[Xmca-l] Re: Can symbols help people learning to read?

[mike cole]

Huw--

Would you say that your son's action is evidence of the use of productive
imagination?
mike

On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 9:42 AM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
wrote:

> As has already been stated, it depends upon what one means by 'symbol' and
> it also depends upon how such symbols are introduced.
>
> For example, the set of graphemes constituting a written word may be
> referred to as a symbolic model of the phonemic structure of the word.
>
> With respect to picture-word correspondence, this could feasibly help with
> understanding the nature of words as referring to conceptions rather than
> the immediacy of things themselves in early development.
>
> When our first child was about 12 months, we used a photo album of everyday
> objects from around the house to help distinguish between the words and the
> objects referred to.  One day I sat down and requested, in a purposeful
> tone, that he put my shoe on the trolley (I didn't use gestures) and was
> fairly gobsmacked when he simply set off and did it.  This was at a time
> when he wasn't saying any recognisable words, let alone sentence sounds
> with predicates in them.  Shoes were not part of his repertoire of toy
> objects, and the trolley wasn't being used (at the time) as a thing to
> carry other things with.
>
> It would still be difficult to demonstrate a clear link, but where I would
> theoretically place it is in relating the word to the conception of the
> object (the memory of the perception).  This fits with the nature of my
> request, as the trolley was not in sight at the time (but it was one of the
> items in the album).
>
> Huw
>
>
>
> On 11 March 2015 at 05:59, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > I am forwarding this message from a good friend who has a question about
> > literacy education.
> > If you know of research on this question, perhaps you could cc Mike B. in
> > your reply.
> > ***
> > My sister is in the education field and she is looking for theory and
> > research to refute an influential paper which claims introducing symbols
> to
> > non-readers actually hampers their ability to develop literacy skills.
> The
> > little I have read on AT and semiotics seems to at least indicate that
> > under certain conditions, symbols can aid literacy. But I am looking for
> > something specific and/or definite.
> > ***
> > Andy
> > --
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > *Andy Blunden*
> > http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> >
> >
>



-- 
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch.