Week Eleven Readings

Week Eleven’s Theme

Given very young children's development of language and abstraction, how do contextual, multimodal symbols and conventions support their encoding or decoding of the world around them?

This week’s theme is still about literacy and numeracy technicians and children encoding and decoding signs, symbols, and messages around them to create their own meanings and understandings of the world. The two readings I chose this week focus heavily on this idea of signs, and being able to read those signs, and were chosen due to their emphasis on how children decode the signs around themselves.

Reading One

Knight, Linda. (2012). Grotesque Gestures of Sensuous Signs? Rethinking Notions of Apprenticeship in Early Childhood Education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 33(1), pp. 101-111.

This reading compared Gilles Deleuze and Lev Vygotsky’s definition and understanding of apprenticeship, in relation to children reading and understanding signs, symbols, and messages, with Knight arguing that the Deleuzian approach is more correct.

In the Deleuzian method, education can be contextualised as a swarm of signs, with Deleuze contending that all things that teach us something will emit signs. In a school or kindergarten-based context these signs range from letters of the alphabet, numbers, and mathematical equations, to gestures, emotions, facial expressions of both peers and teachers, and also schedules, dress codes, instructions, and expected behaviours such as when to sit still and listen and when to eat. For example, at the kindergarten I am placed at, the children cannot start eating their lunch until everybody on that table is seated so this is a sign that they must learn to read.

According to Vygotsky, children’s learning of signs is sequential, ordered, and culturally driven. Once signs are recognised it is like a boundary line has been crossed and a new chapter opens as children move on to the next sign to learn. Learning awakens internal development processes that are only able to operate when children are interacting with people, and in Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, children learn signs in a linear developmental sequence guided by more experienced and competent peers.

Deleuze, on the other hand, believes that children learn signs in an ever-shifting series of assemblages, that are not guided by age-defined, age-appropriate material offered by more experienced or competent others. Learning signs is also not sequential, with children learning signs at different paces and in different orders, and previously learned signs can be used to further their understandings of newly learned signs and vice versa. Teachers are also apprenticed in this way of thinking as they can learn from their students and use this learning to create better learning opportunities for their students.

Knight also has a particular emphasis on the positive learning we can observe in children’s drawing. Knight argued that far from drawing just being the precursor to other literary stages such as writing (fine motor skills acquisition and character writing development), drawing shows us children’s ability to read and produce their own signs. This is part of children’s encoding process, as they draw a picture that to many adults may look simple but to the drawer it can be telling a complex and detailed story, observation, memory, or fantasy.

Knight emphasised that learning is an assemblage of knowledge, and not everybody is an identical learner, with children (and adults) learning to read the signs and symbols in different ways and orders in a non-controllable, non-sequential, non-organised way. This can be seen in observing children, with some learning signs faster than others, whether in learning letters, numbers and mathematical equations, or gestures, emotions and facial expressions, or even things such as schedules like how the day is ordered or bed times.

From my observations in working with children I agree with Deleuze and Knight in saying that children all learn how to read signs, symbols, and message at different paces and in different orders. For example I have seen children unable to read the signs in the room (such as all other children staying quiet and listening to the adult) during group time and continue to make noises or talk to other children, despite being told that it is inappropriate time and time again. I have seen younger children remember and behave according to schedules and patterns during the day, faster than older children. I believe that children, and adults, are able to further old understandings with new knowledge, and combine new knowledge of signs with old understandings. I don’t believe children can only learn by being taught or assisted by a more competent and experienced learner, and that children have the ability to teach more experienced peers, and educators many things as well. I do agree with both Vygotsky and Delezue in emphasising the importance of social interaction in learning, however, I also believe a great deal of learning can happen by the individual. Sometimes quiet reflection and individual reading or problem solving can do a lot more good than discussion and group thinking, however there is benefits to both types of learning.

Reading Two

Nabuzoka, Dabie & Smith, Peter. (1999). Distinguishing Serious and Playful Fighting by Children with Learning Disabilities and Nondisabled Children. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 40(6), pp. 883-890.

This article was a report on a study conducted to examine whether children with learning difficulties could distinguish the differences between serious fighting playful fighting, or rough and tumble play. This article was chosen because this distinction can only be made by reading a number of subtle and various signs and symbols in the actions and expressions of the participants and those around them. Making this distinction is a sign of a literacy technician, as children need to decode the signs around them to make their decision.

This article was good in describing the effects children may face when not being able to read the social cues, and messages that are surrounding them, with it found that children with learning difficulties who may have difficulties reading these cues, and reduced ability to read the non-verbal signs around them are seen to have less positive and more negative descriptions of them by their peers, and are devalued more than children without learning difficulties. Difficulties in reading non-verbal messages, and social cues can lead to children being unaware of what behaviours are appropriate in what situations, from not knowing when to sit and listen, to not knowing when another child is engaging in rough and tumble play, not serious fighting. 

The ability to read social cues, and non-verbal signs is an ability found in the literacy technician, however, numerical aspects can also factor in too. For example in being able to distinguish the difference between playful fighting and real fighting the number of participants was included as a sign. In another example, knowing that 2 is greater than 1 in counting how many warnings a teacher has given you is important in knowing how carefully you must act in the classroom from now on.

Interestingly, the study found that children with learning difficulties could make the distinction between playful fighting and serious fighting. However, children with learning difficulties were found to be able to distinguish the difference later in life than children with no learning difficulties. This, according to the researchers signifies a ‘lag’ in development, or a developmental delay. This somewhat ties in with the Deleuzian theory of children learning to read signs and messages at different stages and levels, with children with learning difficulties or disabilities being an extreme example of this difference.