FroM about age. -odrto'age eleven, a Child' -s concept conceptual ... - ed

'A U ?TEAR

`TITLE PUB DAT NOTE

EDPS MOE-

DESCRtPTOR'S

.IDENTIFIERS

Templetbn, Shine

Primary Children Thin

Implications.

"-

Mar 78

.

,-

26p.: Taper presented at t,he3 Annual Meeting Of the

Internatipnal-Pekaing--Association Georgia Council

(4thi Atlanta Geolgia, afch-Z,-4, '1978).

_-,.,

MF01/PCO2 Plns Postage.

*Child Development; *Cognitive Development; Cognitive

Processes; Elementary-Education; *Language

.bevelopment:' *Language LearDing_ velI:,*Language

-Research; Linguistics;, reschool Educdttion.

P_ i

pean):f

AESTRACT FroM about age. -odrto'age eleven, a Child' -s concept

-of',Olitor dog develops from a lack of conceptual differentiation...about

things and events to an awareness 'of-wordS a Meaningful- eiements

themselves.

.=

Piaget' s 'theory of cognitive levelopMent offes

Petspettive from -`which- this phenomenon can be evalu ateL-The

preoperational. and concrete ,operatiOnal- stages .haVe Characteristics that Match the 'deVelopment- of word _concepts. In'addition, children

have a -tacit. awareness of lari5Uage and ptint .that=theYUS. at

subconscious level,. There seems to be -a development -from centering. on

a StiblectIve sVstem.to centering- _on arCobiecti4e-syStem at the tacit

level of'.1anguage'-develOpMent..lacit. and conscious- knowledge together

interact as children :develop the idea of word 'as-content And T word 'as'

form-. As a .child'deirelops,' teachers or parents-can give, assistante.,

An illUstrated alphabet strip in the child's bedroom, dictated

experience stories,' labeling objects .in the home, and catego- ring

.qammHOith' words are strategies that help =children alOn4.-AD

'wholeSome concept of wards. (T3)

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Repro duct i

supplied by EDRS are the

that can be made

*

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U.* DEPARTMENT OF NEALcIi, 'EDUCATION &WELFARE NATIONALJNETITUTE OF EDUCATION

THIeDOCUMIENT HAS BErN REPRO

DUCE? EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FTIOM THE PERSON OR CIRONNIZATiONIVEIGiN ATING IT !MINTS pF VIEW OR ONNIONS STATED DO MOT .NECESSARILY REPRESENT OF F.latAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION 'POSITION OR FOWICY

Primary Ohildren.Thihk About Words

Concepts and Implidations

Shane Templeton

Emory University,

a

'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THJS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

Shane Templeton,

TO THE EDUCATIONAL 'RESOURCES . INFORMATION CENTER iER IC) AND..

USERS OF THE ERIC SYSTE

Paper presented IRA Georgia Conn

t the 4th Om I meeting of the Atlanta,iGeorf a March 3, 1978

.PrimsFy0-111Adren

:*

Coneepts-a d

AssumptiVe tesching'kg.t bUgaboo that ye.

_ avoid. We, may inadv,erTe4tly assume, hOweve potsoss a fair degree of.knowledge about certa

initial phases of eadl.nginstructiolt:

possible aiffirences:etween Ours A _ 1.1r pupil concepts, we

not be ve sure about the, nature

tbes itferdnce b..

'This roblem is particularly-

apd to words.

often heav a -grateful sigh when we believe thak we hav, finally

been Ab.lp o diieft our pupils='. attention Proitabfy.- i o word

Because the word is such a pOpular unit of aria

rrheginfan

reading-instruction, its.seem- imperative that

tn dIscoy_

.nature of chi.ldren's conceptual constructs about'

With the foregoing in mind,

s in this aps First, I shall briefly rev.ipuP th

that have attempted -discover what in fact

con_ stinttely' know about words 'S6Cond, I would like.t

414

e the

e-:sttrdieS to Piaget's theory of cognitive develOpment.

throdghan'inve-stigation of children's knowledge.of "corres-

.

p ndence rules" between print and speech, I hope to'demonstrate the

systematic but .largely tweit, or subconscious, way in rho ch children

,conceptualize word structure. iFinally, I shall attempt` pull as.

many

1

the theoretical and p actical threads together in an Attempt

dfscuss at we as teachers can and cannot do in facilitating

childreeS learning abou w-

dren' C

ord .Re *resentative Research

0 1974) vestigabed young childrenis ability.

fdrent verbal and nonverbal stimuli are

He%noteb that the terma

rd" and "sound" ate

her..pOorly/Undeliatt od by 5 year -olds, and, that up until about 0'

yeas"

g child

tend to confuse. phrases and sentences'with

i,okertvod

e_estingly hildren between the ages of 5k tok6k.

fiend toyexeaud longer words om their concept of what constitutes

Down

-es Vernon's (1957) reference to.the'"cogn tive ,

7

confusio wit which the child often approaches,the tisk of learnink

He suggests that an important phase.--the cognitive phase--

often neglected early on in school. This is e phase in_which

the learner acqui es the basic concept about reading and the knnw-

ledge o what kinds f ,stimuli to otterd' to, As an example of the

chiles "cognitive confusfon" Downing characterizes the young child _

"goping fot meaning" of the term "Word." For such a child, the

obvious, egment that might correspond tteoa

is a "chunk of meanin 1

(1970, p. 111). "Fish and chips "', for

p might just as well be

a word as "milk.

Studies reported by Ftanc (1973) su port, the belief that

children do seem to experience the sort

A

which Downing refers. This confusion, h

ognitive confusion "' to is not due'so much

to any .inability o understand th.abstrat conceptual nature of the

reading task. Rather, it is due

an unfamiliarity with wha

language. Furthermore, the

overlap of, reference-id wing terms such as'word, reading, and letter

also contributes to this confusion. Francis offers- a valuable

insight, into the- nature, of the concept of word apd it is one ter which

we will return many times.. She -suggests that childreh's notions of

%I

4

mnits:An language -- specifically ordsLappear to arise from. an

analysis f written forms as the chiten learn td.i'ead.

both Downing's and. Francis's esee ch,althottl valuable and

qUite'illuminating possess a basic shortcoming. That is, while

these studies ingeniously tap young children's -ability# to identify

wordlike stimuli, they-do pot pose a most Important quevaion to. the

children: -what is a word? A study by Papandropoulou ada..?inclair

(1974): asked precisely- thi as well as other fascinating vestions.

Y.

For this reason, Papandrepou of and-Sinclair's study will baxamined

a bit more closely.

As PaPandropou_ou and Sinclair pres

they"snught to

obtain some insight in ehedifferent ways the cognitively developing

child ekaborates a conception of ,the . epresentational.system we a I ti language" (1974, p..248). They perceive a gradually developing

concept of wordne`.s4 s in which words become detach4d from the ob

-and the events tb which they refer. [holy much later in cognitiv

..development do words become regarded- as "meaningful elements inside

a systematic frame of-linguistic reference,"

In other words,

elements in a grammatical system. As,

ult of interviews

involving over 100 children between the ages -of 4 an 11, the

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