Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003. — xxxiv, 256 pages. — (The Developing Mind Series). — ISBN 1-4106-0719-4.This book provides a thrilling description of preliterate children's developing ideas about writing and numerals, and it illustrates well the many ways in which cultural artifacts influence the mind and vice versa. Remarkably, children treat writing and numerals as distinct even before they have received any formal training on the topic, and well before they learn how to use writing to represent messages and numerals to represent quantities.
In this revolutionary new book, Liliana Tolchinsky argues that preliterate children's experiences with writing and numerals play an essential and previously unsuspected role in children's subsequent development. In this view, learning notations, such as writing is not just a matter of acquiring new instruments for communicating existing knowledge. Rather, there is a continual interaction between children's understanding of the features of a notational system and their understanding of the corresponding domain of knowledge. The acquisition of an alphabetic writing system transforms children's view of language, and the acquisition of a formal system of enumeration transforms children's understanding of numbers.Written in an engaging narrative style, and richly illustrated with historical examples, case studies, and charming descriptions of children's behavior, this book is aimed not only at cognitive scientists, but also at educators, parents, and anyone interested in how children develop in a cultural context.What Children Know and We Have Already Forgotten About Writing and Numerals
Defining a Domain of Knowledge
A Developmental Domain-Specific Perspective on Writing and Numerals
A Constructivist Perspective on Writing and Numerals
Private and Public Aspects of Writing and Numbers
Literate Adults' Ideas About the Development of Writing
Outline of the Book
What Philosophers Say About Representational Means That May Help Us to Understand What Makes Writing and Numerals so Special
The Confines of Semiotics
External and Internal Representations
Aside on Two Examples to Clarify Different Types of
Representation
Conditions of External Representations
Dimensions for Distinguishing Pictorial and
Scriptorial Devices
The Notion of Notation
Conditions Met by Notational Elements
Context Sensitivity Revisited
What Historians Say About the Origin and History of Writing and Numerals
Prototypical Accounts of the History of Writing
Aside on The Projection Principle
The Seed(s) of Writing
Aside on the Metalinguistic Reflection and Writing
Principles in Historical Notation of Number
Notational Principles and Notational Forms
Some Conclusions About the Historical Principles of Number Notation
Principles in the History of Writing
Aside on Types of Language
Some Conclusions From the Historical Case Analyses
What Children Know About Writing Before Being Formally Taught to Write
The Child's Path to Alphabetic Writing
The Development of Early Writing and Invented Spelling
The Development of Early Writing and Sociocultural
Approaches to Literacy
Writing as a Source of Knowledge
What Children Know About Numerals Before Being Formally Taught and Immediately Afterward
Notional Cognition and Notational Cognition
Numerical Notions Before Notations
Children's Path to the Written System of Numeration
Aside on Spoken and Written Numeration
Numerals as a Source of Knowledge
What Children Know About the Relations Between Writing and Number Notation
Similarities and Differences Between Alphabetic Writing and Numerals
The Child's View of Writing and Numerals Before Schooling
Differentiation Without Schooling
Sources of Early Differentiation
So Where Does Early Differentiation Originate?
New Writing Spaces or Redefining Relations Between Notations
The Effect of Writing on Children and Grown-ups Once It Has Been Learned
Aside on Writing and Language
The Effects of Writing on Language
In What Ways Did the Two Languages Differ?
The Effect of Writing on Life
Closing Reflections on Notational Systems, Boomerangs, and Circles
The Boomerang Effect on the Development of Writing and Numerals
The Boomerang Effect on Users' Ideas of the Domains of Knowledge Represented by Notations
The Boomerang Effect on the History of Notational Systems
The Boomerang Effect in the Relations Between Biology and Culture
Looking Forward and Appreciating What Has Been Learned
