Assumptions About Literacy

RDG 3320

Basic Assumptions About Language and Literacy

Shared Reflections1. What is language? (Semiotic Systems)

2. What is it for?

3. How is it acquired?

4. How does READING fit in to other notions of language?

Signs (anything that can carry meaning) take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning.

Topics of Discussion

1. All readers bring language to the reading process in some form.

2. All readers bring their past experiences to the process.

3. Reading materials represent the past experiences of the author.

4. Reading is a constant transaction between the author and the reader.

5. Situations matter

All readers bring language to thereading process in some form.

Children’s Language

1. Immature rules

2. Experimentation

3. Holophrasic Language

All readers bring their past experiences to the process.

Language is a man made abstract.

1. Vocabulary

2. Dialect: Structural variation of a language used by a group of people that meets the needs of the people who use it.

Language reflects the world in your head

Reading is most predictable when the reader’s experiences and the author’s experiences are at their closest.

Reading materials represent the past experiences of the author.

Writers must remember that they are having a conversation with readers over Time and Distance.

1. Language Conventions Matter2. Modifiers are Necessary3. Important information MUST be repeated

Authors can only use the conventions they know, as can the reader.

There is room for understanding at the STYLE level.

Reading is a constant transaction between the author and the reader

Communication is least predictable at the place where “distance” is the greatest.

1. Language Experience (Roach Van Allen)

2. Pre-reading assessments (often Kid Watching)

3. Pre-reading activities to build schema

Situation Matters

How does your use of language (reading) vary when considering:

1. Time?

2. Place?

3. Circumstances?

4. Physical situations?

What This Means To Assessment

What can we expect in terms of:

1. Uniformity of “readiness” among children?

2. Expectations about requisite schema?

3. Interpretations of meaning?

4. Why children make the miscues they do?

Semiotic Systems1. Semiotic systems are all of the symbol systems used to communicate.  They include

words and letters, but also much more.  For instance, when you smile, wave or shrug, you are using one of the semiotic systems. 

2. There are also other semiotic systems important to schools.  One is time.  How is time used to communicate?  Well, as the teacher I decide when we start, when we stop and when we take breaks.  Who is in charge in our room?  Doesn’t this system tell a lot about power?  Also, if we are discussing something and I let the time get away without REALLY explaining for you, what does that tell you about how I feel about your learning?  See what I mean?

3. What about space?  Desks in a circle or in rows.  What does each say to students about how a class will be run?  Who get to decide where people sit?  Who is in charge?  If you move close to someone, what might that mean?  Can it be used for behavior management? 

4. All of these, and more combine to form the semiotic systems of a culture.  Are the systems different from culture to culture.  YUP!  This is one of the ways that we can always tell someone who is from another culture even when they master the language.  They often retain the other systems.  Some cultures “stand too close”, “talk too loud”, or “hug people of the same gender”.  Cross-cultural semiotic systems are one of the places where we find the most friction in the classroom.

5. “Jimmy…..look me in the eyes when I speak”….to you this means respect.  To others it is an insult.  “Sara….we work alone in here”. …in our culture this is seen as the best way to learn and working with others is “cheating”..  In other cultures, groups work together for the greater good regularly and it is seen as normal and natural.

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Schema Theory 

1. At its most basic level, schema theory suggests that all things in your mind are linked together. The more links that an item has to it, the easier it is to find it among all the other stuff in your head. Also, things are linked in strange and interesting ways. 

2. Think about files cabinets. They contain the collective knowledge you have on a given subject. There are folders with large ideas about the subject. There are many sub-folders in the cabinet that are the large idea broken down. Inside these are items the share some characteristic. 

3. Cabinet: Living things4. Folder: Mammals5. Sub-folder: Man6. Item: hair  

1. Ok…I can see that I need more subfolders, but you see what I mean. So when we read the word “hair”, we might activate that item in the subfolder “man”, which links to “man”, which is contained in “living things”. Then, as we read on, we see that the “hair” mentioned is connected with rugs. Now we have to go to the “rug” file and find a folder which contains “hair”. We can’t discount the first idea until we see that hairs in rugs also come from non-“man”. Now we are still in the Living things-mammal area, but out of man. Links upon links upon links lead to comprehension.

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Immature Rules

1. A child says to you, “I goed to the store.” Are they showing a lack of knowledge of the past tense or a reasonable generalizing of the past tense ”rule”?

2. Another example could be “See the deerses”. Just how do we make things plural in our rule-governed Standard English?

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Experimentation

1. Children often “play” with such things as syntax prior to completely buying into the standard version of English.

2. “Look, my mom broomed the house.”

3. “Sarah up the road chased the boy.”

4. “The leaves caught themselves on fire.”

5. This is a normal part of the development of Standard English, or of the dialect of English used by the child.

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Holophrasic Language

1. Sometimes VERY young children will use Holophrasic language to communicate befoe they have control over even phrases.

2. “water!”

3. “mine”

4. “doggie”

5. We know that they MEAN entire phrases, or even stories, but they are unable to deliver them in complete forms. They are often frustrated when we can’t figure them out soon enough to met their needs.

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