Literacy is a complex and multifaceted skill which changes enormously as it is acquired

The following is a paragraph from a chapter written by Catherine Snow that I am keen to share. Why? The paragraph (and the chapter) engages with the changing nature of literacy as the child (or individual) develop, which requires teachers to be vigilant in providing the right instruction, opportunities and extension at the right time. Please enjoy ... and also seek out the chapter.

From Snow, C. (2004) What counts as literacy in early childhood? In K. McCartney & D. Phillips (Eds.), Handbook of early child development. Oxford: Blackwell.

"Everyone agrees that literacy is a complex and multifaceted skill which changes enormously as it is acquired ... [For instance], the typical three-year-old can recognize some books by their covers, knows how to hold books upright and turn pages, listens when read to, expects to be able to understand pictures in books, may distinguish pictures from print, may recognize some letters, and produces purposeful-looking scribbles.

"The typical four year old has learned to recite the alphabet and to recognize several letters, connects events in stories to ‘real life,’ understands that stories are different from notes or lists, may produce rhymes or alliterations, and may scribble, pretend-write, or draw with a communicative purpose.

"The typical kindergartner knows about titles and authors of books, may track the print when being read to from familiar simple books, can name all and write most of the letters, can recognize and spell some simple words, spontaneously questions events in stories and information books, and uses mostly invented spelling in writing.

"The typical first grader is starting to get a serious handle on the system of writing, is able to read accurately and fluently texts that include previously taught spelling patterns, uses letter-sound correspondence to sound out new words, spells with a combination of conventional and invented spelling, monitors her own writing and reading for correctness, and understands the differences among a wide variety of texts (informal notes, informative texts, stories, poems, slogans, lists, and so forth).

"In 2nd and 3rd grade, the typically developing child becomes increasingly accurate and fluent with an ever wider variety of spelling patterns, becomes able to tackle more complex texts independently, knows how to seek help from a dictionary or an adult with difficult words or ideas, writes a wide array of text-types increasingly conventionally and with ever greater capacity to revise independently, and infers the meanings of unfamiliar words encountered in otherwise comprehensible text.

"Of course, literacy growth continues after grade 3—the capacity to read with different purposes, to learn from reading, to critique the text, to compare and contrast points of view when reading, and in other ways to produce and process complex tests may continue to develop through adulthood. But the skills acquired by 3rd grade (acquired only, of course, if children enjoy home, preschool, and primary grade environments that support these learnings) constitute the firm foundation on which those more complex skills depend."

Initiating individuals into intentional activity

In language teaching, it is important to initiate individuals into intentional activity whilst understanding the need to develop structural competency. The following discussion is influenced by a usage-based approach to language acquisition. 

It so follows that the individual develops language in an intricate give-and-take navigation with other language users in the pursuit of shared intention and joint construction. As a consequence, a user's repertoire of language practices is directly correlated to the user's participation in the collective intentional activities of a community of practice, which includes both verbal and non-verbal activities in the pursuit of socialisation.

A critic of the above approach would be correct to point out how children produce quite immature utterances, even though they may be surrounded by rich language experiences. It is true to note how novice users must endure early stages where it is a challenge to gain mastery of manipulating the structural and formal elements of the linguistic symbolism before being able to speak, listen, read and write with confidence.

Whilst mastery of structural elements is highly relevant in language teaching and learning, we must acknowledge that language acquisition is reinforced in the collective intentional practices, habits, relationships and spaces where language events occur.

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Why We Do What We Do: Part Two

“Our philosophical experience now, finding ourselves here, necessitates taking up philosophically the question of practice.” (Cavell, 1989)

I am proposing that if we are to seek an understanding of the grand values and beliefs of an individual, community or culture, we must first seek to observe/describe/reflect upon the very ordinary, everyday and cyclical practices that come to constitute the entity’s form(s) of life. For Stanley Cavell, “[In Wittgenstein], I seemed to find what I could recognise as this space of investigation, in [his] working out of the problematic of the day, the everyday, the near, the low, the common, in conjunction with what [we can] call speaking of necessaries, and speaking with necessity.” (Cavell, 1989) The practicalities of one’s existence “takes place around the aspects of daily life, the ordinary and the everyday events of eating, talking, queuing, exchanging pleasantries, greeting people of different age, sex, and gender, drinking, sleeping, dressing, washing, and so on.” (Peters, 2010a, pg 28).

