Developing Children

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• Developing Childrens Communicative Literacy
• Through Co-Inquiry Projects
• Shareen Abramson, Ph.D

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Inquiry actively engages the mind in interpreting
experience, constructing ideas and tackling
problems. Interchange with others or co-inquiry
assists the search for meaning.
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Interchange

• Interchange is the natural process of
  meaning-making used by human-beings to understand
  themselves, the world, their culture and others
  around them. Interchange is an ongoing dialogue
  that begins at the moment of birth and continues
  across the life-span.
• Interchange is a better term for childrens play
  because it conveys the purposeful nature of this
  activity in supporting intellectual development.

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Interchange is participatory.
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The environment, materials and tools facilitate
interchange.
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Materials such as recyclables, found objects,
natural materials, paints, markers, wire, clay,
paper, fabric and other treasures offer endless
possibilities for interchange and invention.
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Adults assist childrens interchange.
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Communicative Literacy

• While interchange is an inherent capacity that
  represents the enormous learning potential of
  every person, communicative literacy, the ability
  to use standard symbols with culturally agreed-on
  meanings, must be acquired. The challenge of
  education is to teach children having diverse
  backgrounds to communicate in these symbolic
  languages.

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COMMUNICATIVE LITERACY THE STANDARD FOR
INTERCHANGE
Communicative Literacy in Many Languages Drama
and Music
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Communicative Literacy in Many Languages Reading
and Mathematics
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Communicative Literacy in Many Languages Culinary
Arts and Oral Language
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Communicative Literacy in Many Languages Visual
Arts and Dancing
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Communicative Literacy in Many Languages Architec
ture and Writing
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Communicative Literacy in Many Languages Sports
and History
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Communicative literacy in Many Languages Animal
and Environmental Sciences
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Families play a critical role in developing
communicative literacy.
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What is the Co-Inquiry Meeting?

• Co-inquiry meetings are an easily implemented,
  low-cost adult education strategy to encourage
  professional interchange and curriculum design.
• Co-inquiry uses documentation and technology as a
  research tool for understanding childrens
  learning and promoting communicative literacy.
• Co-inquiry meetings encourage positive working
  relationships and sharing resources among
  teachers.

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Documentation

• A participant begins the
• co-inquiry by presenting documentation.
• The presentation should consider a problem, an
  observation or a situation of interest.

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Communication

• Each participant takes a turn to describe an
  aspect of the experience that was interesting,
  important or provocative.
• Each participant takes a turn to ask a question
  (not always answered and may require additional
  reading or classroom research).

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Action

• Participants move to dialogue and brainstorming
  on how the experience could be developed.
• The teachers create a plan of possibility for the
  coming week.
• Documentation of new experiences becomes the
  basis for future inquiry.

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New Directions for Co-Inquiry

• Multimedia technology for education such as
  video, podcasts, blogs, interactive e-books and
  other virtual modalities offer expansive, new
  possibilities for direct and remote classroom
  instruction at all levels, teacher training,
  professional programs and interchange with
  parents.

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The CO-INQUIRY JOURNAL (www.coinquiry.org) is a
prototype for growing a virtual network for
interactive instruction using multi-media
resources to advance education and literacy.
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VISIT WWW.COINQUIRY.ORG