Table Of ContentADVANCES
IN
PSYCHOLOGY
49
Editors:
G. I{. STliI.MAC'I 1
P. A. VROON
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
ANDREADING
INTHE U.S.S.R.
Edited by
JohnA. DOWNING t
University of Victoria
Canada
1988
NORTH-HOLLAND
AMSTERDAM. NEW YORK . OXFORD .TOKYO
@ELSEVIERS CIENCE PUBLISHERS B.V., 1988
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LIBRARY a CONORESS
Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data
Cognitive psychology and reading in the U.S.S.R. / edited by John A.
Downing ; tran-s-la tions by Isabel Heanan.
p. cm. (Advances in psychology ; 49)
Bibliography: p.
Includes indexes.
ISBN 0-444-70374-8
1. Reading (Elementary)--Soviet Union. 2. Reading, Psychology of.
3. Cognitive psychology--Soviet Unlon. I. Downing. John A.
11. Series. 111. Series: Advances in psychology (Amsterdam.
Netherlands) : 49.
LB1575.5.SB5C64 1988
372.4'0947--dC19 87-36495
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V
PREFACE
In 1969 I began a comparative study of the psychology of reading in fourteen
countries, which was eventually published by the Macmillan Company of New York
in 1973. In each country, an acknowledged leader in the reading field wrote a
report on reading developments in that particular country. My task was to analyze
the resulting reports for similarities and differences and to offer hypotheses as to
their causes.
When I planned that first comparative reading project, it went without saying
that the USSR had to be one of the fourteen countries to be included in the com-
parisons of children’s experiences in learning to read in different cultures and lan-
guages. Professor D.B. Elkonin was the obvious choice for the Russian member of
our team, since he was the leading researcher on reading in the USSR. Fortunately,
Elkonin accepted the invitation to participate. His contribution turned out to be
especially rewarding because it was remarkably different from all the other reports.
The window Elkonin opened on the Soviet reading scene was very thought-provok-
ing because an avenue of research was being followed in his country that appeared
to be strikingly different from the focus of investigation in other countries at that
time. Elkonin and other Russian psychologists seemed to be placing much greater
emphasis on children’s cognitive processes in leaining to read. Furthermore, some
quite unusual methods of teaching were being used in experimental classes -
methods designed to help children to comprehend the tasks of literacy acquisition.
Elkonin’s report prompted the question - how had he arrived at this unusual
position in his research? This question led, in turn, to the realization that in the
English-speaking world very little was known of the Russian reading research litera-
ture. This reflection led me in January 1976 to go on a visit to Moscow to see
Elkonin’s experimental classes for myself and to probe the possibility of publishing
more information about reading in the USSR. My visits to the experimental classes
showed me that Elkonin’s report in Comparative Reading was a quite modest ac-
count of the research work in Moscow.
During my visit to Moscow I suggested to Elkonin that we should try to give
reading specialists in other countries a more comprehensive picture of how Soviet
reading research had developed to its present position. He agreed. A few days later
he produced a list of publications that he considered to be landmarks in the history
of reading research and theory in the USSR. His list was a catholic one, including
writings by Soviet authors whose theoretical positions differed from his own. Later
vi Reface
the list was expanded as we made a thorough search of the Russian literature on
reading.
The work of translation, editing and related administrative acitivities has taken
more than ten years. In my second visit to Moscow and in quite frequent corres-
pondence over this period. Elkonin has been consistently helpful and encouraging.
This book would have been impossible without his assistance.
Daniil Borisovich Elkonin was born in 1904. He obtained his doctorate in
psychology and he was Vygotsky’s last surviving student at the time of writing this
preface. Elkonin became a member-correspondent of the Academy of Pedagogical
Sciences as one of the leading specialists on child pscyhology and educational psy-
chology in the USSR. He was the head of the Laboratory of the Institute of
General and Educational Psychology in the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences and
Professor of Developmental Psychology in the Faculty of Psychology at Moscow
State University. Elkonin has published well over one hundred works, among them
the following fundamental monographs: The Development of Speech at the he-
school Stage (1958); Child PsychoZogy (1960); Age Potentials in Acquiring Know-
ledge (edited jointly with V.V. Davydov, 1966); The Psychology of Phy (1978).
Since 1956, Elkonin has been studying the psychological principlesof the initial
teaching of reading. He is the creator of an original method of teaching reading on
the basis of developing children’s phonematic hearing and “the positional principle”
of reading. He is the author of an experimental reading primer which has been pub-
lished in two editions (1961 and 1969-1972). Elkonin’s research on the psychology
of teaching reading has been published in a number of articles which are summarized
in Chapter 22 of this present book.
