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Abstract
Currently, definitions of ‘science’, ‘reading’, and ‘literacy’ in the US lend a seemingly non‐relativistic permanence to these terms, and render them resistant to critique. This paper offers a theoretical frame for critiquing this permanence, analysing why early‐literacy instruction is tightly tied to traditional forms of print literacy, focusing primarily on phonics and word‐recognition, in an age when new technologies, multi‐modal texts, and new literacies flourish. The theoretical framework uses Foucault’s notions of technologies of production, of sign systems, of power, and of the self. Four specific examples of early‐literacy programming are analysed in terms of Foucault’s technologies, producing an outline of reasoning about ‘best practices’ in early‐literacy instruction in the US. These ways of reasoning are investigated as relative, impermanent, and possibly open to change.
Notes
1. While Foucault (Citation1988b; see also Citation1988a: 146, Citation1990b: 11) switches between using the term ‘techniques’ and ‘technologies’ in his essay ‘Technologies of the self’, I use the term ‘technologies’ to explicate how ways of understanding literacy instruction extend beyond a handful of ‘techniques’ within literacy pedagogy. ‘Technologies’ suggests a manner of training and a sense of power, which helps to explain the seemingly non‐relativistic permanence that basic print literacy holds over other forms of literacies or other ways of making meaning. Foucault (Citation1988b: 18) echoes this sentiment by indicating that the four major types of technologies are each ‘associated with a certain type of domination. Each implies certain modes of training and modification of individuals, not only in the obvious sense of acquiring certain skills, but also in the sense of acquiring certain attitudes’. In other words, the technologies that maintain a dominant form of systematic reasoning about appropriate practice also inform our general senses and personal attitudes about what good literacy instruction ‘is’.
2. It is important to note that the pedagogical practices I have chosen as examples are not the only ones that demonstrate current reasoning in early‐literacy programming; certainly there are others. For example, Clay’s Concepts about Print task demonstrates a line of reasoning that attaches ‘natural’ and ‘appropriate’ learning to the full writing system of alphabetic English, but a very different pedagogical approach, such as ‘Direct Instruction’ (e.g. Engelmann Citation1980, Engelmann and Bruner Citation1988) would demonstrate the same thing. The debates in the US about how reading and writing should be taught are many, but the things to note are the similarities in the overall structure of reasoning. These similarities outline the contemporary state of reasoning, and thus indicate how other ways of thinking, or other forms of literacies, are precluded.
3. See US Department of Education (Citation2002a) Final Guidance for the Reading First Program.
4. Compare this to, e.g. the upside‐down dedication page in The Stinky Cheeseman, which is printed correctly for its purpose and meaning, or the graphics in Meanwhile, where the image of mom yelling (megaphone‐style) carries the message.
5. The booklets that have been used as a part of Concepts About Print (C.A.P.) for nearly 30 years are entitled Sand (Clay Citation1972) and Stones (Clay Citation1979), but Clay has more recently published two more: No Shoes (Clay Citation2000c) and Follow Me, Moon (Clay Citation2000b). The same concepts about print assessed earlier are also assessed in the newer booklets: the only difference between the old and the new is that the new booklets are in colour. However, the technologies of sign systems of seen as important for assessment are unchanged.
