“Let me show you what I’m thinking”:
The social function of private speech for young children:
A classroom tapestry
By
Dawn Rouse
Department of Integrated Studies in Education
McGill University, Montreal
April 2012
A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
©2012 Dawn Rouse
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Abstract
This dissertation explores the socio-cultural implications of content and
context in Vygotsky’s theory of the private speech of young children (Vygotsky,
1934/1986). While private speech has long been thought to contain a snapshot of the
child in cognitive transition, the content and context of the private speech has rarely
been investigated. It is within the context of a larger social group that a child produces
the utterances defined as private speech and as such the context and content of the
utterances must be evaluated in order to obtain a comprehensive picture of the child as
an active co-creator of culture in a social group.
This ethnographic inquiry tells the story of one early childhood classroom,
nested within a specific cultural context, as the children explore their surroundings
through conversations with adults and peers. Children engage in the “leading work of
childhood” through dramatic play, drawing, block building and music (Vygotsky,
1934/1986). The spontaneous utterances of private speech occurred within and
between the flow of these daily activities.
Through the use of naturalistic observations, field notes, audio recordings,
photographs and research journal, five vignettes were created of the private speech of
individual children. These vignettes highlight the social nature of private speech by
interjecting the content and context of the utterances through the lens of the
heteroglossia of social life in the classroom (Bakhtin, 1986). This inquiry suggests
that the question of the developmental role of private speech may well move from
“Are the children engaging in “private speech?” to the more socially situated question
of “To what are children referring in the content of their “private speech?” Results
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suggest that children are not only actively listening to the private speech of their peers,
but are also producing it as social knowledge for the benefit of their peers
This inquiry adds to a larger body of research on Vygotsky’s theory of private
speech and sociocultural learning through the refocus of private speech as socially
deployed “verbal mortar” between children rather than merely a tool for selfregulation used by individuals. The implications of this rather modest change of
perspective may require teachers and researchers to consider the social life of the
group, including the content of any private speech, as an integral part of a classroom
curriculum, rather than a happenstance of proximity. Results also highlight the rich
social life of a classroom and the important interpersonal relationships developed
between a group of preschool peers.
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Abstract
Cette dissertation explore les implications socio-culturelles du contenu et du
contexte de la théorie de Vygotsky sur le "langage égocentrique" des jeunes enfants.
Alors qu'on a longtemps pensé que le "langage égocentrique" était un cliché
instantanné de l'enfant en transition cognitive, le contenu et le contexte du "langage
égocentrique" a rarement été investigué. C'est dans le contexte d'un groupe social plus
étendu que l'enfant produit les expressions définies comme étant le "langage
égocentrique" et, en tant que tel, le contexte et le contenu de ces expressions
doivent être évaluées de façon à acquérir une vision adéquate de l'enfant en tant que
co-créateur actif de la culture d'un groupe social.
Cette enquête ethnographique raconte l'histoire d'une salle de classe dans une
école, issue d'un contexte culturel spécifique, tandis que les enfants explorent leur
environnement à travers des conversations avec des adultes et des semblables. Des
enfants impliqués dans "le travail constructif de l'enfance" par le biais du jeu théâtral,
du dessin, des jeux de construction et de la musique (Vygotsky, 1934/1986). Les
expressions spontanées du "langage égocentrique" se sont produites à l'intérieur, et
entre, le flot de ces activités.
À travers l'utilisation de notes prises sur le terrain, d'enregistrements audio, de
photographies et d'un cahier de notes de recherche, cinq vignettes ont été créées sur le
langage égocentrique d'enfants individuels. Ces vignettes font ressortir la nature
sociale du "langage égocentrique" en cernant le contenu et le contexte des expressions
à travers la lentille du flot continu de la vie sociale dans la salle de classe. Cette
enquête suggère que la question de la raison d'être du "langage égocentrique", par
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rapport à un but de développement, ne devrait pas être "Est-ce que les enfants utilisent
le "langage égocentrique"?", mais plutôt "À quoi les enfants font-ils référence dans le
contenu de leur "langage égocentrique"?" Les résultats suggèrent que les enfants ne
font pas qu'écouter de façon active le "langage égocentrique" de leurs semblables,
mais qu'ils l'expriment aussi au profit de leurs semblables.
Cette enquête s'ajoute à une quantité de recherches sur la théorie de Vygotsky
à propos du "langage égocentrique", et de l'apprentissage socio-culturel, à travers une
réévaluation du "langage égocentrique" en tant que ciment entre les enfants, plutôt
qu'un outil d'auto-régulation utilisé par les individus. Les implications de ce
changement de perspective relativement modeste pourraient amener les enseignants à
considérer la vie sociale du groupe, incluant le contenu du "langage égocentrique", en
tant que part intégrale du programme d'études de la classe plutôt qu'un fruit du hasard
de la proximité. Les résultats font aussi ressortir la richesse de la vie sociale d'une salle
de classe et les relations interpersonnelles qui se développent entre les semblables d'un
groupe préscolaire.
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Acknowledgements
It is a strange and wonderful thing to be writing acknowledgements at the end
of a dissertation journey. In some ways, there can never be enough thanks for people
who have supported my efforts through this process; Yet, as with all things, I will try.
To my dissertation supervisor, Dr. Teresa Strong-Wilson: You have supported
and encouraged me through this entire process. When I fretted over whether I knew
enough or if my writing was good enough, you calmly told me to “Carry on.” Your
faith sustained me.
To my committee members, Dr. Mary Maguire, Dr. Alison Preece, and Dr.
Victoria Talwar: Your patient readings of early versions of the theoretical and
methodological framework chapters gave me valuable critical guidance as I continued
my doctoral research.I would also like to thank the dissertation’s external reviewers, whose
comments were highly useful in preparing the final draft of the thesis
To my husband, Terrance Baker: You don’t always understand what I am
talking about when I start raving about how children learn, yet you always knew I
could do it. Thanks, hon. I couldn’t have done it without you.
To my daughter, Emily Damali Rouse Baker: You weren’t the first baby that I
cared for, but you were the one who taught me that I know nothing. I am a better
person and early childhood educator for being your mother, and I love you.
To my Ph.D. “partner in angst”, Maija-Lissa Harju: Your support,
conversations and encouragement as we both maneuvered the waters of the
occasionally tumultuous Sea of Dissertation have been invaluable. Any wine or whine
was simply garnish on an already tremendous partnership. May we continue to write
fabulous papers on children’s culture for many years.
To the teachers and children in the research classroom: Your names are not
published here, but I cannot begin to express my debt of gratitude for the welcome that
I was given when I wandered into your classroom. In partnership with you, I think we
have uncovered something truly remarkable. Your voices stay in my head, always.
Finally, to all the children and families I have had the honor and privilege to
know: Thank you, families, for trusting me with your children. Thank you, children,
for showing me how much you know. You are the “heteroglossia” of my world.
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Table of Contents
Abstract (English)………………………………………………………………………i
Abstract (French)……………………………………………………………………...iii
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………….v
Preface……....................................................................................................................ix
Chapter 1 Designing the loom…………………………………………………………1
Private speech: A first glimpse of the “bridge”………………………………..1
Theoretical Basis……………………………………………………………….3
Returning to the past: Uncovering the roots of private speech………………...5
Private speech defined………………………………………………………..10
Social cognition……………………………………………………………….13
Language and talking…………………………………………………………16
Peer as scaffold……………………………………………………………….21
Research Questions…………………………………………………………...25
Summary of chapter 1……………………………………………………...…26
Chapter 2 Choosing materials to build the loom……..………………...…………..…28
Child as other…………………………………………………………………28
Social constructivism and a new way of “seeing” …………………………...29
Ethnography…………………………………………………………………..31
Review of relevant methodologies used in studies of private speech………...33
Discourse analysis and Bakhtin………………………………………………42
Ethical considerations and limitations in conducting research with young
children………………………………………………………………………..43
Research Goals………………………………………………………………..44
Summary of chapter 2………………………………………………………...45
Chapter 3 In the field: Methodological design and decisions.………..……………...46
Looking for a research home…………………………………………………46
The research site………………………………………………………………47
History of research site……………………………………………………….52
Site description………………………………………………………………..52
Participants……………………………………………………………………54
Children……………………………………………….………………………55
Parents of children……………………………………………………………57
Classroom teachers………………………………………………………...…58
Classroom description………………………………………………………...58
Data Gathering………………………………………………………………..61
Transcription of audio recorders……………………………………………...66
Blogging as reflexive habit: My research journal…………………………….67
Photographs as data collection method………………………………………69
Photography in the research classroom……………………………………….72
Summary of chapter 3………………………………………………………...75
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Chapter 4 Private speech: Definitions, coding, and data collection………………..…76
Coding of private speech……………………………………………………...76
Uncovering private speech in a preschool classroom…………….…………..79
Coding scheme utilized……………………………………………………….82
Data presentation……………………………………………………………...88
Narrative inquiry and vignettes……………………………………………….88
Selected children…………………………………………………………...…90
Summary of chapter 4………………………………………………………...92
Chapter 5 Collecting the yarn………………………………………………………...93
Emily………………………………………………………………………….93
Zach…………………………………………………………………………..95
Gabriella………………………………………………………………………97
Bina………………………………………………………………………...…99
Esther………………………………………………………………………101
Summary of chapter 5……………………………………………………….103
Chapter 6 Behind the words: Weaving the stories together……………………...…104
Vignette one: Emily: Flexible scaffolder……………………………………104
Vignette two: Zach; Master of the Lego’s…………………………………..110
Vignette three: Gabriella; Savvy storyteller…………………….…………..117
Vignette four: Bina; Private speech as verbal mortar..………………….......122
Vignette five: Esther; Making peace through private speech……………….130
Summary of chapter 6……………………..…………………………….......140
Chapter 7 The warp and weft of the cloth….……………………………………….141
Revisiting the theory……………….………………………………………..141
Listening and noticing………………………….……………………………146
Stability of peer group………………………………….……………………148
Educational philosophy of teacher…………………………………………..150
Summary of chapter 7 ………………………………………………………151
Chapter 8 A cloth to wrap around me………………………………………………152
Limitations of the research………………………………………………..…155
Implications of the research…………………………………………………157
Suggestions for further research…………………………………………….159
Beginning again……………………………………………………………..162
References…………………………………………………………………………...164
Appendices…………………………………………………………………………..191
Letter to Site…………………………………………………………………191
Letter to Teachers……………………………………………………………194
Letter to Parents of Children………………………………………………...199
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Preface
In 2010, I was struck by an inexplicable urge to learn how to make rugs. I can’t
tell you why exactly, except that idea took root and I began to research how I could
learn to undertake this “old fashioned” pastime.