With the above introduction, I launch again into “Why Do We Do What We Do”. In today’s entry, I aim to touch upon the conditions under which given practices flourish. Any given practice - let’s say, brushing one’s teeth - is optimally accompanied by a whole raft of practices along with concepts, knowledge and narratives that justify the practice. In this picture, full participation in the practice of - as stated, brushing one’s teeth - is contingent on understanding the significance of the act within a community that values and engages fruitfully in the practice. And young children are often brought into such activities. Over time the children gain a fuller understanding of the significance of each activity as part of a network of activities that make up - in this case - hygienic practices. Wittgenstein considered the process in terms of training into the application of particular rules that underlie the cultural acts, “I cannot describe how (in general) to employ rules, except by teaching you, training you to employ rules.” (Zettel #318) Therefore, “every instance of the use … is the culmination of a process of socialisation ... Training differs from explanation in that - at least among children - it is largely non-verbal and it is aimed at producing certain actions.” (Phillips, 1979, pg 126).

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Why We Do What We Do: Part One

5:00am: Wake up. Go for a run. Return for a shower. Meditate, pray and spend time with the daily devotional. Eat breakfast. Don’t forget that Christmas is in three weeks. Have you arranged the decorations? Sent the Christmas cards? Those will need to wait. Must shave, brush teeth, suit up and get the 7:35am train into the city for work in preparation for the first meeting of the day. Attend meeting. Determine which investments to make for clients. Remember, it is better to save up for one’s future. Once you clock off for the day, stop by the gym and pick up some Japanese on the way home. See if Julia is available for a social drink. If not, I can catch up on some reading. Make sure you get an early night, since tomorrow will be a big day.

Why do we do what we do? How are our days, our months, our lives structured? What determines our practices? If we think back, how much of our daily patterns were determined by the practices we acquired as a child? It is well known that “as part and parcel of our early socialization in life, we each learn ways of being in the world, of acting and interacting, thinking and valuing, and using language, objects, and tools that crucially shape our early sense of self.” (Gee, 2008, pg 100) What practices were acquired later on? And were there certain practices that were challenged or which fell by the wayside when we moved location or when we met a new circle of friends, colleagues, mentors, acquaintances, etc? Do you recall a grandparent talking about the practices of the past (e.g. butter churning) as you stare into the fridge or order a pizza from your smartphone? What has changed? As Wittgenstein once stated, “A language game [and a practice] does change with time.” (OC, #256) Have you ever had a crisis and have discarded certain practices - like prayer or meditation or exercise or dancing - as arbitrary (i.e. based on shifting sand) only to find yourself a bit out of sorts without these practices giving shape to your life? 

The audio sample below is the lecture entitled, "Context is Everything: Wittgenstein on Meaning as Use" delivered by Dr James K. A. Smith as part of the 2013 H. Orton Wiley Lecture Series in Theology.

The audio sample below is the lecture entitled, "Context is Everything: Wittgenstein on Meaning as Use" delivered by Dr James K. A. Smith as part of the 2013 H. Orton Wiley Lecture Series in Theology.

These and many more questions draw our attention to the concept of practices, which is a concept that I feel is at the core of human existence. A practice “is something people do, not just once, but on a regular basis.” (Stern, 2004, pg 166). For some reason, people pray, brush their teeth, complete their tax, hike in National Parks, long for the next dance, etc. Each “activity” is part of - let’s says - religious practices, hygienic practices, economic practices, artistic practices, social practices and more. Each practice is much more than the sum of its parts. For instance, the combination of prayer, worship, scripture, and stewardship amounts to more than a collection of disparate activities. They amount to a form of life, and they rely upon resources, other participants, a sense of attachment, cultural artefacts and a history. Therefore, a practice is “more than just a disposition to behave in a certain way; the identity of a practice depends not only on what people do, but also on the significance of those actions and the surroundings in which they occur.” (Stern, 2004, pg 166). Put another way, our human existence is “not based on knowledge but on practice.” (Sluga, 2011, pg 107) It is not what we know that gives life its shape. It is what we do.

