title: Children's science learning: A core skills approach.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Research has identified the core skills that predict success during primary school in reading and arithmetic, and this knowledge increasingly informs teaching. However, there has been no comparable work that pinpoints the core skills that underlie success in science.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The present paper attempts to redress this by examining candidate skills and considering what is known about the way in which they emerge, how they relate to each other and to other abilities, how they change with age, and how their growth may vary between topic areas.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There is growing evidence that early-emerging tacit awareness of causal associations is initially separated from language-based causal knowledge, which is acquired in part from everyday conversation and shows inaccuracies not evident in tacit knowledge. Mapping of descriptive and explanatory language onto causal awareness appears therefore to be a key development, which promotes unified conceptual and procedural understanding.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This account suggests that the core components of initial science learning are (1) accurate observation, (2) the ability to extract and reason explicitly about causal connections, and (3) knowledge of mechanisms that explain these connections. Observational ability is educationally inaccessible until integrated with verbal description and explanation, for instance, via collaborative group work tasks that require explicit reasoning with respect to joint observations. Descriptive ability and explanatory ability are further promoted by managed exposure to scientific vocabulary and use of scientific language. Scientific reasoning and hypothesis testing are later acquisitions that depend on this integration of systems and improved executive control.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Human Development, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Andrew K
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6645-0704
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Tolmie
authors.affiliation: Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh, UK.
authors.forename: Zayba
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ghazali
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Human Development, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Morris
mesh_terms: D001076:Aptitude / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D012586:Science / Q000193:education*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: cognitive skills; science concepts; science learning; scientific knowledge; scientific reasoning; scientific thinking