Not long after, I found a teacher in Montreal: a woman from Nova Scotia who
had learned from her grandmother. As she taught me the technique of hooking wool
through linen, I found the process familiar and comforting. I understood this interplay
between having a pattern and the creativity needed to make that pattern something of
your own.
Teaching has been compared to being a “bricoleur” (Levi-Strauss, 1974), a
master builder who uses the materials you find at hand. Making rugs is extremely
similar, rooted in the history of making do with what you had in the “rag bag.”
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Teaching and living with young children requires that same kind of flexible
structure. One never knows exactly what the day is going to bring, nor if the place you
thought you were going ends up being the place you find yourself. The sensitive
teacher weaves the story of the classroom with the materials she or he finds at hand,
working with the children to bring forward what is inside them.
It is within that framework that I craft my dissertation, in grateful
acknowledgment that without the children any small artistry I may exhibit would be
moot.
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Chapter 1 - Designing the Loom
Private speech: A first glimpse of the “bridge.”
In 2005, I completed my Master's thesis for Wheelock College. I had been
studying a group of ten kindergarten girls in order to discern their development of
social rules. Of particular interest was what I initially labeled “incidental
conversations,” or conversations which occurred during non-instructional time (Rouse,
2005, p.5). I was trying to ascertain how this group of girls managed to create such a
coherent social group, with remarkably little exclusionary, overt bullying or other
relational aggression behaviors. In fact, most of what was occurring was defying much
of the literature I had read about the protection of the play space by dyads of children
(Corsaro 1997, 2003; Garvey, 1990; Paley 1992). These girls were not telling one
another they could not play; instead, they played fluidly, members weaving in and out
of each other’s scenarios and activities with few ripples of disagreement (Rouse,
2005).
While coding and analyzing the recorded dialogues and comparing these with
my field notes of the play observations done during the recording, I began to notice
something curious. There were many instances of children talking to themselves in the
presence of their peers. These bits of conversation occurred with peers present, yet
were clearly not directed towards anyone in particular.
While these instances in themselves did not surprise me as I knew of both
Vygotsky's theory of private speech and Piaget's “egocentric speech”, what did
surprise me was my dawning suspicion that these moments of private speech were
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being telegraphed specifically for the use of the peers in earshot. This suspicion grew
as I heard bits of one individual’s private speech regarding Barney the purple dinosaur
and if liking him was considered “babyish”, a concept that was picked up and echoed
by other participants not present at the original utterance. The original private speech
of one individual seemed to pass through all individuals until a social group
knowledge, or idea, had been fleshed out and tacitly approved. Within three weeks, the
girls had decided that Barney wasn't for babies, which was a clear effort to protect the
younger members of the group who still liked and watched Barney. This
understanding was coupled with the decision that members could also assert that
Barney was not “for me,” a nod to their growing social need to be considered separate
from the world of preschool as they ventured into new school age concerns.
Were the children conscious of the movement of this idea from one child to
another within their group? Were they individually aware of hearing the original
utterance from the original child? There was certainly never a group meeting held
where this idea was discussed at length among the ten girls. In fact, true conversations
regarding Barney were rare and fleeting. However, it became clear to me that the
information conveyed during classically defined “private speech,” was not so much
private, as a vehicle by which specific information was shared between peers – “verbal
mortar”, as it were, used to build a healthy social dynamic through problem solving.
Had I glimpsed an underlying reason that this group of strong personalities was
able to cooperate during play with little conflict? Was time and space for these
“incidental conversations” and the development and exploration of concepts through
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the transmission of ideas through private speech serving a much broader purpose in
the life of this classroom of learners?
In this chapter, I lay the theoretical foundation for the narrative about private
speech I will later weave together through the audio tapes, field notes, research
journals and naturalistic observations of the children in my research classroom. The
foundation consists of threads and disciplines which may not easily lie together, yet
when placed side by side begin to arrange themselves into a larger cohesive pattern of
children as adept social communicators. This chapter will first define private speech
then move explore other integral parts of educational, psychological and sociocultural theory such as social cognition, language and talking, and “peers as scaffold”.
Theoretical Basis
At the beginning of the 20th century, two key developmental theorists were
observing and developing their viewpoints on Child Development. Jean Piaget (18961980) was meticulously documenting the lives of his children, using his training as a
biologist to categorize and classify the children’s cognitive development. Lev
Vygotsky (1896-1934) was writing on human development by examining differences
and similarities to the social behavior of animals, notably chimpanzees. Both men
noticed something similar about the behavior of children. Children of a certain age
tend to talk out loud to themselves. While both theorists noted the same behavior, the
rationales they proposed for the motivation for this talking out loud, or private speech
(as it eventually came to be called), were notably different.
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For Piaget (1923), this “egocentric speech”, as he termed it, denoted the
child's immature cognitive system. The speech did not serve a communicative function
with other people, but rather a purely egocentric dialogue within one’s own sphere of
being. He theorized that the child spoke out loud because he or she did not have the
cognitive maturity to take the perspective of another.
Vygotsky (1934/1986) took issue with Piaget's viewpoint. For Vygotsky, the
emergence of this private speech represented the growth of the child as independent
problem solver. Moving from “social speech,” which Vygotsky labeled as “speech
aimed at conversing with others” to “private speech,” in which one sought to selfregulate and self-direct, represented a mid-step for the child as competent problem
solver (1934/1986, p.31).
Whereas Piaget viewed the building blocks of adult cognitive ability as
emerging from within a child by means of assimilation and accommodation, Vygotsky
postulated that the same observed behavior moved in the opposite direction. Vygotsky
(1934/1986) wrote: “From the social comes the individual” (p. 36). We each exist first
as beings in a social world, and from that social place work internally to gain the skills
to move us towards the desired level of adult cognition.
While each man acknowledged the private speech of the children they
observed, weaving it into their larger overall theories about human cognitive
development, neither they nor subsequent scholars expanded upon the topic, nor
challenged the status quo. The issue of private speech has seemingly remained frozen
in time, never progressing or changing much beyond what Vygotsky or Piaget
postulated in their original writings. The question of “why” private speech exists has
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never been rigorously applied to the function of this behavior in the same way that it
has been applied to other parts of either man’s theories, like that of language
development or mathematical reasoning.
I propose that private speech may serve a greater role than simply that of
internal cognitive marker, but instead serves an important function for and between
children, of building temporary social and cognitive bridges into the minds of the
speakers and the listeners to facilitate communication and understanding between
these novice communicators entering into a “community of minds” (Nelson, 2007;
Nelson, Skwerer, Goldman, Henseler, & Wakenfeld, 2003).
Returning to the past: Uncovering the roots of private speech
While I knew of both Vygotsky and Piaget’s use of the phrases private speech
and “egocentric speech,” I had never seriously examined the theories. I had assumed,
quite wrongly I later discovered, that each man used the phrases interchangeably. I
assumed that they were both talking about the same thing. Furthermore, I assumed
that the definitions and context I found in various text books and journals accurately
represented the distilled meaning of these concepts.
During my time as a student, both during my Master's coursework and most
recently in my Doctoral program, I found myself going back in time, starting with the
work of the Neo-Vygotskian researchers and scholars (Karpov, 2005). I slowly began
to realize that the definition of “self talk” I was operating under was not altogether
correct. In fact, as mentioned in her response to a paper using Vygotsky's theories
published in 2005, Grendler (2007) noted that:“Once again, a developmental theorist,
Lev Vygotsky, has rapidly become a much repeated name at all levels of educational
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psychology: theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical. And once again, inexplicable
misstatements about the theorists thinking are appearing” (p. 233).
It was apparent that in order for me to reach my own understanding of what
Vygotsky meant by the phrase “private speech” I was going to have to read Vygotsky.
Armed with translated copies of Mind in Society and Thought and Language, I began
to read.
The first thing I noticed (in the English translation) was that Vygotsky did not
use the phrase “self talk.” He used the words private speech to describe children
engaged in the activity of talking out loud to themselves. As I came to learn, the use of
words with precise definitions was essential to Vygotsky. Vygotsky viewed words as
“tools.” The use of these “tools” become intimately associated with the social context
in which these words are used and mediated. In fact, Vygotsky states “it is in word
meaning that thought and speech unite into verbal thought” (Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p.
222).
Let us consider the scope of this statement. As we watch children develop the
ability to speak, we now know that a whole host of other cognitive work happens
behind the scenes. Brains are growing synapses and dendrites. Important connections
are being reinforced, with those less salient tidbits pruned and discarded over time
(Nelson, 2007). Vygotsky did not have the benefit of modern neuroscience to know
the specifics of the mechanics of how a human brain develops, but he was certainly
onto something.
If one considers human speech and language development in the context of
Vygotsky's statement, a child's ability to verbally communicate any need masks a far
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greater leap in cognition. It represents the first step in the complete integration of child
as a social group member within a family and society. It represents the passing down
of one of the human being's greatest tools, that of culturally situated language, to the
next generation. It does not end there, however, for we know that children must leave
their families of origin and learn to maneuver successfully in the world independent of
their parents and siblings.
Vygotsky (1934/1978) states that while humans have some “primitive” or
“elementary” cognition which is biologically driven and universal across cultures, he
also emphatically designates that it is the “higher mental functions” that develop
within a specific cultural context (p. 57). These functions, Vygotsky asserts, are not
universal and, therefore, one would not expect to see the same types of systems
develop in every culture. By this definition, the developments of higher mental
processes must be culturally constructed.
The symbol, in this case language, becomes the tool by which the listener
mediates the knowledge they currently posses to the present situation they may be
facing. The link between symbol and cognition does not exist to “improve” the
cognition, but rather acts as a stimulus through which to transform cognition.
Vygotsky (1934/1986) asserts that each mediation of symbol use in higher
mental processes was once an interaction between people. The implications are that
every system that we have in place, as humans, as academics, as individuals, can be
distilled to initial interactions between people. To extrapolate, this would mean that
without the support of the social worlds in which we are ensconced, one could never
develop the knowledge base needed for higher complex thinking.
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Furthermore, Vygotsky noted that the importance of complex symbol systems
is on an equal footing with the internal mental processes. These symbol systems, for
the child, represent an immersion in and by-product of the social system in which the
child is growing. Writing, for example, represents an external measurement by which
to observe the development of the internal systems. It is not, and should not be thought
of, as a finite skill set which once learned can be tucked away in the dusty attic of
things one knows.
Transfer of technical knowledge is not enough. If one considers a fairly
abstract line of thinking, such as writing dialogue between characters, the technical
knowledge of writing words or applying the rule that quotation marks must precede
and follow speaking statements is not sufficient for a child to construct the meaning of
dialogue. The child must be able to conceptualize a discussion, project outwards as to
personality, character and theme of discussion, and then distill it out into a cohesive
piece of writing. Learning, and the assessment of learning, must then be seen as far
more than checking off “competencies” to account for cognitive and academic
proficiency or potential of students.