Welcome to the exploration. This is the first entry in a series of entries that will reflect on those activities that give shape to the way in which we live and the condition under which those activity form and change. In the end, we must ask ourselves to reflect upon the following question, “how successfully are we at finding peace and a home with what we do in a culturally, economically, and politically diverse world?”

References

  • Gee, J. P. (2008) A sociocultural perspective on opportunity to learn. In P. Moss, D. Pullin, J.P. Gee, E. Haertel, and L. Young (Eds). Assessment, equity, and opportunity to learn (pp. 76-108). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Sluga, H. (2011). Wittgenstein. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Smith, J. K. A. (2013). Context is Everything: Wittgenstein on Meaning as Use. In H. Orton Wiley Lecture Series in Theology. Point Loma, CA: Point Loma Nazarene University. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/lecture-2-context-is-everything/id416200490?i=132712463&mt=2
  • Stern, D. (2004). Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: an introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Wittgenstein, L. (1969). On Certainty. Edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright. Translated by D. Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe. New York: Harper Torchbooks.

Never forget … language and literacy are learned with steady guidance from others

Today, I will be discussing the teaching and learning of language and literacy. Clarity is my aim. I intend to continually point to those factors which should be most obvious but which can be lost in practice. For - in truth - it is when this topic becomes clouded in technical abstractions that we - as teachers and parents - suddenly feel unequipped to support learning in the most natural of ways. Do not get me wrong; every use of language and literacy is highly complex and these instances require the orchestration of a myriad of skills that are deployed virtually automatically by the expert user. That much is true. That said, the child (or emerging learner) is not faced with the prospect of developing such complex skills from the get go. There is a progressive, temporal dimension to this learning where the child is supported by others to develop foundational skills which lead into competency which lead to mastery which lead to further disciplinary practice. Meanwhile, the learner is surrounded by others (family, a community, peers, a culture) which exerts their own practices, knowledge, values and ways of navigating the spoken and written word.

In the words of Moyal-Sharrock (2010), "acquiring language is like learning to walk: the child is stepped into language by an initiator and, after much hesitation and repeated faltering, with time and multifarious practice and exposure, it disengages itself from the teacher's hold and is able, as it were, to run with the language." (2010, pg 6) Whilst some may take issue with the literal comparison of walking and talking, I ask you to appreciate the intention of the metaphor. That is, acquiring language and literacy is not so direct, inevitable and individual as we would like to think. It requires the patient and steady guidance of others to support the learner develop emergent to elaborated to independent practices.

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Talent is made manifest through practice

Genius is what makes us forget the master's talent. (Wittgenstein, Culture & Value) 

The video in this journal entry is an ABC News piece that can be examined through a Wittgensteinian perspective. The topic is talent, and the article examines what contributes to the realisation of talent (or ability). In brief, the news item makes reference to the book The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle and emphasises that the important roles of hard work (practice), effective teaching, and access to the space and time for total concentration.

Isn't this common sense? How else would success be achieved? Surprisingly, this picture contradicts another prevalent world picture that is sustained in the American public and media; that is, there are those in the community who exhibit extraordinary talent which can launch these individuals into the heights of the culture through their innate ability alone. In the words of Coyle, "talent is the last magical thing. It's magic ... Tiger Woods is magic. Michael Jordan is magic. Mozart was magic." 

Contributing factors such as context, culture, practice, relationships and circumstances are pushed to the periphery because they may threaten to unseat the prevailing mythology that some people are just amazingly talented.  One would prefer to believe in genius, luck, and egalitarianism rather engage in deeper questions into the people, opportunities and culture that fosters skills and practices. The ideas presented in the video do not deny that innate ability plays a role in the realisation of talent; however, the ideas seek to correct a misleading view, which is one that wants to forget that other key factors play vital roles in the fostering and maintenance of talent.

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Learning as Puzzle Solving

"A thinker is very much like a draughtsman whose aim it is to represent all the interrelations between things." (Wittgenstein, Culture & Value)

Learning is often completed collaboratively with others, and features a sense of mutual accomplishment as the learners embark on a journey of discovery, consolidation and confidence. The seven principles of "learning as puzzle solving" are taken from the following reference:

  • Geekie, P., Cambourne, B., & Fitzsimmons, P. (2004). Learning as puzzle solving. In Grainger, T (ed) The RoutledgeFalmer reader in language and literacy (pp 107 – 118). London: RoutledgeFalmer

Please continue to read to explore the seven principles and how they apply to effective teaching.

