How Do Adolescents Develop?

To match kids to books successfully,  we need to know the reader!

How we can know readers and how they develop and grow:

• Intellectual development
• Piaget - theorized how we progress from concrete to abstract thinking. Used to think this occurred around age 10, now we know it is more around age 14.
• We need to think about questions we ask students. More abstract questions need scaffolding.
• Think about the books we choose. Are they more concrete or abstract?

• Moral development
• Kohlberg's Theory:
• Pre-conventional - make decisions based on reward and punishment
• Conventional - follow the rules (society's or religion's or both)
• Post-Conventional - recognize the laws, but see how human life supersedes law; putting other people before ourselves 
• Maslow's Needs Hierarchy
• Physiological -> Safety (physical and emotional) -> Love/belonging (sometimes as simple as showing an interest in kids) -> Esteem (the need to be respected) -> Self actualization (the need to believe you can be anything you want to be)
• Needs on lower levels must be met before needs on higher levels

• Developmental stages
• Havighurst
• Learning to get along with peers
• Easy relationships with opposite sex
• Working for pay
• Changing relationship with parent 
• Finding a vocation (finding a "calling")
• Developing morals and values
• Defining appropriate sex roles (often defined by society, difficult developmental task)

• Physical development
• Puberty!
• Overriding questions of "Am I normal?" and "When is this going to change?"
• Time of change
• Never an easy time
• Sometimes gets in way of everything else
• We need to find books that assure kids about their physical development and that they will survive 

• Developing as a reader
• Unconscious delight: read the real world falls away - series books, serial reading (all by one author or genre)
• Reading autobiographically: reading books about people like us, "mirrors," may be hard to find, but make sure our collections reflect this diversity
• Reading for Vicarious Experience: "Windows" that allow us to see out, fantasy, science fiction, philosophical speculation, nonfiction
• Reading for aesthetic experience: for beauty and wonder of the book, falling in love with characters, caring what happens to them, being emotionally affected 

As I choose YA books for my collection and to recommend to students, I need to look for books that speak to where kids are and that move them to higher lives (like concrete to abstract and pre-conventional to post-conventional). I also need to find books that reflect the needs of Maslow's Hierarchy. Of course, it is also important to have books that help kids through the difficult stages of puberty.