Instead, educators could choose to include the social aspect of learning,
viewing the interactions between peers as an integral part of building the classroom
learning community in order to provide a more balanced portrait of student as learner.
What, then, of Piaget? While more widely disseminated and discussed, were
the theories regarding private speech I had come to attribute to Jean Piaget truly
accurate? Did Piaget feel that the cognitive development of a child truly only existed
within an internal sphere, demarcated by signature “stages”?
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Not unlike the uncovering process I had taken with the works of Vygotsky, I
needed to revisit Piaget.
One of the fascinating pieces of the exploration of Piagetian theory
development was the basic fact of his much longer life and ,therefore, copious and
evolving academic writings. While Piaget (1962) may have de-emphasized the role of
the social and language in the development of the cognitive child early in his career,
he later wrote specifically on the influence of the social upon the cognitive in order to
clarify his thoughts on this topic. He wrote: “there is no longer any need to choose
between the primacy of social or that of the intellect: collective intellect is the social
equilibrium resulting from the interplay of the operations that enter into all
cooperation” (Piaget, 1970, p. 114).
Piaget was, foremost, a biologist. His basis for observing and understanding
what he saw was deeply entrenched within a specific scientific methodology. As such,
Piaget sought measurable and concrete evidence of development. In essence, Piaget’s
theories involve a child’s construction of reality moving in concrete stages from the
inward (sensory-motor stage) to the external (operational thought) through the
experiences of assimilation and accommodation (Piaget, 1962). In many writings,
Piaget bowed his head to acknowledge the place of the social in the development of
the child (Carpendale & Lewis, 2004) and in his comments in the 1962 edition of
Vygotsky’s Thought and Language, Piaget writes “that my early study of thinking was
centered too much on linguistic aspects” (Piaget in Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 4-5).
Unlike Vygotsky, Piaget had the gift of time as he observed his theories in practice
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over a long career. Piaget did not disregard the social; it was merely not his focus
(Alward, 1996; DeVries 1997; Grossman, 2004).
Through my re-reading of the original texts (in translation) and more recent
scholarly works grappling with the theories of both Piaget and Vygotsky, one thing
becomes clear. There is no absolute dichotomy between the theories of Vygotsky and
Piaget regarding the cognitive development of the child. There are merely different
lenses in use, thereby bringing different facets of development into clearer focus.
Private speech defined
The criteria used to distinguish “private” from “social” speech are defined by
Diaz (1992) as follows:
An observable distinction between utterances that are explicitly addressed to
others, versus those that are not on the basis of three criteria: (1) Utterances that
contain an explicit reference to another person(s); (2) Utterances that constitute
responses to questions posed by others; and (3) Utterances that are accompanied
by gazes at others, either simultaneous with the utterance or immediately
preceding or following it. (p. 57)
Vygotsky (1934/1986) found that the incidence of private speech decreased
when a child was alone and increased when a peer was present. He found that private
speech increased when a child was confronted with an obstacle or problem. He posited
that this use of private speech was used as a self regulating factor, as a means to
problem solve within one’s own mind. Vygotsky held that we are fundamentally social
creatures, developing individual knowledge through the social context in which we
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live. He stated that we are learners living in continual flux, a “zone of proximal
development,” which is influenced or mediated by the more cognitively sophisticated
members of the immediate group. For Vygotsky’s purposes, he assumed that the
adults in a child's life mediated for the child this “zone of proximal development”
(Vygotsky, 1934/1986, p. 187).
Although decreased in frequency and the amount produced, instances of the
production of private speech remain when children are “alone,” that is to say without a
peer or an adult present. To explore this phenomenon, Bakhtin’s theory of the
transgredience of dialogue (Todorov, 1984) is useful, particularly when combined
with theories about the heteroglossia of children’s play (Cohen, 2009).
When examined through the lens of the transgredience of dialogue, children’s
private speech moves beyond an individual cognitive problem solving domain out into
the realm of a multi-voiced conversation with the community as both receptive and
reproduced language. We do not need a person standing next to us speaking in order to
have their words and ideas echoing through our minds for they already exist inside the
fabric of our internal community of mind. The actions of the unseen, but ever present,
members of our social lives live on and through our own conversations and utterances.
This transgredience of dialogue constructs a liminal state of “thirdness” within
language (Kramsch, 2009, p. 235). Kramsch considers Bakhtin’s intent: “The only
way to find our own voice, Bakhtin says, is to have a double-voice, i.e. to see and
express ourselves both through our own perspective, from the inside, so to speak, and
through the perspective of others, from the outside” (p. 236). It is in this way that we
carry our past social experiences into the present.
11
Cohen’s (2009) research around the dialogicality embedded in children’s block
and dramatic play examines the concept of heteroglossia, specifically as a means of
children constructing social “voice.” It is by examining the role-taking of children in
dramatic play that one can clearly see Bakhtin’s ‘multi-voiced’ conversation manifest,
whereby meanings of words and understanding of concepts are appropriated and
translated through a multi-layered filter of social activity (Cohen & Uhry, 2007). The
children in Cohen’s studies used a rich tapestry of social “voices” to enhance and
extend their play, filling in roles with not-present adults and friends. Cohen (2009)
writes that when children engage in private speech:
Linguistic interactions can occur with self, self and another player, and self and
many players. Children appropriate the words of friends and actively respond
through external social speech as they engage in a dialogue or use private
speech as they self-verbalize. The verbal interactions of appropriation and
assimilation, characteristic in children’s pretend play, often highlight the
differences, diversity, and conflict children encounter in their day-to-day
interaction. (p. 336)
What Vygotsky called private speech, Bakhtin referred to as “hidden
dialogicality”. Wertsch (1991b) describes a process of “internalization” of speech,
closely related to Bakhtin’s notion of “hidden dialogicality”:
Imagine a dialogue of two persons in which the statements of the second
speaker are omitted, but in such a way that the general sense is not violated.
The second speaker is present and invisibly, his words are not there, but deep
traces left by these words have a determining influence on all present and
12
visible words of the first speaker. (Bakhtin, 1984, p. 197 as cited in Wertsch,
1991b, p. 110)
This idea of “responding and reacting to an invisible speaker” (Cheyne &
Tarulli, 1999) fits with a social constructivist perspective on the production of private
speech by young children. Cohen (2009) makes a similar observation. The children in
her study were not merely speaking to themselves, but were engaging an “invisible
speaker” when engaged in private speech. Young children are not simply alone,
talking to themselves. Instead, they are continuing an ongoing dialogue with, by and
for the legion of social circles in which they are continually engaged.
This “internally persuasive discourse” serves to help the child manage the
social forces at play within his or her life (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 342). Cohen (2009)
writes, “With internally persuasive discourse you appropriate the others’ words,
redefine the words, and establish your own voice” (p. 338).
Finding ones place within the social web of a classroom is hard work, and it
may be through this ebb and flow of discourse that children use private speech to
navigate their understanding of others, as well as define who they are to their peers.
Social cognition
If, as Nelson (2007) aptly contends, a child enters into a “community of
minds” when they seek to enter into any new social situation such as a preschool or
other peer group, then by what means do they build a bridge from their private mind to
that of the community? Theories of social cognition may provide some insights into
this question.
13
The field of cognitive psychology is vast, and I have no hopes of attempting to
fully review the literature with respect to this question. However, I will sketch out a
basic history and how it may relate to the origins of a social cognition theory.
Starting in the 1950’s, the field of cognitive psychology was concerned with
the functions of the human brain. Far beyond the exploration of basic anatomy, a
whole range of scientists devoted themselves to figuring out which keys could unlock
the human brain to explain how children learn (Nelson, 2007). The handiest device
with which to compare the human brain were the nascent computer systems then being
developed. Some of this terminology remains in education and popular culture: the
association of the human brain with a computer (Tomasello, 1999).
However apt portions of the analogy may be, the human brain is far from being
a computer. At best, this analogy simplifies and distills the way humans acquire
information to “programs” that must be followed to the letter to be successful, or
“codes” which we are fated to follow to insure the proper functioning of the larger
machine. At the worst, it forces a view of the individual mind into one of a
“solipsistic mind” (Fodor, 1983, p. 31), a thing to be studied independently and
divorced from its human or social context.
By the early 1990’s, many in the cognitive psychology fields were beginning
to call for a paradigm shift. Bruner (1990), among the leaders in this shift, said: “So
let us return to the question of how to construct a mental science around the concept of
meaning and the processes by which meanings are created and negotiated within a
community” (p. 10).
14
Far from seeing the individual brain as stand-alone machine, scholars began to
call for research which considered the context in which a human being grows and
develops. Congruent with these calls for a re-thinking was the wider availability and
dissemination of the translated works and theories of Vygotsky (Rogoff, 1990).
No longer could scholars disassociate context from content, argued these first
proponents of what came to be called “social cognitive theory”; both sides must be
considered on equal ground. It could not simply be a question of “nature versus
nurture,” an argument existing since the eighteenth century and one which still
occasionally crops up in more contemporary discussions around the “intelligence”
gene (Scarr & McCarthy 1983; Tomasello, 1999). Rather, the question became: how
can both nature and nurture co-exist and intertwine to create the human brain?
Tomasello (1999) outlined the evolutionary process he believed led to the split
in cognitive potential between our closest genetic ancestors, primates, and Homo
Sapiens. Of special interest for him was the issue of “joint attention,” cognitive
development in which a child is able to triangulate attention between an object and a
person, a development which appears at around the age of nine months (Bruner, 1983;
Clark, 1996; Cole, 1985; Tomasello 1988, 1992, 1999).
Specifically defined, “joint attentional scenes are social interactions in which
child and adult are jointly attending to some third thing, and to one another’s attention
to that third thing, for some reasonably extended period of time” (Tomasello, 1999, p.
97). Tomasello suggests that the ability to understand that the other human is “like
me” through the interaction within the “joint attentional scene” sets the stage for all
15
later social cognitive growth, particularly the development of both spoken language
and gestural communication.
It is through the experiences gained through “joint attentional scenes” that we
learn that we can direct another person’s attention to an object or event that we are
curious about, and have that other person interact with us around that object or event.
Beyond mere imitative mirroring, this cognitive development sets the figurative
“stage” for absorbing peers’ meanings when they express themselves with “private
speech,” which is a key postulate to be explored in the present doctoral research.
As the child transitions from non-verbal into verbal communication, these
implications could be profound. The typically developing child rapidly attains
functionality with their native language, having been steeped in these cultural waters
since conception (Cole, 1971, 1996; Nelson, 2007; Tomasello, 1999). Paired with the
ability to understand other humans as ‘like me,’ the child begins to realize that the
consciousness they experience internally is also being experienced by the other people
around them (Damasio, 1999; DeRosnay & Hughes, 2006).
