called conservation tasks (tasks that recognize that a substance remains the same even if it changes in appearance)

Lev S. Vygotsky, another theorist, believed that learning was strongly connected to the child's social world. He split development into two levels: adult/expert and child/novice. One important part of his theory was the ZPD, or Zone of Proximal Development, which he defines as, "the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers."

By understanding each child's ZPD and trying to stay within those boundaries, a teacher will be most successful in guiding a child's development. Students in the Pre-Kindergarten to 2nd Grade age range are especially difficult to teach because their skills and abilities are so varied (due to social environment, motivation, etc.) and they are so rapidly changing. An effective teacher will recognize these changes and provide the appropriate "scaffolding" to support their advancements.

These generalized statements of development easily relate to the NET Standards. Upon the completion of Second Grade, students will be successful within 3 major areas of technology:

1. Learn to use a variety of technology-based tools.
2. Learn to communicate and create using these tools.
3. Learn to be responsible and appropriate with both peer groups and the technology tools.