Luria's work with preliterate peasants before and after literacy had been acquired led him to conclude that literacy actualized a kind of abstract thought that was entirely absent prior to literacy.
This work was not published by the Soviets for over 40 years because it was deemed insulting to peasants (a Marxist taboo). But his empirical results stand for themselves.
While, obviously, literacy isn't the be all and end all - preliterate societies invented wheels, agriculture and metallurgy literacy does appear to allow abstract concepts like 'tool', 'circle', 'rectangle' to emerge in a subject's consciousness.
Given all the above, I find the it illogical that educators effectively insist on making early readers 'wait in the lobby' until the majority of kids their age are reading instead of letting them proceed on with their educations once abstract concepts are more readily synthesized.
Last edited by madeinuk; 09/06/14 02:33 AM.