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Vision and Determination: Ideal Qualities for Every Teacher and Learner

"Each morning you have to break through the dead rubble afresh so as to reach the living warm seed." (Wittgenstein, Culture & Value)

Talk of best practices, teaching programs, cycles, and progressions can lull the casual observer into believing that programs on their own bring about result. A program's success is only as powerful as the vision and determination of the teacher delivering it and the learning engaging in it. We should not forget that learning is work, that skills and knowledge can and will be forgotten (if not reinforced), and that teachers and learners need to wake up each morning to ponder yesterday and reach for the "living warm seed" of today's and tomorrow's and the next day's learning. Schools (and other forums of learning) may be full of a great many activities (the 'rubble'), but teachers and learners must regularly return to the significance of all the activities (the 'warm living seed') that all the hard work is seeking to attain. 

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Book Tip: Showing and Doing: Wittgenstein as a Pedagogical Philosopher

By Nicholas C. Burbles, Paul Smeyers, and Michael A. Peters.

Burbles, Smeyers and Peters have collected an excellent series of essays which are directly applicable to an educational perspective of Wittgenstein's philosophy. The premise of the book "Showing and Doing" reflects the ways in which individuals are brought into knowledge and practices, including technical as well as ethical domains. The book's chapters probe cognitive aspects of learning (e.g. imagination and concept-constructing) as well as social factors (e.g. communities of practice and apprenticeships).

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Managing a Balanced Approach to Literacy: Part Three

At one stage, I became very relaxed. I felt that I had come to a resolution. If someone walked up to me and asked, ‘what are the core components of literacy?’, I would be able to declare

  • — control
  • — comprehension
  • — practices

 

First, literacy is a notation which requires a significant amount of control over the linguistic system.

 "Just as in writing we learn a particular basic form of letters and then vary it later, so we learn first the stability of things as the norm, which is then subject to alteration." (Wittgenstein, On Certainty #473)

One main tenant of this is as follows, ‘overlearning the basics of decoding reduces the amount of mental effort to read.’ 

"This shape that I see - I want to say - is not simply a shape; it is one of the shapes I know; it is marked out in advance. It is one of those shapes of which I already had a pattern in me." (Wittgenstein, Zettel, #209)

 

Courtesy of Reading Hozisons

As Maryanne Wolf (2008) would say, the more fluent one becomes, the more cognitive space is made for higher order processes in reading (e.g. comprehension). The learner takes time to be able to develop the confidence to extract meaning from the written word.

"A script you can read fluently works on you differently from one that you can write; but not decipher easily. You lock up your thought up in this as though in a casket." (Wittgenstein, Culture & Value)
 

 

Wolf (2008) is quick to remind us that fluency provides the cognitive space for comprehension but this does not guarantee that the learner will make the leap to making meaning independently. Learning to read requires one to develop the habits of the mind that enables the learner to concentrate, visualise, process and get the gist of the text.

A thinker is very much like a draughtsman whose aim it is to represent all the interrelations between things. (Wittgenstein, Culture & Value)

Reading is serious exercise for the brain, and the act of reading is the subject of the imagination and of the will. We must acknowledges that learners need considerable help to paint the pictures that are encoded in the squiggles that appear on the page.

Ask: What result am I aiming at when I tell someone: "Read attentively"? That, e.g. this and that should strike him, and he should be able to give an account of it. (Wittgenstein, Zettel, #91)

 

If we refer to the diagram to the left, we will see the significant range of cognitive activities that a reader must be encouraged to engage in to draw connections, pursues conclusions, and seek clarity.

 

And - indeed - James Paul Gee reminds us that, “After all, we never just read "in general", rather, we always read or write something in some way. We don't read or write newspapers, legal tracts, essays in literary criticism, poetry, or rap songs, and so on and so forth through a nearly endless list, in the same way. Each of these domains has its own rules and requirements.” (Gee, 2003, pg 28). Therefore,  “Even when we want to think about a child learning to read initially, we want to think about what sorts of texts we want the child eventually to be able to read in what sorts of ways. No learner grows up able to read all sorts of texts in all ways.” (Gee, 2003, pg 28)

In these cases, learning to read is embedded in certain practices - the things we do in the great hurly burly of life. "The pupil must want to go on alone in taking language to the world, and that what is said must be worth saying, have a point (warning, informing, amusing, promising, questioning, chastising, counting, insisting, beseeching, and so on) ... If it is part of teaching to undertake to validate these measures of interest, then it would be quite as if teaching must, as it were, undertake to show a reason for speaking at all.” (Cavell, 2005, pg 115) I think of terms like "intention", "expectation", and "purpose".

