A discussion of the various approaches attempting to enlighten the links between intelligence, cognition and language and their relevance to literacy practices.

Literacy has been generally defined as the ability to read, write, use numbers and to find information and use it appropriately. Recent research and projects implemented worldwide are based on the believe that literacy, as an Industrial Age concept, has transformed to include affective as well as cognitive understanding, in the culture of the Information Age. Despite some scholarly tilting, or lexical inflation, of the polemics revolving around literacy, there is considerable support for viewing literacy as a continuously evolving concept allowing for a more liberal understanding and hence development of the initial ideal of the universal right to be able to read and to write. Because literacy depends on information, and because information is expanding at a fast rate, the mere ability to read and to write is being translated into the ability to read, write, and to develop the capacities to understand, absorb, assimilate, and digest information.

Literacy In Malaysia

In Malaysia there is a growing concern for developing literacy at the national level, be it in English or in the national language, Bahasa Malaysia. Reading and writing have been acknowledged as important aspects of the curriculum. The Education Ministry as the mainstay of literacy development has embarked on various reading and writing projects at the school and tertiary levels. In the 1970's the ELRP programme was implemented in selected secondary schools. The implementation of the KBSM syllabus saw the introduction of the The Class Readers Programme.(Mukundan et.al.1998:2) Graded readers were sent to primary and secondary schools through the country. The most recent attempt to increase literacy and encourage the reading habit was the implementation of the Literature in English Programme.

Literacy and Early Learning Theories

French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778) advocated a liberalism in education. Rousseau believed that a child's learning unfolds naturally and should not be tampered with. He believed that children learn through curiosity and imposing learning on them disturbs the equilibrium. According to him children can only learn when they are ready and each child has a unique way of learning which is distinct from others.
Pestalozzi was influenced by Rousseau's ideas on natural learning, however he also believed that it was idealistic to expect children to learn on their own without adult supervision and instruction. Hence he came up with a strategy to amalgamate Rousseau's ideas of natural elements with informal instruction. He believed that children could learn to read on their own but parents had the responsibility to create the right environment and climate for the child's continued development. He proposed a hands on approach with the manipulation of "objects and learning about them through touch, smell, language, size and shape."(Morrow, 1993:5)
Froebel's ideas were nonetheless a continuation of Rousseau and Pestalozzi. Like Rousseau he believed that a child's learning should be allowed to unfold on it's own and like Pestalozzi he provided plans and ideas for instruction. Froebel's contribution was the inclusion of play in the learning environment. He included songs and games in his lessons. He is also credited with inventing the word kindergarten which literally means children's garden.
John Dewey was influenced by Froebel in constructing his theory of education. He proposed a child-centered curriculum. His proposition was built around play and social interaction. He believed that children learn best when they are interested or motivated to learn. Many recent developments in literacy education are based on child-centered learning approaches. Games and other interactive elements are seen as important classroom techniques.
Maria Montessori had different ideas compared to the philosophers mentioned thus far. Learning for her was an organized, systematic approach. Children were given specific materials with specific manipulative targets. Play for her was a waste of time if the child's natural curiosity was not harnessed into a working and learning environment. She also believed that children have optimum learning periods which parents and educators should take advantage of.

Constructivist Theory

Any discussions of learning and literacy approaches is not complete without mention of the constructionist theory of language and learning. This theory was based on the study done by Jean Piaget. Even though Piaget himself never proposed any direct methodological precepts of language and learning, research done on his theory of language and cognition had given rise to many methodological inceptions important to literacy practises. Piaget held that language was a result of cognitive development. In other words conceptualization precedes language.(Cox, 1999:50) Even though he believed that language and cognition were interdependent; language for Piaget was eventually a product of cognitive development. Ideas and notions are preconceived through the interaction of cognition and experience before language gives it an expressive form. Based on such a theory literacy practises would have to make amendments to allow language to follow experience. In order to support language and literacy development teachers have to provide students with the necessary situations and opportunities for self discovery. The process approach in writing is one approach that proximates Piagets's theory of allowing students to develop their abilities on their own in stages. In reading comprehension teachers have to consider the importance of schemata activation as well as the accommodation and assimilation of new knowledge into existing schemas. The concept of assimilation and accommodation is derived from Piaget's metatheory. Assimilation and accommodation are the dual implements of adaptation working towards a goal of achieving equilibrium.

