Linking Written Language to Cognitive Development: Reading, Writing, and Concrete Operations

Abstract

This study investigated Piagetian measures of concrete operations in relation to specific school-type tasks in an attempt to link cognitive development and school learning. We predicted that the ability to sequence (seriation) would make a unique contributiont o gradef ive childrens’ comprehensiono f a narrativec ompositiont hey read and to the organization of a narrative they wrote. We also predicted that the ability to classify would make a unique contribution to childrens’ comprehension of a comparative exposition and to the organization of their own written comparisons. Two group sessions were conducted to collect narrative and comparative compositions from 65 children. Results indicated that seriation ability was especially relevant to the organization of temporal and causal relationships in their reading and writing of narratives and that classification ability was especially relevant to the organization of similarities and differences in their reading and writing of comparisons. However, analysis also suggested that development of the theoretically relevant cognitive abilities is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for high levels of performance in reading and writing. Moreover, relatively low correlations between reading and writing within the two genres studied suggested support for the view that reading and writing represent somewhat different sets of skills and that there are still other important skills specific to reading or writing.