In this volume, the original work of our Soviet colleagues is presented to the
best of our ability in translation into English. The aim throughout has been to pro-
vide readers with the truest possible expression of these Russian authors’ original
ideas. My own introductory and closing chapters are intended to provide readers
with objective background information that may bring them closer to these Russian
points of view and to suggest where Soviet and Western academic and professional
positions seem to agree or differ.
In recent times, it has been increasingly recognized that psychology and edu-
cation are weakened by lack of communication across languages (e.g., Baldauf,
1986; Russell, 1984; Solso, 1985). I hope that this book may help to fill the gap
in non-Russian scholars’ knowledge of Soviet scientists’ and educators’ contributions
to the psychology of literacy acquisition.
JOHN DOWNING
University of Victoria, Canada, 1987
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
John Downing
The editor and compiler of this volume wishes to express his appreciation and
thanks to Professor Daniil Borisovich Elkonin of the Academy of Pedagogical
Sciences, USSR for his valuable assistance in producing this collection of the major
works of Russian authors on the subject of learning to read. Professor Elkonin gave
advice on the project at the outset. He helped in its planning. He assisted in the
selection of suitable Russian publications and in locating copies. He also smoothed
the path in obtaining the necessary permissions. He introduced me to Lydia
Kirillovna Nazarova and I wish to thank her for writing chapter 3 specially for this
book. I am very grateful to Professor SoQa Nikolaevna Karpova for the help which
she gave in practical advice on the production and publication of this book. Thanks
are due also to Professor Wayne H. Holtzman and Professor Roger Russell for their
advice in the search for an appropriate publisher for this work.
Dr. John McLeish, Dr. Nicholas V. Galichenko, Dr. Che Kan Leong, Dr. John
Esling, and Ms. Kazimiera Stypka reviewed first drafts of certain chapters in this
book and I have gratefully used their advice.
Thanks are due also to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
for two kinds of assistance: (1) including the editor and compiler in the Canada-
USSR Exchange Program, which enabled him to make his first visit to Professor
Elkonin in Moscow in 1976; (2) making a grant to provide funding for this work in
producing what is in effect a “research instrument”. I wish to thank also LUane
Morgan and Darlene Li for their careful work in preparing the manuscript for this
book. To my wife, Marianne Downing, I owe much for her patience over the ten
years it took to produce the manuscript for this book and especially for her impor-
tant help with the dreary task of proofreading.
I wish also to extend my sincere gratitude to those authors and publishers who
have granted me permission to quote from their works:
Nigel Grant, Soviet Education. London: Penguin
Books Ltd. (Pelican Books, 1964, second edition
1968, third edition 1972, fourth edition 1979),
copyright 0 Nigel Grant 1964,1969,1972,1979.
John McLeish, Soviet Psychology: History, Theory,
Content. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Marianne Downing
I should like to thank my son Charles S. Downing, and Brenda & Alan Barker
for their assistance which helped me to complete this - my husband’s last book.
JOHN ALLEN DOWNING
Ph.D., D.Lit., F.A.P.A., F.C.P.A., F.B.Ps.S., F.R.S.A.
On June 2, 1987, John Allen Downing succumbed to cancer and passed away
in England at the age of 65. During his several months’ struggle with his illness, his
thoughts were still very much with this book Cognitive Psychologv and Reading in
the U.S.S.R., which had just gone to press after some ten years’ research. He had
retired a year before as Professor of Psychological Foundations in Education at the
University of Victoria in Canada and was a visiting professor at the Universite de
Toulouse-le-Mirail in Toulouse, France. It was his fond hope that “retirement”
from Victoria would give him more time for reflection and writing. Sadly, this was
not to be. As colleagues and friends, w nourn his passing deeply. We shall not see
his like again. As much as any onLp erson can be so credited, he was a pioneer after
William Gray in the study of comparative reading as a sub-field within the psychol-
ogy of reading.
It was within this context that I first met John Downing in 1970 in connection
with his book Comparative Reading (1973). It is from the same vantage point, and
with deep affection and thoughts of ennoblement, that I am privileged to write this
short note. The other achievements of John Downing are documented elsewhere.
Even though I have not read this manuscript, my collaboration over the years
with John Downing in several projects and particularly our joint book Psychologv
of Reading (1982) gives me considerable insight into his thinking and work. On a
number of occasions we discussed the Soviet contribution to reading psychology:
Vygotsky’s concept of language and thought and mind in society, Luria’s “glass
theory” of language, Elkonin’s formulation of language access in reading, the work
of Ushinsky, Redozubov, Egorov and others on reading education and pedagogy.
