Principle 4: Skills are built through action.
Kids develop skills and knowledge from goal-oriented activities.
Note: Unconstrained Kids unpacks, translates, and integrates academic research and data about constrained and unconstrained skills for people that run, fund, and assist organizations that teach and serve kids. This post is part of a series that describes 14 key principles of skill building I identified from the Science of Learning and Development. (Especially Dynamic Skill Theory.) Like everything on this Substack, this post is a work-in-progress. I will make updates as needed. Citations are included at the end. Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.
Last updated: June 4, 2025
Key Takeaway
Skill is the ability to think and act in an organized way in a specific context (Immordino-Yang and Fischer, 2010). Children develop skills and knowledge from goal-oriented activities. This is likely to be more successful when children are able to connect these activities with prior knowledge and skills, engage with others (including experts in the skill), and attach positive meaning to the experience for themselves.
“Skills do not spring up fully grown from preformed rules or logical structures. They are built up gradually through the practice of real activities in real contexts, and they are gradually extended to new contexts through this same constructive process.” (Fischer & Bidell, 2006)
Knowledge and learning depend upon activity. When we do things in the world, we literally shape our brain structure – the neurons, synapses, and brain activity.1 Mere exposure is not enough to change our brain – or to build skills. Learning facts is important but not enough. We have to be actively involved (Fischer, 2009).
To support skill building, an action must have two basic components. First, the action has to be focused on a goal. For a baby learning to walk, the goal can be as simple as taking steps from one parent to another.
Second, the action has to be meaningful. The baby’s effort to learn to walk is shaped and influenced by the meaning she attaches to this experience. For example, the encouragement and approval she receives from her parents. (See Principles 6, 7, and 8.) As she improves her walking skills, she associates walking with feelings of independence and freedom for herself.
A variety of “goal-oriented” activities help children build skills. Some of these activities may be explicitly focused on subjects like reading, math, science, and social studies. But “goal oriented” doesn’t just mean academics. It also can include various forms of play, tinkering, sports, music, hobbies, outdoor challenges, etc.
“Action” is not limited to physical activity. Skills are developed and organized to support real mental activities, too. Thinking is a form of internalized action. Feeling involves the experience of activity (Mascolo, 2009). The documented impact of mindfulness interventions on executive and self-regulation skills is one positive example of “mental action.”
But wait, there’s more
Works Cited
Barrett, L. F. (2020). Seven and a half lessons about the brain. Houghton Mifflin.
Fischer, K. W. (2009). Mind, brain, and education: Building a scientific groundwork for learning and teaching. Mind, Brain, and Education, 3(1), 3–16.
Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (2006). Dynamic development of action and thought. In R. M. Lerner & W. Damon (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 313–399). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Fischer, K. W. (2010). Neuroscience bases of learning. In V. G. Aukrust (Ed.), International encyclopedia of education (3rd Edition, pp. 310–316). Elsevier.
Mascolo, M. F. (2009). Beyond student-centered and teacher-centered pedagogy: Teaching and learning as guided participation. Pedagogy and the Human Sciences, 1(1), 3–27.
For a brief overview, see chapter three of Lisa Feldman Barrett’s Seven and a half lessons about the brain.