4 - Some Cognitive Tools of Literacy

Summary

For the educator interested in such topics as how to engage children in becoming more fluently literate, Vygotsky has offered a crucially important insight. Before his work – and, of course, still commonly the case for those who have been unable to see its richer implications for education – approaches to education generally have tended to take one or more of three general approaches. We will sketch them very briefly and then indicate in what way Vygotsky's insight into the role of cognitive tools helps us to transcend the limitations of the three traditional approaches.

The main purpose of our chapter, however, is to explore some new implications of Vygotsky's insight, seeking to unfold it in ways that enable educators to discover new pathways to engage students in literacy successfully. We think, also, that this analysis of the cognitive tools that are constituents of literacy provides a novel expansion of Vygotsky's insight in ways directly applicable to education.

THREE TRADITIONAL CONCEPTIONS OF THE EDUCATOR'S TASK

The first, and most ancient, conception of the educator's task is to engage the young learner in what today we call an apprenticeship relationship with an expert. The child would, consequently, learn by doing with an expert on hand to guide and correct the novice. This kind of learning has been perhaps the most common in human cultures across the world and was almost the exclusive mode of instruction in hunter–gatherer societies.