Parent–child autobiographical reminiscing as a foundation for literacy, memory, and science education

Abstract This chapter presents a sociocultural developmental model of children’s autobiographical memory as foundational for the development of more abstract cognitive skills. It argues that autobiographical memory develops in parentally scaffolded everyday interactions that help children construct coherent and elaborated narratives of the personal past. The chapter then presents theoretical and empirical evidence that the reflective and metacognitive skills that are modelled, socialized, and internalized during everyday practices of parent–child reminiscing about the personal past provide a basis for abstract and academic knowledge-building in literacy, deliberate memory, and scientific concepts.