From Evolutionary Linguistics at http://ai.vub.ac.be/research/topics/evolutionary-linguistics

 “I shall in the future again and again draw your attention to what I shall call language games. There are ways of using signs simpler than those in which we use the signs of our highly complicated everyday language." (quoting Wittgenstein in Monk, 2005, p 69)

 

“Following a rule, making a report, giving an order, and so on, are customs, uses, practices or institutions. They presuppose a human society, and our form of life.” (Phillips, 1977, p 36) .

 “When the boy or grown-up learns what one might call specific technical languages, e.g. the use of charts and diagrams, descriptive geometry, chemical symbolism, etc. he learns more language games ... Here the term ‘language game’ is meant to bring into prominence the fact the speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life ...” (Wittgenstein quoted in Phillips, 1977, pp 29 - 31)

It is this concept of language games that brings the final piece of the puzzle: acquiring the literacies (and numeracies) requires an understanding of literacy as part of authentic, real world practices. A balanced pedagogy requires the following: (a) regular, explicit instruction in linguistic features, (b) time spent on strengthening comprehension, and (c) embedding this development in authentic practices so that the learners are developing a repertoire of linguistics practices. 

 

More yet to come ... Zones of Proximal Development and Activity Systems .... 

 

References 

  • Cavell, S. (2005). Philosophy the day after tomorrow. In S. Cavell, Philosophy the day after tomorrow. (pp. 111 - 131). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
  • Gee, J. P. (2003). Opportunity to learn: a language-based perspective on assessment. In Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, Vol 10, No. 1, pp 27 - 46
  • Monk, R. (2005). How to read Wittgenstein. London: Granta Books.
  • Phillips, D. (1977). Wittgenstein and scientific knowledge. London: MacMillan Press.
  • Wittgenstein, L. (1967) Zettel. Edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • _____________ (1980). Culture and value. Translated by Peter Winch. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  • _____________ (1969). On Certainty. Edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright. Translated by D. Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe. New York: Harper Torchbooks.
  • Wolf, M. (2008). Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain. Cambridge: Icon Books.

Managing a Balanced Approach to Literacy: Part One

There is a concept in physics known as the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. It holds that one can know the velocity of a particle and the position of a particle, but one cannot know both at the same time. In other words, one can know the exact velocity of a particle at a given time but not its exact position at that time. Similarly, one can know the exact position of a particle at a given time but not its exact velocity at that particular moment. 

I am proposing that there is a similar phenomenon - at least, metaphorically - that occurs in the circles of literacy pedagogy, which I will refer to as (drum roll, please) the Parallel Dimensions of Literacy. It holds that a teacher can foster a 'skills-based' literacy pedagogy and a teacher can establish a 'usage-based' literacy pedagogy, however, the teacher cannot use the same theoretical position to describe the two approaches to teaching. One must shift the paradigm as one moves between a focus on form to a focus on meaning. 

I am not suggesting that teachers must be one or the other. In truth, both approaches are required, and the best teachers at all levels are those who are equally equipped to develop and monitor core skills whilst providing rich opportunities for students to read, write, speak and learn in authentic, meaningful contexts. 

One can advocate for a skills approach which adheres to a deep knowledge of linguistic structures and focuses on structure development but which suffers from a decontextualised explanation of meaning that does not adequately address how conventional and cultural forms of meaning affect development. On the other hand, one can establish a rich environment in which learners explore (in reading) and express (in writing) knowledge and social activity, but the pedagogy can be seen to gloss over specific developments in phonology, orthography, morphology, syntax and grammar.

The diagram below (presented by Dr Neil Anderson) labels this contrast as Intensive versus Extensive Literacy Instruction.

 

A Model for Balanced Reading Instruction (Dr. Neil Anderson)