Language and talking
What then of language and the act of talking? While many researchers within
education and psychology have concerned themselves with the production of language
(Bloom, 2000; Garvey, 1984; Golinkoff et al., 2000; Hirsch-Pasek, Golinkoff &
Hollich, 2000; Mandler 2004), this research approaches private speech as a social tool
developed and mediated between children.
16
M.M. Bakhtin, a Russian contemporary of Vygotsky, focused his research on
the quality of the “utterance” as the “real unit of speech communication” (Bakhtin,
1986, p. 71). Bakhtin’s concern was for the actual spoken words using analysis based
on the concrete and immediate features of the dialogue rather than inferences
attributed when analyzing conversation after the fact. Bakhtin (1986) noted:
Speech can exist in reality only in the form of concrete utterances of individual
speaking people, speech subjects. Speech is always cast in the form of an
utterance belonging to a particular speaking subject, and outside this form it
cannot exist. (p. 71)
Bakhtin was ultimately concerned with how the “utterance” was connected to the
“speaking voice.” His belief was that the utterance cannot be divorced from the person
speaking. To do so, Bakhtin posited, “would result in units that belonged to nobody
and are addressed to nobody” (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 88).
Bakhtin (1986) described all language as social dialogue. His notion of
“dialogicality” was defined thus:
When the listener perceives and understands the meaning of speech he
simultaneously takes an active, responsive attitude toward it. He agrees or
disagrees with it, augments it, applies it, prepares for the execution, and so on.
Any understanding of live speech, a live utterance, inherently responsive,
although the degree of this activity varies extremely. Any understanding is
imbued with response and necessarily elicits it in one form or another: the
listener becomes the speaker. (p. 68)
17
Using Bakhtin’s description of both the nature of the units of speech, as well as
the dialogicality of speech, it stands to reason that any speech uttered by a child,
especially that defined by Vygotsky as “private speech,” is being actively produced for
a listener (Wertsch, 1980). This assumption can be strengthened by adding in
Bakhtin’s (1986) theory of “social languages” and “ventriloquating through social
languages.” As Bakhtin (1986) eloquently argues:
The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes “one’s own” only
when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent, when he
appropriates the word. Prior to this moment of appropriation, the word does not
exist in a neutral and impersonal language (it is not, after all, out of a
dictionary that the speaker gets his words!), but rather it exists in other
people’s mouths, in other people’s intentions: it is there that one must take the
word and make it one’s own. (p. 69)
Therefore, the tool of language is such that in order for a child to join a new
social group, the meanings of words themselves must be constructed and reconstructed by both speaking and hearing. Indeed, children must internalize the
various meanings of any “social language” used within each group in order to move
forward with learning. When one takes into account that each child is coming from a
separate and distinct social group (family) and then must enter a new social group
(school/child care) and learn all the other definitions utilized, as well as negotiate new
meanings specific to the group, can it be any wonder that transitions can be so difficult
for many young children? When attempting to find common understanding in order to
achieve externally set academic “goals”, the child must negotiate not only their own
18
family culture but that of classroom peers and teachers. (See Figure 1-1). These
mosaics of meaning require the child to integrate a substantial amount of knowledge in
order to participate as a productive member of the group.
Child
Family and
Extended Family
Immediate social
outer world
(Preschool)
Figure 1-1: Nested Transitions of Child in World
Furthering the potential problems of understanding the meaning of language
between unfamiliar peers and novice communicators, Harris (2000, 2001) indicates
that unfamiliar discourse patterns negatively affect children’s ability to understand and
answer questions. In other words, if I do not understand how you are asking the
question, I cannot fully access my knowledge to answer you. While this may seem like
an obvious point, it holds a powerful critique of problems of uniformity in more
19
traditional laboratory research settings, in which most of the research regarding child
communication has taken place. One cannot assume that a child understands the
context of the question being posed; therefore no accurate measure of “cognitive”
development can be ascertained.
An alternative strategy would be to embed the researcher into the lives of the
young children in a more “organic” way. Having the researcher participate in the lives
of the young children involved in a study, the researcher would have time and space to
absorb the social language and cues of the children she/he seeks to study and
understand. The role of “active researcher/observer” could help insure that the
socially mediated language of any questions or interviews matched the language of the
group of children engaged in the research, rather than relying on a set of static,
preformed questions. In addition, this technique would allow the researcher to revisit
questions posed and answers recorded through the continuing life, or semiotic
mediation, of the classroom.
Finally, but not unimportantly, we need to ask whether the concept of oral
language is part of a “different” literacy, with its distinct set of embedded social
conventions (Ong, 1982). For Ong, as well as Bakhtin, oral and written language are
intrinsically tied with social relationships inasmuch as oral culture is bound by
listening and incorporating the experiences of others into one’s own consciousness
rather than relying on personal empirical experiences. This participatory nature of
information exchange depends on a one-to-one dynamic, which is then filtered
through the group as an aggregate set of related information, to be constructed and
20
reconstructed as best fits the needs of that particular social group (Bakhtin, 1986;
Nelson, 2007; Ong 1982).
The implication of these theories seems clear: To fully develop their social and
cognitive skills children need to be with other people, talking and listening to make
sense of the world around them.
Peer as scaffold
Many researchers, including Nelson (1985), have looked at the development of
a child’s sense of language as both representational in concept and as a means of
cultural inclusion (Berk, 1992; Berk & Winsler, 1995; Grendler, 2008; Karpov, 2005;
Newson & Newson,1975; Rogoff, 1990; Tomasello, 1999; Vygotsky,
1934/1978,1934/1986; Wertsch, 1985b, 1991a). Many researchers have specifically
looked towards the relationship between mother and child as prime source material for
language and culture development (Hendrick et al., 2009; Morrissey & Brown 2009;
Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 2004; Wertsch, 1991a). While we possess copious research
regarding the importance of the Parent/Child dyad in emotional and cognitive
development, what of non-sibling peers? What role, if any, does the inclusion of nonsibling age peers play in the social and cognitive development of a child?
According to the Unicef Innocenti Report Card (2008), approximately 70% of
Canadian mothers work outside of the home. Although there are no definitive numbers
as to how many Canadian children between the ages of birth to six years are currently
in early care and education settings, one can reasonably assume, given the percentage
of employed mothers, that a majority of those families are availing themselves of nonfamily member or group care facility for child care and education. Better numbers are
21
available for the number of American children ages 3-5 in early care and education
settings via the 2000 U.S. census, which indicates that roughly 48% of American
children are in out of home care and education. With increasing exposure to a peer
social world before Kindergarten, children are exposed to wider and deeper circles of
cultural and social differences. No longer encapsulated within the unit of one parent
to one child, a modern young child’s world can be full of information that demands
attention and assessment, evaluation and filtering.
Referencing back to Bakhtin’s model of discourse, a young child can use the
principle of dialogicality to both represent his/her thoughts and offer them to the group
as a token for entry. It is the dual purpose, of both offering and taking that moves the
child from one social plane to the next.
Yet how do young children know what is on the minds of their peers? Is it
possible that what adults need and understand and what children need and understand
can be wholly different things? Nelson (2007) writes: “the community of minds
depends entirely on the ability to talk about matters of interest to the members of the
community – that is, to talk about things that are on their mind” (p. 212).
Many teachers could describe the educational and social goals are for a group
of young children, and exactly how they plan on measuring the achievement of those
goals. However, the sub-agenda in any preschool classroom can be discovered by
listening to the social talk of the children during non-instructional times (Rouse,
2005). It is during this time that the ”community of minds” comes together and
assesses what it knows, what it wants to know and how it is going to find out what it
needs to know. Within these seemingly inconsequential discussions, bridges are built
22
from one mind to another and decisions are made as to what it means to be a member
of a group within a society within a culture.
Much of the research using private speech and “zone of proximal
development” has examined the relation between adult (usually mother) and child and
how relations between the two influence the cognitive development of the child
(Hendrick, et al., 2009: Morrissey and Brown, 2009; Turnbull, Carpendale & Racine,
2008). This research, while important, fails to account for a major strength of
Vygotsky’s theories: the influences of a larger social peer group.
The growing social acceptability of group child care situations makes many
children's social groups resemble a more communal rather than singular caregiver
child model. It is no longer a “one adult, one child” model, but rather a “one adult for
twelve or fifteen children” reality. While much research has been done on the impact
of the quality of the relationship between caregiver and child (Baker, et al. 2008;
Belsky et al., 2007; Bradley & Vandell, 2007; Deater, Pinkerton & Scarr, 1996), and
the effects of education and training on the performance and overall impact of the
quality of care given by the caregiver (Burchinal et al., 2000; Early et al., 2006;
NICHD, 2003, 2005; Peisner-Feinberg & Burchinal, 1997; Peisner-Feinberg et al.,
2001), less has been done on the relationship of cognitive development through a
“zone of proximal development” between a group of peers in these group care settings.
Peer dyads in private speech inducing situations have been studied. Azmitia
(1992) examined the performance of children's ability to copy a difficult Lego pattern
alone or with a peer in a laboratory setting. Not unexpectedly, children performed
better and produced more private speech when paired with a peer. Mother and child
23
pairs have been studied in laboratory settings, examining the ability of a child to
problem solve when a known adult is present and providing the “scaffolding” for
solving the problem (Wertsch et al., 1980). Kruger (1992) found that children who
discussed a “moral reasoning” problem with other children engaged in more reflective
and transformative discussions when paired with a peer versus the child’s mother.
More recently, inquiries have been made into preschool children’s awareness
of their own private speech (Manfra & Winsler, 2006). The children in these studies
use private speech to work through designed problems, moving from their comfort
level into the “zone of proximal development.” Sixty-three percent of the participants
in that study later correctly identified whether or not they were engaging in private
speech when asked by researchers if they were aware of using private speech during
the experiment. Somewhat surprisingly, younger children (age 3) more accurately
reported engaging in the activity of private speech than did the older children (age 5)
by the rates of 63% to 29%. While Manfra and Winsler (2006) did not make any
assertions as to why this difference in awareness appeared between younger and older
children in their study, I wonder if it has to do with the necessity of being more aware
socially, more “plugged in”, as a novice member of the group.
