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Shows why reading and writing are essential to developing a consciousness of language that, in turn, lies at the core of rationality.
List of contents
Preface; Part I. Introduction: Reading, Writing and the Mind; 1. Awakening: reading and consciousness; Part II. Theories of the Relation between Writing and Mind: 2. Inventing writing: the history of writing and the ontogeny of writing; 3. Dewey and the New Pragmatists: reading, writing and mind; 4. Vygotsky and the Vygotskians; 5. The cognitive science of metarepresentation; Part III. Reading and the Invention of Language about Language: 6. Phonemes and the alphabet; 7. The discovery of words and thinking about words; 8. Sentences and logic; 9. Prose and rational argument; 10. The testing of rationality and the rationality of testing; Part IV. The Implications and Uses of Metarepresentational Language: 11. The psychology and pedagogy of reading; 12. The psychology and pedagogy of rationality; Part V. Conclusions: 13. Reading, consciousness and rationality; References; Author index; Subject index.
About the author
David R. Olson is University Professor Emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He is the author or editor of 20 books and more than 300 articles on cognition, language and literacy. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the National Academy of Education (US), and has been awarded honorary degrees by the University of Gothenburg, the University of Saskatchewan, and the University of Toronto.
Summary
This engaging book focuses on the cognitive uses of literacy for thinking and reasoning. Reading and writing provide consciousness of aspects of language that are implicit and unconscious in speech. This consciousness of language is essential not only to literacy but also to the formation of systematic thought and rationality.
Report
'This is a highly original and compelling treatment of the effects of literacy on human consciousness, written by the world's leading expert on the cognitive consequences of literacy. The interdisciplinary approach will be of interest to scholars of cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, education, philosophy, and linguistics.' Susan Gelman, University of Michigan