As always, I was awed and elucidated by John Downing’s discourse within the
broader framework of literacy.
One of John Downing’s concerns was with children’s acquisition of literacy.
This led to his cognitive clarity theory and his writings on language awareness and
learning to read. His other long-standing research interest in reading behavior in
different countries using different orthographies was pursued with equal vigor and
rigor. He did these works both by precept and example. He had joint projects with
researchers in different countries; he gave lectures, workshops or led study groups
in America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe and the U.S.S.R. In the
latter, he spent some time working with Daniel Borisovich Elkonin. His mastery of
several languages (French, German and Spanish, in addition to Enghsh) was an asset
x J.A. Downing
in his comparative reading research and he was ably assisted by his wife Marianne
and their family members. In a symposium in Panama City in 1971 his delivery of
his paper in Spanish won him a standing ovation and long applause from the parti-
cipants. He subsequently disclosed that he had been going to extension classes to
brush up his Spanish for the occasion!
This resolve to get the job well done says much of John Downing the teacher,
the scholar, and the researcher. It was with the same resolute spirit that he, with
Marianne as research associate, made two extensive field trips in 1982 and 1985 to
Papua New Guinea (PNG) to test his cognitive clarity theory of literacy acquisition
in unschooled and schooled PNG children. The Downing and Downing reports pro-
vide insght into “bootstrap literacy” in preliterate societies. For all his work from
English to the present volume with the Cyrillic orthography, it is fitting that John
Downing was awarded the International Citation of Merit by the International
Reading Association in 1984.
One could go on to eulogize John Downing’s other qualities as a dedicated
teacher, insightful scholar and researcher, thoughtful colleague and friend, and
loving family man. In missing him, we do well to remember that:
“His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix‘d in him that nature might stand up
And say to all the world, ‘This was a man’!
”
- Julius Caesar, Act V, Scene 5
CHE KAN LEONG, Professor
Department for the Education
of Exceptional Children
University of Saksatchewan
Saskatoon, Canada
August, 1987
Cognitive Psychology and Reading in the U.S.S.R.
J.A. Downing (Editor)
@ Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland), 1988 I
Chapter 1
COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY OF READING IN THE U.S.S.R.
JOHN DOWNING
Comparative reading is a fairly new area of study (Downing, 1973;
Malmquist, 1982). Its chief scholarly aim is to winnow out the
universal psychological characteristics of the acquisition of reading
and writing skills from the plethora of surface differences in languages,
orthographies and school systems. A second aim pursued by some scholars
in education is to expand the treasury of teaching methods available in
all societies and languages and a third aim of comparative reading
studies is to compile a natural history of how people read and learn to
read in different languages and cultures. The first of these aims is
best fulfilled by making direct comparisons across cultures and
languages. In this present book, readers may attempt to compare the
Russian situation with their own, for example, and in this first chapter
attention will be drawn to some of the differences and similarities
between reading in the USSR and reading in some other countries. The
second aim mentioned above also will be pursued because, as will become
apparent in the chapters that follow, Soviet educators, linguists, and
psychologists have made some rather unique advances in knowledge about
methods of reading instruction which might be used to good effect in
other countries. The third aim of comparative reading is readily
accomplished in this book since it supplies representative samples of
Soviet thought on the psychology and pedagogy of reading.
WESTERN MISCONCEPTIONS OF SOVIET EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY
Very few Russian publications on reading studies have been repub-
lished in English translation. This is unfortunate because many
interesting articles and books on reading have been written by Soviet
scientists and educational thinkers in the disciplines of education,
linguistics, and psychology. They have a distinctive flavor and take
some quite different theoretical and practical directions from those
that have been popular elsewhere in the world.
An even more unfortunate result of the language barrier between
Russian and English, for example, has been the misrepresentation of
Soviet education and psychology by many English-speaking authors. This
has occurred, not only in such contentious writings as Rickover's (1978)
What Ivan Knows that Johnny Doesn't, but also in texts by acknowledged
authorities in psychology. In both cases, the tendency has been to
cite selected texts or observations from Russia that support American
educational or psychological notions, for example.
These errors have been documented by McLeish (1975). It was
Sechenov, who in 1863 laid the natural-scientific foundation for
Russian psychology, later to be elaborated by Pavlov. McLeish writes