The effects and benefits of peer to peer collaboration in elementary school
settings have been more extensively studied (Dangwal & Kapur, 2009; Kutnik, Ota &
Berndodini, 2008). Collaborative learning situations are widely found to be beneficial
to all students involved, with children assuming both expert and novice roles,
receiving cognitive benefits from participation (Diamond et al., 2007; Howes et al.,
2008). Very recently, peer to peer collaboration studies have been implemented in
24
classrooms with younger children (ages 3-5) with similar positive cognitive gains
observed in the children participating (Tzurial & Shamir, 2007; Whitebread et al.,
2007). This “collaborative construction” (Nelson, 2007) weaves the social cognition
theories of Vygotsky into modern theories of cultural learning through both active and
passive participation in a culture (Goudena, 1987; Kutnick & Berdondini, 2008;
Rogoff, 2003; Tomasello, 1999; Tomasello, Kruger & Ratner, 1993; Vygotsky
1934/1978).
Research questions
Research done in naturalistic settings to examine how children use private
speech as a potential communicative “bridge” between peers to assist each other in
cognitive and social development as described in Vygotsky's “zone of proximal
development” has not yet been undertaken. I suspect that this intra-play – this peer to
peer construction of knowledge, with no adult interference and no adult expectation of
pre-defined cognitive skill development – may hold the key to why children engage in
private speech in the presence of others. Furthermore, I am interested in how the
“zone of proximal development” may be logically expanded beyond the idea of
learning as purely academic to that of a social and cognitive “zone of proximal
development” between peers.
Therefore, the questions that this dissertation will address are: “Do children use their
own private speech as a means of communicating knowledge to their peers? If so, how
might their peers use this information?”
25
Summary of chapter 1:
In this chapter, I have discussed the findings of the research literature around
the roles and functions of peer to peer interactions, as well as the self-talk or private
speech of children. I have introduced a variety of theoretical frameworks that address
the development of the formation of socio-cultural learning and development and can
serve as heuristics, specifically Vygotsky and Bakhtin. I posed the research questions
which will guide research and dissertation.
Crossing several fields of knowledge and expertise, moving out of the realm of
education into those of developmental psychology, cultural anthropology and
linguistics, I am weaving together an idea of child as an active participant in creating
their social realities and cognitive frameworks with other children as their partners.
The origin of this view of the child lies within what I first observed in my Master’s
research.
By using Vygotsky as a basis for my theoretical framework, there is an
intentional embracing of a conceptualization of all human activity as fundamentally
rooted in and as a social construction. To this end, I propose that everything a child
does or experiences in common, including the stages of development as presented by
Piaget, serves a specific and an integral social function. Thus, the private speech of
young children serves a purpose beyond the of individual cognitive development
previously described by both Vygotsky and Piaget. If one superimposes Bakhtin onto
Vygotsky, then one must assume that every utterance is purposeful and being
produced for a listener. According to Bakhtin’s notion of “heteroglossia”, listener and
26
speaker can be combined into one voice reflecting the myriad of social voices
surrounding the child.
In chapter two, I will review historical and contemporary methodological
approaches to research with young children, research into the private speech of young
children, and the ethical guidelines that must be considered when conducting research
with young children.
27
Chapter 2 – Choosing Materials to Build the Loom
In this chapter, I will review research methodologies used with young children
from both historical and contemporary standpoints. I will also review research
methodologies currently being used in private speech research, as well as the ethical
considerations of undertaking research with young children.
Child as other
In the years that both Vygotsky (1934/1978) and Piaget (1926) were theorizing
and collecting data on the existence and purpose of private speech in children, the
concept of “child culture” had yet to be born. In keeping with the stringent scientific
method of the day, most research with children was done in laboratory settings in
which the child was purposely dislocated from his or her day-to-day life and
surroundings and placed in an environment which could be more closely controlled.
While this method yielded some valuable information about the developmental
timelines and frameworks of individual children, it was notably lacking in one arena:
the development of the child in reciprocity with his/her social world.
Situated in the realm of psychology, these experiments and observations were
undertaken to map out child’s developmental continuum within the larger body of
knowledge in human growth and development.
The growth and development of the child, an assumed cognitive novice, was
perceived as a concrete matter, resting squarely within the sphere of the individual.
As such, the subjective experience of the child was never the research objective, as
John Flavell (1992) has observed:
28
We have seldom tried to infer what it is like to be them and what the world
seems like to them, given what they have and have not achieved cognitively.
When knowledge and abilities are subtracted from the totality of what could be
legitimately called “cognitive”, an important remainder is surely the person’s
subjective experience: how self and world seems and feels to that person, given
that knowledge and those abilities. (p. 1003)
In addition to development of the child as fixed along an easily mapped
continuum, cognition also had a desired endpoint: Adult Cognition. Children were
adults in training (Greene & Hogan, 2005; Hogan, 1998).
Social constructivism and a new way of “seeing”:
Within the last two decades, children have moved from being seen as the
“researched” to being viewed as active agents within their own “child culture”
(Corsaro, 1992, 1997, 2003; James & Prout, 1997; James, Jenks & Prout, 1998). This
view of children has shifted the focus away from the “child as becoming adult” telos
prevalent in research throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s (Benedict, 1946; Elkin, 1960;
Whiting & Child, 1953) towards that of “child as interpreter and creator of culture”
(Cook-Cumperz, Corsaro & Streek, 1986; Corsaro, 1992, 1997).
Children’s construction of individual knowledge as active participants in their
culture has come to be identified as “social constructivism.” With roots in interpretive
sociology, social constructivism places emphasis on the socials co-construction of
language, meaning and power. Differing from the view of “constructivists” (Crotty,
1998; Gergan, 1999), in which meaning is formed in the mind of the individual, social
29
constructivism relies on the social world in which the subject is embedded. Stetsenko
& Arievitch (1997) note:
Human activity is at the focus of analysis. The subject is defined through his or
her involvement in the world, and human mind and personality, self and
agency, are defined as an activity, a way of being in concrete situations. The
metaphor "child as Robinson Crusoe" is replaced by the notion of shared
activities, co-operation between the individual and other people.
The focus is on the inherently contextualized nature of any developmental
process, and hence, on the embeddedness of human development in culturally
and historically defined contexts. This is an assumption that stresses social
inter-action as playing a decisive role in the production of mental capacities,
which are unavailable to the isolated individual. This assumption emphasizes
mutuality, cooperation, communication, and social embeddedness of the self
and of the individual's development. (p. 161)
Researchers adopting a social constructivism framework would, therefore, be
looking to make sense of a child’s experience through the lens of his/her social world.
The whole of the child’s experiences, be that through words, drawings, or play, then
becomes an integral part of the investigative process through which a researcher may
come to understand their research question (Hedegaard, 2009). Integral to this
framework is the recognition of multi-dimensional influences encountered by each
individual as a member of their society.
The definition of “interpretivist methodology” can easily be overlaid onto
“social constructivism.” Within the “interpretivist” (Berg, 2004; Hughes, 2001;
30
Merriam, 1998; Walsh et al., 1993) framework, the researcher aims to understand the
information from within the group or culture being studied. Researchers utilizing this
approach focus on the lived experience of the participants, in which the researcher
“makes sense” of information gathered through the lens of “a cultural framework of
socially constructed and shared meanings’ and that we ‘create and re-create our social
world as a dynamic meaning system, that is, a system that changes over time’
(Hughes, 2001, p. 35). This methodology, in line with Vygotsky’s overarching
theoretical emphasis of social constructivism, seeks to “understand socially
constructed and shared meanings and re-present them as theories of human behavior”
(Hughes, 2001, p. 36).
Ethnography
As I began to consider what research methodology would allow me to best
investigate my research questions, one criterion rose to the forefront. I needed to be in
a classroom for an extended period of time, observing children as they went about the
business of their day. It was, after all, how I knew to be among young children as a
teacher. You get in there, you listen, you watch, you notate and then you try to make
sense of what they are telling you.
Given my background, it could hardly be surprising that the research
methodology which resonated was educational ethnography. I’d been unwittingly
engaged in an ethnographic teaching methodology for most of my professional life.
Ethnography is, at its heart, the study of a culture (Woolcott, 1997) or “the
study of people as they go about their everyday lives” (Emerson, et. al, 1995). James
and Prout (1995) noted that “ethnography allows children a more direct voice in the
31
production of data” while respecting the agency of the child as active creator and cocreator of culture. Researchers may use ethnography to achieve various research goals,
including the elicitation of cultural knowledge, and the understanding of social
interactions and meaning-making (Buchbinder, Longhofer, Barrett, Lawson, &
Floersch, 2006; Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983, 2007). Buchbinder et al (2006) notes
that:
Ethnographic methods are complementary to child care research for several
reasons. First, ethnography fosters an intimate rapport between the researcher
and the researched that differs markedly from other research relationships,
allowing researchers to access the long removed world of childhood from an
insider’s perspective. (p. 45)
It is precisely that sort of intimacy and rapport in relationship which often
exists between teacher in early childhood classrooms and children. This type of
engaged, reflexive participant observation is a hallmark of ethnographic studies and
offers researchers the opportunities to capture the critical transition periods that shape
processes of human development (Corsaro, 1996; Peak, 1989; Rosier & Corsaro,
1993).
Ethnography supports a Vygotskian viewpoint of culture as formative agent.
Weisner (2002) argues that developmental pathways are shaped by the cultural
underpinnings of daily life. It is through observation and reflexive consideration of
these activities that one can begin to see patterns in the social and emotional worlds of
children. In research specifically concerned with the content and context of private
32
speech, paramount is my ability (as researcher) to engage with participants intimately
rather than merely assessing them (Weisner, 1996).
Ethnography allows me to honor children as cultural experts, letting them
show me “what they are thinking” while remaining grounded in a theoretical
understanding of development that allows for an inner life, and makes explicit the link
between internal emotions and the external behaviors through which they are
communicated (Longhofer et al., 2004).
Review of relevant methodologies used in studies of private speech
Conversations between and with children can hardly be described as a “rarely
studied” phenomenon. Even within the smaller scope of private speech of children
within school settings, the verbal utterances of children have been a subject of interest
in the past two decades. Of particular note has been the work of Adam Winsler
studying the production of private speech in a variety of more naturalistic (home or
child care) settings and utilizing distinct test groups of children. Winsler has focused
on the self regulation of children as guided by their private speech production,
building on the research done previously by other researchers of Vygotskian theory.
Winsler, Manfra & Diaz (2007) conducted a study by which seventy-five
children were recruited from a fairly large sample of child care centers in order to
ascertain the effect of teacher behavior on the production of private speech.
Furthermore, the researchers were curious as to whether the encouragement of private
speech by the teacher affected the behavior and outcomes of the children within the
classroom, with especially on children designated behaviorally “at risk.” Winsler et al.
(2007) found that, indeed, the children deemed “at risk” produced more private speech
33
and ultimately performed just as well as the control group of children. Furthermore,
the researchers found that both groups of children performed better when told,
specifically, by the teachers to engage in conversation. This finding mirrored that of
Lee (1999) who found that explicitly telling children to engage in speech during a task
increased positive outcomes on their performance.