Social Interactionist Theory

The social interactionist theory was inspired by the works of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky(1896-1934). Unlike Piaget, Vygotsky as a psychologist was more involved with the study of language and social interactions. His principles had direct relations to the advancement and progress of literacy. Vygotsky believed that the prerequisites for language development is the interaction between physical, linguistic and social factors.(Cox, 1999:52) Children who during their formative years are exposed to a rich linguistic environment are able to pick up language faster than those who grow up in a language deficient environment. This argument holds water when viewed in light of the Malaysian ESL context where rural students exposure to English is limited to the classroom. The limited exposure and lack of interaction in the language is a major stumbling block. The recent announcement by the Minister of Education that English would be used during physical education and living skills lessons is indeed laudable. However the feasibility of enforcing such a regulation is yet to be seen. A more feasible and realistic alternative would be to increase lesson time and encourage teaches to use interactive techniques such as role play and drama in lessons. Based on the Vygotskien principle the onus is on adults; parents and educationist to provide a stimulating environment for the language development of the child. Another important construct proposed by Vygotsky is the Zone of Proximal Development which Eggan & Kauchak define as a range of tasks that a child cannot yet do alone but can accomplish when assisted by a more skilled partner.(1999:49) Translated into methodology, the first step the teacher has to take is asses the child's ability in relation to the task at hand. The second step would be to guide the child through the reading or writing task by applying step by step processes such as the scaffolding technique. Examples of scaffolding provided by Eggan & Kauchak are modelling, think aloud, questions, adapting instructional materials and finally prompts and cues.(1999:52)

Intelligence and Cognition

Eggen & Kauchak define intelligence as a three dimensional construct:
a) the capacity to acquire knowledge
b) the ability to think and reason in the abstract
c) the capacity to solve problems(1996:103)
They further illustrate that the capacity to acquire knowledge has also been called aptitude. A person with a higher aptitude would need less time and quality of instruction to master a subject than a person with a lower level of aptitude. In language acquisition research it is common to hear of the term language aptitude. There is a likelihood that a person with a higher language aptitude may need less time and instruction to master a language. Research on human intelligence has shown that intelligence is not a narrow conception confined to traditional academic subjects. Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligence "describes eight major and relatively independent dimensions of intelligence and makes a persuasive argument for the idea of multiple talents." (Eggen & Kauchak, 1996:104) Gardner's theory has a big impact on the teaching and learning of language and literacy skills. It calls for a consideration of multiple approaches in classroom techniques of teaching reading and writing as students from different backgrounds have relatively different learning modes and capacities. In terms of mass education and scarce resources the notion of pandering to the individual needs of students intelligence may seem rather idealistic and far fetched but it is a move in the right direction in view of child entered teaching methods. Simple techniques such as drama, mime, art and music in the language and literacy class can be implemented.

    Robert J. Sternberg proposed a contextualist view of intelligence. His idea of intelligence consist of "purposive selection and shaping of and adaptation to real-world environments relevant to one's life"(1984). Based on his contextualist view Sternberg (1985:62) proposed a triachic model of intelligence composed of processing components, contextual components and experiential components. The Processing component consist of a knowledge acquisition component, a performance component and a metacomponent. In writing an essay for example all three components come together in identifying a title, researching for ideas and doing the actual writing. Contextual components operate for example when a student adjust reading strategies in relation to understanding a text. Experiential components work to apply and modify existing knowledge in problem solving situations.

    Weschler on the other hand defines intelligence as "the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally and to deal effectively with his environment." (Haris & Sipay, 1980:262) One cannot deny that acting purposefully, thinking rationally and dealing effectively with one's environment calls for a great deal of mental capacity. Hence intelligence can also be defined in terms of mental capacity. A simple decision making process such as deciding whether to use a pen or a pencil involves assessing the situational needs and recalling prior knowledge and experience before making a decision. All this may happen in a split second without much conscious evaluation of the process on the part of the person. The process of thinking and attainment of rational conclusions about matters at hand involve different levels of thought processes. This leads researchers to the idea of cognition.

    In psychological terms Jahnke & Nowaczyk explain cognition as "understanding the contents and working of the mind and in determining their relation to behaviour."(1998:1) In order to understand the conception known as cognition one has to firstly understand the workings of the mind in encoding and recalling information. Thought process is made up of memory banks such as Long term Memory, Short Term memory, Working Memory and Sensory Memory. The following diagram illustrates this concept:

Information stores such as sensory memory, working memory and long term memory work like filing cabinets, computer files or address books where people store information. Cognitive processes are intellectual processes such as attention, perception, rehearsal, encoding and retrieval which move information from one store to another. A third component is metacognition which is defined as "knowing about and having control over cognitive processes."(Eggan & Kauchak, 1999:244) Applied to the reading comprehension situation for example, the metacognitive construct would hold the pattern of reading skills and strategies. Cognitive processes inherent during reading would involve the invoking of schemata, linguistic knowledge and discourse patterns kept in the memory stores. Other intellectual processes that act in tandem would be the application of attention, perception, rehearsal, encoding and retrieval. The entire complex intellectual process of reading for comprehension may be monitored by conscious metacognitive thought processes in the implementational form of reading strategies and skills.

