Reintroducing "Development" Into Theories of Early Writing: Vygotsky and the Developmental Sciences

• In Event: Early and Elementary Literacy

Abstract

This chapter contrasts the differences between computational ‘retrospective’ models of early writing achievement whose elements represent static states of being and ‘prospective’ models based upon the principles of developmental science and a process-relational-developmental framework which characterizes early writing performances always in the process of ‘becoming.’ The chapter highlights these differences using examples from Spanish-speaking emergent bilinguals to illustrate the various patterns of writing development captured in a Piagetian/Vygotskian-inspired early writing assessment. The children’s simultaneous display of multiple conceptualizations of the notational system in Spanish is interpreted as reflecting aspects of Siegler’s ‘overlapping waves theory’ and Piaget’s ‘optimizing equilibration.’

Author

• David B. Yaden, University of Arizona
  Presenting Author