Lee (1999) divided thirty five-year-old children into two specific groups; those
“encouraged” to use private speech through an “encouraging private speech condition”
and those “discouraged” by being inhibited from using private speech during the
experiment (p. 45). Within Lee’s research, the children were taken outside their
preschool classrooms and tested by an unfamiliar adult using one of two problem
solving scenarios. In one condition, the children were specifically told to engage in
private speech: “Some children like to talk aloud while they play this game. I would
like you to try that. You can talk aloud and say whatever you want to say while you
work. Do you understand? Try to use your words” (Lee, 1999, p. 57). The children
within the “discouraged” group were given this instruction: “I don’t want you to talk
aloud while playing this game. Don’t say anything. Not even to yourself. Do you
understand? It’s best if you do not use your words” (Lee, 1999, p. 57). Furthermore, if
children in the “discouraged” group began to engage in private speech despite the
verbal directions given, the adult would touch them and say, “I don’t want you to talk
aloud while you are working on this. Please try not to use your words, okay?” (Lee,
1999, p. 58).
While Lee’s data offers evidence that children will engage in private speech
with encouragement, it raises the question of whether the presence of the unfamiliar
34
adult using forbidding language was the more motivating inhibitor to the test subjects,
rather than the complexity of the problem to be solved.
Preece (1986) studied the spontaneous conversations of three young children
occurring during carpool driving time over the course of 18 months. She found that a
significant portion of the narratives and conversations were collaboratively
constructed by the three individuals. Also of note was the absence of adult
intervention or direction in the conversations, as opposed to the children in Lee’s
(1999) study. The children in this study were observed while talking about topics that
interested them. This allowed the researcher to learn a great deal more about the
natural progression and narrative structure of the conversations of a group of friends
than if she had merely interviewed each child and requested that they tell her a story.
In comparing these two studies, the research methodology of adult intervention
into the conversations of children is highlighted. Other studies have focused on the
type of setting as a factor in the production of private speech.
Winsler, DeLeon, Wallace, Carlton and Willson-Quayle (2003) looked at
tracking the incidence of private speech in lab, home and school settings, repeating the
same two psychometric problem solving tasks, within a stable cohort of thirty-two
children. While providing some longitudinal evidence of the arc of private speech
usage in a specific group of children, the researchers also drew some parallels to
private speech and level of reported child behavioral maturity, based on surveys by
teachers and parents. Children who engaged in less specific private speech, or private
speech which was not goal oriented towards solving the presented problem, were
deemed by the adults to have “poorer social skills” (p. 605). While the authors found
35
this to be evidence of the Vygotskian theory surrounding private speech as selfregulation, it is difficult to fully assess what the uses of private speech could have
been serving for those children who seemed “less goal oriented”. Were there messages
being passed along through choices of discussion topics by those children, messages
of which the researchers were simply unaware?
In addition, the reliance of adult surveys on perceived social skills and
behavior presents a thorny question with larger research among and with children. Are
these surveys skewed with a myriad of other confounding factors? Are personality
mismatches between teacher/parent and child reflected back through a survey which
may indicate that the child has poor social skills or is less attentive to the teacher or
parent?
Furthermore, these children were assessed twice within a six month period. Is
it possible that the self-talk of the children, embedded within the more routine
interactions of day-to-day life in the classroom, was providing a much richer social
tapestry unseen by observers with so little knowledge of the child culture of the
group?
A number of studies have been conducted over the years to ascertain if factors
such as age of child, location of child (home setting versus laboratory setting),
maternal belief systems and parenting styles, and type of child care program in which
the child enrolled affect the production of private speech.
Winsler, Carlton & Barry (2000) found that the age of child seemed to affect
the production and quality of private speech in preschool children. Using a
Vygotskian lens, researchers hypothesized that as children mature from age three to
36
age four, they would produce more goal-directed private speech under the guise of
beginning to use private speech as a self-regulation and problem solving tool. Unlike
many other studies, this study did take place within the context of the child’s
classroom using naturalistic observations, and not in an unfamiliar lab setting.
Of particular interest were Winsler, Carton & Barry’s (2000) findings that:
Most four-year-old children's private speech occurred during the tacitly
structured, self-selected activity classroom setting, whereas three-year-old
children's self-talk was more evenly distributed across the three classroom
contexts. Most four-year-old private speech occurred during focused, goaldirected activity whereas three-year-old private speech was more equally likely
to appear during either goal-directed or unfocused activities. The majority of
four-year-old children's private speech occurred in the context of sustained
activity, whereas three-year-old private speech was more equally likely to
occur during either sustained or rapidly changing activities. (p. 680)
The researchers can see that something is occurring between the ages of three
and four in the quality and focus of private speech in preschool aged children, yet they
are unsure exactly what, how or why this change is occurring.
Patrick and Abravanel (2000) focused on the self regulatory nature of
children’s private speech within their homes, using naturalistic observations. Twentyfive children, aged four-and-a-half through six years, were asked to perform three
tasks with the testing being performed at their home. An audio cassette player was
provided to the children with taped instructions as to how to proceed. The examiner
would leave the room, with instructions to call for the examiner when the child had
37
completed the tasks. The rationale for having the adult leave the room is connected to
findings that show that children produce less private speech in the presence of a
teacher (Winsler, Barry, & Carlton, 2000).
Winsler, Feder, Way and Manfa (2006) investigated the beliefs of forty-eight
mothers regarding the use and frequency of private speech. Using interviews in a lab
setting during which the children were participating in a separate private speech task,
the mothers were interviewed as to their views about their child’s use of private
speech. The mothers then self completed a survey regarding their parenting style.
Results indicated that a majority of the mothers, ninety-one percent, believed that
private speech was helpful to their child in play.
Kraft and Berk (1998) studied whether the incidences of private speech were
affected by the type of preschool program and activity in which the child was engaged.
They found that the incidence of private speech was closely associated with dramatic
play and open-ended activity time. Children, aged three to five, enrolled in the
Montessori program engaged in private speech less often than their counterparts in the
traditional play based program. The researchers hypothesized that the emphasis on
close-ended activities with direct adult involvement that are characteristic of a
Montessori classroom, such as puzzle solving, seemed to affect the amount of private
speech those children produced. Kraft and Berk (1998) found children in the
traditional play based program produced about fifty percent more incidences of private
speech during the open-ended activity time, with the majority being produced in
dramatic play, without direct teacher/adult involvement.
38
The Kraft and Berk (1998) study draws attention to the question of context for
the production of private speech. The authors ask: “Why did children engage in
private speech less during closed ended problem solving tasks (or that which is
traditionally thought of as more academic and regulatory) than their peers engaging in
open ended dramatic play?”(Kraft & Berk, 1998, p. 653). The authors posited that
perhaps because dramatic play was an arena “rich in young children’s use of self
directed language to master their own thought and behavior” it provided a scenario
closer to that of sociocultural learning, as opposed to laboratory based problemsolving (Kraft & Berk, 1998, p. 655).
Furthermore, children who engaged in the close-ended activities with direct
adult involvement were more likely to be participating in what I think of as a “closed
loop” problem to be solved. The adult was providing specific verbal and/or non verbal
cues as to what the expected outcome of the activity should be; the solved puzzle or
other activity to be completed. The regulatory factors inherent within those activities
do not call for children to apply any social knowledge to the situation.
Kraft and Berk (1998) also concluded that the lack of time spent in dramatic
play, time spent in transitions between activities, and the regulatory role of the
teachers in the Montessori classroom all played a role in the decreased private speech
found in the Montessori classroom. They also suggested that the children had grown
overly familiar with the materials and cognitive challenges presented by the
environment, and as such, perhaps did not need to engage in any private speech to
work through problems.
39
This finding suggests that the zone of proximal development, as described by
Vygotsky (1934/1978), may play a part as to the occurrence of private speech in
young children. If children are not being stimulated by the surroundings, materials or
peers, they will not cognitively engage “the distance between the actual developmental
level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential
development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in
collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1934/1978, p. 86).
Children’s boredom with materials and routine would indicate the need for
careful balance and observation by the adults in the classroom as to the skills that had
been mastered, as well as skills which needed extension.
Kraft and Berk (1998) specifically cited a lack of dramatic play opportunities
in the Montessori classroom as a possible reason for the lack of private speech
generated by the children.
Elias and Berk (2002) investigated whether or not children who engaged in
dramatic play showed increased self regulation skills over time. While the findings
supported the overall theory that the opportunity to engage in dramatic play had
benefits for all children but particularly those labeled as “impulsive,” the study was
limited to two observation times over the course of several months, as well as relying
on teacher and parent ratings to identify children as “impulsive”.
Very recently, an article in Scientific American Mind grabbed the attention of
media outlets its headline, “The Death of Preschool” (Tullis, 2011). Research findings
cited that children who received direct adult instruction in the use of a novel toy used
that toy as instructed. In contrast, the group who did not receive adult instruction were
40
able to find additional uses of the toy, but solved the problem in a more “efficient”
manner (Tullis, 2011). Within both research studies cited in the article (Bonawitz et
al., 2011; Buschbaum et al., 2011), one common connection remained: children who
are left on their own will discover faster, better and more uses for an object than those
receiving direct instruction from an adult. Neither research study was designed to
capture how children might work together, or if they were influenced by peers, nor if
they produced any private speech while solving the task. Demographic and
background knowledge of the recruited children such as whether they attended
particular types of preschools, or had experience in solving more open ended problems
in their day-to-day lives was not collected by the researchers.
Such studies, and others like them, nevertheless point to the natural
competence that children bring with them as they encounter problems in the world.
Within these two studies, adult instruction proved to be a hindrance. While the type of
adult direct instruction likely did not resemble what we would recognize as
“scaffolding” in Vygotskian theory, it does point to a potential conundrum in the
larger research done with adult-child dyads. In our anxiousness to help, do adults
unknowingly hinder some potential cognitive achievements for children? Did the
children in these studies engage in any private speech as they tackled the novel toy
problem? If so, what might we have gleaned from that speech? Would the solutions
have been richer and more varied if children had worked in teams?
Absent from all the reviewed research discussed in this chapter remains
questions beyond the “if”, “when” and “how” of the productions of private speech in
young children. Research has shown that children do produce private speech.
41
Research has further shown that children produce more private speech when in the
presence of peers and that a classroom in which talk is encouraged seems to enhance
the production of that private speech. Vygotsky’s theory regarding private speech as
being purely a self regulatory tool is merely a starting place for research exploration.
The primary research focus has remained on the functionality of private speech in the
discrete; self regulatory behaviors as a signal of cognitive development. The
assumption that “social speech” is immature and “inner speech” is cognitively superior
remains intact. Researchers may be missing the forest for the trees.