    Advancements in cognitive science and research in areas of literacy has provided teachers and learners with several modals and approaches to teaching and learning literacy skills. In the area of oral reading two early modals proposed are Gough's Model and Goodman's Model. Gough's model compares oral reading to listening. The pronunciation or sounding of printed matter is equivated with the capacity to listen in listening comprehension. The weakness of the model lies in the fact that it overlooks situations where children may be able to pronounce words and read fluently but are not comprehending what is read.

    Goodman's Modal formulated by Kenneth S. Goodman defines reading as a "process in which a reader uses syntactic, semantic and graphophonic systems to reconstruct printed words into their oral equivalents to which meaning can be associated."(Singer & Donlan, 1988:75) Goodman is also credited with the statement describing reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game. Efficient processing of information on the part of the reader does depend in part on the readers functional knowledge of the grammar of the language. The teaching and learning of reading and literacy skills starts with the understanding of the syntactic, semantic and graphophonic elements or the grammar of the language. However once the reader has mastered and internalised the grammar of the language, there is a possibility that reading comprehension may bypass the stage of oral reconstruction and go straight to the meaning. This is the limitation of the Goodman Modal. The inadequacies of Oral reading modals lead to research in silent reading approaches. Among the theoretical catalyst for silent reading was Thorndike's definition of reading as reasoning(Singer & Donlan, 1988:80)The objectives of silent reading vary from oral reading in the sense that in silent reading the aim of the reader is decoding the message inherent in the text whereas in oral reading clarity, fluency and intonation are important for the audience to understand the text.

    Research in cognitive psychology and intelligence has divided language capacity and verbal ability into two separate skills: verbal fluency and verbal comprehension.(Sternberg, 1985:66) Verbal fluency refers to a persons ability to produce strings of words fluently. Sternberg explains Verbal comprehension as the capacity to understand linguistic material either in print or oral form. In line with the information processing model, three major approaches had been proposed in understanding the nature of verbal comprehension:

a) The Knowledge Based Approach

    The amount of knowledge and information a person has about a thing, matter or occasion kept in memory stores is termed as background knowledge. Background knowledge or otherwise known as prior knowledge (Reed, 1996: 326) is stored as structures of schemas or scripts. Scripts are further defined as "an organised plan of action of a particular situation."(Eggan & Kauchak, 1996:250) According to the schema theory every new input of knowledge must be mapped against existing structures of knowledge in order for comprehension and understanding to be effective. (Carell & Eisterhold, 1987:220) According to Slavin (1994:216) "one of the most important determinants of how much you can learn about something is how much you already know about it." Slavin's statement is akin to Krashens i + 1, Input Hypothesis (Krashen,1985:2) which states that language learning and teaching must take into account the students previous knowledge and thereon language ought to be taught in incremental stages. Understanding of background knowledge has important implications to the teaching of literacy skills. Apart from considerations of Krashens Input Hypothesis, selection of material in literacy education has to consider the students background knowledge on the subject matter . For example, in a hypothetical situation, one can say that Ahmad a low proficiency student living in a village in Malaysia would be able to read and comprehend a passage on "Hari Raya" and "lemang" rather than a passage on Christmas, snow and Santa Claus. The same considerations apply in the teaching of listening, speaking and writing skills. Background knowledge may help in the low proficiency and beginning readers and writers classroom. However at a later or advanced stage, material selection should not be stifled or hindered by such content paradigms, because lack of exposure may actually impede the overall intellectual growth of the child. For example the introduction of snow and Santa Claus in a rural Malaysian school may actually lead to some interesting discussions and the process of learning is brought a step further. Schema theory and background knowledge may be instrumental in explaining the rudiments of comprehension but we cannot forget that making things easier for the child does not mean that learning is taking place. Research has shown that learning also occurs when the child is motivated and intellectually challenged. A more cogent argument against the schema theory was presented by Peters et.al(1988). They say that computationally fixed mental structures such as scripts are too inflexible to serve the purposes for which they were originally designed. Peters et. al quote Barsalou(1987) who says that "the variables active for a schema vary across contexts in which a schema is used."(1988:126)This means that people have different schemas based on different context situations and different people may have different schemas for the same context situation.