Discourse analysis and Bakhtin
Central to my theoretical exploration of Vygosky has been the work of M.M
Bakhtin (1981, 1986). His work in the definition and exploration of language and
discourse analysis may, at first glance, seem an unlikely companion to research in
early childhood classrooms. The ideas and theories he developed have intriguing
similarities to the philosophy of Vygotsky and the notion of speech as a public
performance (Bakhtin, 1981). This natural synergy has been explored by other
researchers.
Lynn E. Cohen (2009) has utilized Bakhtinian discourse analysis in her
examination of three to five-year-old preschoolers’ talk during block play and
dramatic play. Cohen (2007) has specifically explored the notion of “heteroglossia” or
“multi-voicedness” (Bakhtin, 1986) present in children’s dramatic play. In both
studies, her research points to the rich and varied ways in which Bakhtin’s theories on
the nature of the “utterance” as the unit of analysis can be particularly useful in
examining the conversations of young children while framing that play through the
42
sociocultural theories of Vygotsky. Furthermore, in Cohen’s research, she
unknowingly skates to the edge of considering the use of private speech as
fundamentally social through her investigation of “hidden dialogicality”. Cohen
(2009) writes: “Hidden dialogicality is characterized by an invisible speaker; it is a
child’s self-talk or inner speech” (p. 36).
Wertsch (1991b) provides an extremely thorough investigation of the
intersections between Bakhtin and Vygotsky in his book, Voices of the Mind: A
Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action. Wertsch (1991b) describes Bakhtin’s
notion of inseparability of culture from the dialogicality between utterances, using
“referential perspective” (Wertsch, 1980), intermingling language and speaking
between the zone of inter and intrapersonal relationships. Wertsch makes a strong case
that while no evidence exists directly linking the educational theories of Vygotsky and
the dialogic and discourse theories of Bakhtin, there are intriguing “similarities and
complementarities that seem to have arisen because of issues that were generally “in
the air” at the time they were writing” (p. 105).
Those similarities are welcome coincidence to researchers seeking to
understand the discourse and development of young children.
Ethical considerations and limitations in conducting research with young
children
While children are acknowledged as having specific rights within the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989), they still remain a “vulnerable
population” as defined by Institutional Review Boards. As such, permission was
sought and gained from the adults (gatekeepers) responsible for the legal care of any
43
child prior to the entry into the classroom by the researcher. When conducting
research with children, it is not be enough for the teacher and administration to give
approval to the researcher; individual parental consent must also be obtained.
Furthermore, the researcher planned to meet with the children at a convenient time as
designated by the teacher prior to the beginning of the project to discuss what she is
doing in the classroom and why. This modeled the researchers’ commitment to open
communication and respect for the child participants as competent, social beings
(Alderson, 2005, 2004; Fraser, Lewis, Ding, Kellett & Robinson, 2004; Holt, 2004).
No child was asked to participate in a way he/she did not wish, nor was there any
bearing on his/her experience within the classroom. Furthermore, the researcher
became a “privileged” observer, and as such respected a child’s wish to not be
photographed, audio taped or otherwise recorded at any point of the research project.
Research Goals:
Within my research, I integrate the theory of private speech more fully into the
sociocultural theories of Vygotsky. Private speech may, indeed, be a tool of self
regulation in some instances. However, the content and context of any private speech
should be examined to see if the speech contains information aimed at others in the
social group. I contend that private speech does not indicate the last stop on the way
from social speech to internalized problem solving. I would also propose extending the
research limits beyond the disciplines of developmental and educational psychologies,
within which nearly all of this prior research has been performed, to include early
childhood education and teacher action research.
44
Summary of chapter 2
In this chapter, I have reviewed research methodologies used in research with
children from both historical and contemporary perspectives. I have also reviewed the
research regarding private speech, as well as the responsibilities of the research
regarding the ethical implications of conducting research with young children.
In the next chapter, I will discuss the ethnographically influenced methodology
utilized in the field as well as document the recruitment and entry into the research
classroom.
45
Chapter 3 - In the Field: Methodological Design and Decisions
Looking for a research home
In hindsight, I am not sure why I thought finding a research site would be an
“easy” part of the doctoral research. From my experiences as a teacher and director in
early childhood, I know that “outsiders” can be viewed as a threat, particularly if
perceived as agents of criticism and judgment. When requesting, in the formalized
language required in academia, to enter a classroom in a centre where you are not a
“known” quantity, the barriers are raised even higher. This, I have come to learn, is
one of the most difficult stages of much research conducted in naturalistic settings.
It was nevertheless with considerable optimism that I began approaching early
child care centres with my research in October. This turned to anguish by mid
November when I still had not yet found a partner classroom for my research.
The reasons were varied. For many child care centres, language was a barrier.
The Waldorf School I approached loved my proposal but taught entirely in unilingual
French. Other schools, while having a bilingual philosophy in writing, had teachers
and administrators who spoke only French. While it is difficult to know if the teachers
had even been approached with the research project, it was clear that the
administrative gatekeepers were not willing to meet to speak about collaboration.
It was then that I turned to my supervisor with the idea that I may have to drive
to Vermont to find a centre for collaboration. It was my hope that my credentials as a
member of NAEYC and former Validator for accreditation of early childhood
programs could translate to a more “known” and therefore less threatening quantity.
46
While the drive from Montreal to Vermont would have proven onerous, particularly in
the winter months, it was preferable to being delayed a year in my research.
Dr. Strong-Wilson advised me to wait, as she had a student who was an
administrator in a program which might prove be a good fit. She would approach the
student and ask if she and her centre may be interested in participating in my research.
If she expressed interest, then she would facilitate our connection and hopefully a
partnership could be established.
The research site
Within two weeks, I was meeting with the two administrators of the child care
centre in which my research would find a home. In our initial meeting, I reviewed the
research proposal with both Directors, explaining the basic premise behind my time in
the classroom. I would be there to observe the children, disturbing them as little as
possible. This philosophy extended to the teachers as well. I was not coming to judge
or critique the teachers, but rather to listen and make sense of the social life of the
classroom through the lens of my research focus: Vygotsky’s theory of private speech,
and my idea that it was based in social communication rather than being a cognitive
self regulatory tool.
In this task I felt small. How to explain the idea without resorting to the thick
and, at times, impenetrable language of semiotics and all that goes with Vygotsky and
Bakhtin? I felt out of practice in translating research and theory to everyday language
and it took me a full forty minutes before I could feel the skill returning to my brain.
The administrators smiled, nodded and encouraged me as I tried to explain the scope
of the proposed research. By the end of the meeting, they agreed to approach some of
47
their teachers about hosting me in their classrooms, but I am not entirely sure I had
adequately conveyed exactly what I meant to do, let alone the theory I was attempting
to explore.
My next meeting at the centre was with the one set of team teachers who
agreed to meet with me and hear my research plan. I was to come in the afternoon,
after the children had woken from nap. Expecting to meet with the teachers outside of
the classroom, in a conference room perhaps, I arrived and was escorted to the
classroom and introduced to the teachers.
This sudden immersion jolted me. In my years of Ph.D. studentship, I had lost
touch with the realities of life in early childhood classrooms. Teachers of young
children rarely have the luxury of meetings outside of classrooms I suddenly
remembered. I needed to make my case amidst the roiling needs and flow of a group
of four and five year olds engaged in an afternoon.
The children watched me, an unknown adult. I was not a parent. I was not a
teacher with whom they were familiar. I noted the side glances as I shyly followed the
English speaking teacher around, explaining what I wanted to do as a guest in their
classroom.
The class went to the gym, and so I followed, feeling even more lost and
overwhelmed. It was a large facility, and there were elevators and doors and stairs to
be managed. No child wanted to hold my hand, so I trailed behind, making sure doors
were closed and all children were accounted for during the transport.
48
At the gym, I continued to try to explain what I wanted to do: how I wanted to
listen to the children; how I would use the recorders in my bag to capture the
conversations and transcribe them; how what I wanted to hear was the private speech
of the children in the context of their lives in the classroom. I gave thumbnail
explanations of both Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories of private speech as a way to
explain my proposal that private speech serves a social function, as verbal mortar
between children.
I struggled with the feeling that my explanation was thick and obtuse, filled
with cross concepts that did not lie easily together as I tried to pare off assumptions
and ideas accumulated over years of thought and teaching about child development.
I showed the teacher the small digital voice recorders I’d purchased for my
research. They were hardy, designed for ethnographic research and the rigors of being
in a classroom. I explained that the children would invariably be fascinated with the
recorders and would be welcome to touch and otherwise tote them around. I knew
from my previous research experiences that they would turn the recorders off. The
recorders would be moved by the children from one area to another; the children
would place them in pockets and hide them behind backs. They would sing and
perform for them.
All of this, I assured the teacher, was fine. I expected this. I knew that before
children could accept something or someone as part of their environment that they
must know everything they need to know about that person or object. I would not fret
over possible damage. My years inside classrooms had taught me that damage
happens; it is part of the learning experience for adults and children.
49
The teacher with whom I was speaking was an Anglophone. She translated an
explanation to the second teacher in the classroom who was a Francophone. Since my
spoken French skills were negligible, I stood and tried to follow the translation of my
translation of a translation of Vygotsky; an ever expanding pool of meanings.
As the English-speaking teacher showed her French-speaking counterpart the
recorders, a snap decision was made to invite me to conduct a circle with the children
after gym to explain to them what I wanted to do in the classroom and to display the
equipment.
Ten minutes prior, I was unsure if the teachers were willing to participate and
suddenly I was being asked to present my project and equipment to the children in the
room.
Small waves of panic began to ripple through my awareness. I had not yet
prepared to explain my intent to the children, after all. I wasn’t entirely sure that I had
explained sufficiently to the teachers, and now I was presenting myself, a stranger, to
the children in the room.
As I walked back to the room, I instinctively stopped at the door and removed
my shoes; a habit from my many years of caring for infants and toddlers. One never
wore outdoor shoes into the classroom, especially in the winter, for you would
invariably track salt and grit into the room. As an infant caregiver, I was perpetually
watching for the things that would get popped into an infant and toddler mouth. As the
years passed, my habit of never wearing outdoor shoes inside classrooms persisted and
as I walked into the classroom in my socks; one child asked – pointedly – “Where are
your shoes?”
50
“Oh.”, I said. “I don’t want to get dirt in your classroom, so I always take off
my shoes.” The quizzical look from the child did not abate. I was now an odd adult, in
socks, standing awkwardly in their classroom.