b) The Bottom-Up Approach

    The bottom-up approach is employed when the reader finds it difficult to understand the text. The difficulty may be due to a single word, sentence, paragraph or even the whole text. The reader may not understand the vocabulary or is not familiar with the content. In other words the reader does not have the prior knowledge, background knowledge or the relevant schemata to understand the text. In such a situation the reader may employ a word by word or sentence by sentence scrutiny of the text in order to derive meaning. The bottom-up approach is usually termed as a data driven approach.

c) Top-Down Approach

    The top-down approach is described as a conceptually driven approach. Based on this approach the reader takes on a cognitive, information processing mode of deriving information from the text. The reader draws upon his intelligence and experience as well as predictions that he can make based on the schemata that he has acquired to understand the text. (Nuttall, 1996:16) The reader takes a position of scrutinizing the text from the outside in. He looks for overall meaning by applying his own knowledge and predictions. This model has similarities to Goodman's model of reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game, as in both approaches the reader surfs through the text looking for meaning by predicting and being selective in using linguistic cues.
Both processes are subconscious processes but a good reader may employ both processes consciously in comprehending meaning and sense. The readers focus can shift from a top-down to a bottom-up approach in relation to the difficulty of the text. This has become known as interactive reading. Both approaches can be mobilized by conscious choice and both are important strategies for readers. (Nuttall, 1996:17)

Conclusion

    Literacy and education are constantly evolving subjects. Research and studies done in the area of intelligence and cognition have provided Literacy practitioners; mainly teachers, curriculum planners and language policy makers with an array of theories and principles. Classroom applications in the process of teaching and learning have been enriched with the creation of various methodology and techniques in teaching and learning literacy skills. Teachers today are able to better understand the developmental aspects of their students in terms of cognition and intelligence. Literacy practices today place emphasis on the learners and how they organise their knowledge. Instead of repetition and drills learners are taught how to analyse problems and how to think for themselves. Language is viewed as an active process in which learners are required to apply different rules to different situations in deriving meaning from text and engaging in encoding meaning in writing themselves. During this process learners may commit errors. Nevertheless errors are a sign of learning and experimentation. Based on the research done in cognition and intelligence, literacy practises acknowledge that classroom practise should be learner centred and focus on discovery learning via inductive as well as deductive approaches. Reading, writing, listening and speaking skills and strategies are taught explicitly because of the believe that students would be able to make use of them by way of metacognition. The knowledge of ones conscious thought processes or metacognition is itself a product of research on cognition and information processing models. In fact the many new approaches to language learning such as Communicative Language Teaching, Total Physical Response, The Silent Way, Community Language Learning, Collaborative Learning, The Natural Approach and Suggestopedia, to name a few, draw their strength from the outcome of research done on cognition and intelligence.

References

Carell, Patricia L. & Joan C. Eisterhold.. 1987 Schema Theory and ESL Reading Pedagogy Methodology in (Eds.) Michael H. Long & Jack C. Richards TESOL: A Book of Readings.  Boston: Heile & Heinle

Cox, Carole. 1996. Teaching Language Arts. USA: Allyn & Bacon

Eggen, Paul & Don Kauchak. 1999 Educational Psychology. New Jersey:
Prentice Hall.

Harris, Albert J. & Edward A. Sipay. 1980. How to Increase Reading Ability.
New York: Longman.

Hassan, Azmi. Access to ICT Key in Bridging Digital Divide. NST. 20 11.00

Krashan, S. D. 1985. The Input Hypothesis: Issues and implications.
London: Longman

Morrow, Lesley Mandel.1993. Literacy Development in the Early Years.
Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Mukundan, Jayakaran et.al. 1998 Class Readers:Theory & Practice. Pataling
Jaya: Longman Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.

Nuttall, Christine. 1996. Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language.
Oxford: Heinemann

Pandian, Ambigapathy. Ed. 1999. Global Literacy:Vision Revisions and
Vistas in Education. Serdang: Universiti Putra Malaysia Press.

Peters, Sandra L. et. al. 1988 "Flexible Natural Language Processing and
Roschian Category Theory." Tenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive
Science Society, August 17-19 Canada:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Reed, Stephen K. 1996 Cognition. USA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.

Singer, Harry & Don Donlan. 1988. Reading and Learning from Text.
New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Slavin, Robert E. 1994. Educational Psychology: Theory & Practice.
Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

Sternberg, Robert J. 1985 Cognitive Aproaches to Intelligence  Handbook
of Intelligence. Ed. Benjamin B. Wolman. Wiley Interscience
Publication: New York

Sternberg, Robert J. 1991 A Contextualist View of The Nature of Intelligence
Changing Conceptions of Intelligence and Intellectual Functioning: Current
Theory and Research.  Ed. Prem S. Fry. Amsterdam: Elsevier Pub.