As the teachers called the children to circle, I sat down on the rug; another
lifelong habit as a teacher in early childhood. The children, now in an intimidating
group of 16, stared at me some more. As the teachers brought over chairs for
themselves to sit on, I realized that I had just made myself more noticeable by sitting
on the floor. The odd, shoeless adult was now sitting on the floor with them as their
teachers sat in chairs nearby.
I wish I could say that my explanation went smoothly, but in truth, I don’t
believe it did. I hadn’t prepared the recorders, so they were without power and I was
unable to demonstrate the recording and playback functions. The language I used to
describe what I wanted to do was not language with which they were familiar, so my
talk about their “conversations” left them a bit confused.
The children were, however, intrigued with the recorders. With the answer to
“Can we touch them?” being “Absolutely!” I could see that the mind of every child
present imagining playing with the new equipment.
As I cleaned up my equipment, I turned to the English speaking teacher. “So,
you’ll be back tomorrow?” she asked.
“OK”, I answered, and a research site was found.
51
History of research site
The child care centre has a long and impressive history of being responsive to
their community, as evidenced from the following archival information:1
In the early 1970’s, the Garderie, as it was then called, offered childcare to
approximately 60 children, accommodating first and foremost, children from
newly immigrant families.
In 1974, the childcare services moved to the Community Centre as its rapidly
expanding services were in need of more space. In 1978, the Office des
Services de Garde à l’Enfance (OSGE) issued a permit for the care of 98
children in the new location and the increased spaces in childcare service
responded well to the needs of working and/or single parents.
As the demand for childcare spaces continued from the community, an
additional 37 places were acquired in 1983. At 135 children in the same
premises, the Centre was the largest facility for pre-school aged children in this
Jewish community.
During the early 1990’s, children from Ethiopian families and from families of
the former Soviet Union were referred by Jewish immigrant Aid Services (now
known as Agence Ometz) and the Centre received them wholeheartedly. Other
referrals continued from a number of community organizations and the local
CLSC (Centre Local de Services Communautaires).
1
Certain identifying information has been disguised to protect the identity of the child
care centre.
52
In 1997, upon introduction of the $5 per day government funded program, the
Centre asked for an increase in the number of childcare spaces and 43 new
spaces were allocated by the Ministry of the Family, and a newly constructed
adjacent facility would house 80 of the 178 children of the centre in the fall of
2000. (CPE CCJ, Personal Communication, February, 2012)
Site description
The child care centre which would become my research “home” was located
within the city of Montreal, Quebec.
The neighborhood in which the child care centre is nested consists of a mix of
single family homes and apartment buildings. While many of the surrounding
neighborhoods identify as “Jewish,” with synagogues, religious schools and
businesses catering to adherents to the Jewish faith, there is a lively mixture of races,
ethnicities and cultures living side by side.
A majority of the children arrived to school via private transportation, although
there was ample public transport located nearby. I witnessed city buses dropping off
passengers nearby, and there were bus stops located outside the building that housed
the child care. There were also two metro (subway) stations located within walking
distance of the centre.
The child care centre was located within a larger building which houses a
Jewish Community Centre. In order to reach the child care centre, you must enter
through the main entrance and reception area. A small café was located within this
area, and it was common to see people sitting with a cup of coffee and reading or
53
talking with friends. In addition, one of the exercise classes was visible from this
entrance, and it was not uncommon to see bicycle spin classes occurring when I
entered the building. On Friday mornings, a local bakery had tables set up selling
Challah, bread used for Jewish Sabbath celebrations.
Once you passed the reception area, visitors must walk up a flight of stairs to
come to the child care. The doors are pass key protected, and individuals without a
pass key must request access through a buzzer and camera system.
Upon entry to the centre, the offices of the Director and secretary were located
directly to the left. I would frequently observe parents chatting with the Director or
other parents in this reception area. The wing in which I was observing consisted of
six classrooms of three-four-and five-year-old children. The long hallway was lined
with wooden cubbies to house coats, boots and other things from home. The hallway
was often noisy and active, with families helping their child transition out of outdoor
clothing and greeting other parents, teachers and children.
Bathrooms were located in the middle of this long hallway, so at any given point in the
day additional children would pop out of classrooms and run down the hall to the
bathrooms. For anyone who has worked and lived in the maelstrom of activity and
noise that is life in a child care centre, it was a familiar and comforting level of
activity.
Participants
Following the initial meeting with the child care directors, the directors meet
with the individual sets of classroom teaching teams to gauge interest in their
54
participation in research. One classroom expressed interest. It was in this classroom
that the research was conducted.
The participants in the research classroom were a group of pre-kindergarten
children, age four-and-a-half to five-years during the time of the inquiry. While the
total classroom group consisted of six boys and eleven girls, the families of two boys
elected to decline to consent in participation of the research, leaving the final inquiry
group at four boys and eleven girls. It should be noted that one boy and one girl were
not present in the classroom for a majority of the time the research was conducted.
These children, Benjamin and Arella, were overseas visiting relatives and only
returned during the last two weeks of the inquiry period.
Two full time teachers led the classroom. One teacher, Julia, taught primarily
in French, while the Elaine taught in English. This was, however, not exclusive, as
both teachers could and did switch between languages as needed during conversation
and instruction.
All participants, adult and child, were assigned pseudonyms for the purposes of
this research.
Children
Of the total group of fifteen participating children, thirteen had one or more
siblings. Two children, both girls, were ‘only’ children. One child lived in a single
parent household while the other fourteen children were living in intact two-parent
family units. There were no known or diagnosed disabilities among the children
participants.
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While all of the children in this classroom identified as Jewish, religion was
not a requirement for admission to the centre. Religion did, however, heavily permeate
the curriculum. During the time the research was ongoing, the children celebrated
Hannukah, Tu B’Shevat and Purim. Dramatic play often featured discussions of
Shabbat dinner and making challah. Shared religion provided a common language
within the classroom, grounding the adults and children in a rhythm which tied
together individual family customs and practices.
It must be noted that the children in this classroom spoke French, Hebrew and
English with fluency, a situation not uncommon in the multilingual setting of
Montreal. Two children spoke Russian in addition to the three previously mentioned
languages. All children, despite coming from families who may have primarily spoken
one of these languages at home, were often observed to engage in “code switching”
(Genesee, 2007; Genesee & Nicoladis, 2006) during conversation and play, rapidly
switching from one language to another. This code-switching was facilitated by the
two teachers, who regularly spoke both languages in the classroom; often repeating
what one said by the other to insure that the children had the opportunity to hear
phrases in either language (Genesee, 2007).
The children at the participating child care centre were grouped in classrooms
by age, and this particular class had been together since approximately age 2 years.
While this was not known prior to my entering the site, it came to be an ongoing
question I refer to during the course of my observations, field notes and research
journal: “Is the amount of time they have been together as a group (of children) impact
how much/little they need to engage in private speech?” (Field note, Jan 11, 2012).
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Parents of Children
Parental permission was sought by the researcher prior to entry in the
classroom. The parents were aware of my presence, and often greeted me during pick
up or drop off times. One parent remarked to me that her daughter told her of the new
“teacher” in the room who “listened to and recorded them” (Field note, December 9,
2011).
While my interaction with parents was limited, I observed a great deal of
conversation between parents and teachers at the centre. I frequently observed warm
greetings between the classroom teachers and families, including greeting of siblings,
inquiries about extended family and acts of physical affection, such as hugs.
Communication with families indicate evidenced of one of the cornerstones of
NAEYC’s Developmentally Appropriate Practice (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009)
indicators of quality; that of establishing reciprocal relationships with families. These
interactions are defined as relationships between teacher and parents in which
“teachers actively work to create a partnership with each family, communicating
regularly to build mutual understanding and trust and to ensure that children’s learning
and developmental needs are met” (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009, p.182).
During my time at the centre, parents could be observed talking at length
outside the classrooms to parents of children in the research classroom as well as
parents of children in the other classrooms. As many families have multiple children
who attend the centre, there appeared to be a rich crosspollination of conversations
which extended beyond the sphere of the research classroom.
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Classroom teachers
Elaine had been teaching for thirty-three years at this child care centre.
Although this was her first year with this age group, she had a wealth of teaching
experience with a wide variety of ages. She spoke both French and English and would
often explain ideas to the children in both languages.
Julia had been teaching for thirty years. She had spent all of those years
teaching four and five-year-olds, with the exception being last year when she taught
three year olds. She was primarily a French speaker.
While the teachers played a crucial role in supporting the research within the
classroom, they were not the primary focus of the research. However, their supportive
role in creating a play-based environment was central and will be addressed in the
discussion portion of this dissertation.
Classroom Description
The classroom in which my research took place was located at the end of the
long hallway. I would make my way past all of the children, parents and cubbies to
climb three small steps and arrive at my destination.
In many ways, the classroom was what I would expect to find in many
preschool classrooms. The room was large and bright, with a wall of windows that let
in a great deal of natural light. The furniture was child sized, mostly wooden, and
fairly new. There was a wall of cupboards to which the children had access, and that
held a variety of manipulative; puzzles, building toys, games and other items that the
children could choose from and bring to a table or the rug (See Figures 3-1, 3-2).
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Figure 3 -1 Art area in classroom
Figure 3-2 Art area after a busy morning
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In addition to a well stocked art area, there were designated areas for Block
play (see Figure 3-3), Dramatic play (called the “dolly corner” by the children), a
Lego Table and a rug which was used for Circle and for extending play of various
types outside the designated areas. The rug area also housed a small couch and book
area which received a new bookshelf during my time in the classroom (see Figure 34). The children could use the multipurpose tables in the classroom to play games,
such as memory games, or use the doll house when they were not eating meals or
involved in projects work as presented by the teachers. There was also a computer
which was available and occasionally chosen for play.
Figure 3-3 Block area
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Figure 3-4 Edge of reading area, abutting dramatic play
Data Gathering:
Data was collected from December 2011 through February 2012. Fourteen site
visits resulted in 48 total hours of observation time. Site visits lasted from two to four
hours, with the average visit being 2.5 hours. Visits were arranged for both morning
(8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.) and afternoon (2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.) time periods. The
children napped from 12:30 p.m. until 2:30 p.m. and thus were never observed during
that time. Additionally, the centre closed at 2:30 p.m. on Fridays, so no Friday
afternoon visits occurred.
This flexible site visit schedule was chosen specifically to encourage
observation validity (Carspecken, 1996). The number of visits over three months
points to my “prolonged engagement” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) in the site, allowing
the children to become accustomed to my presence in the classroom. Repeated and
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varied site visitation times and days were also designed to acclimate the children the
presence of myself and my audio recorders. This acclimation aimed to encourage the
children to see me as a routine part of their classroom rather than a special visitor. The
goal of this acclimation was to guard against any “Hawthorn effect”, or change in the
children’s behavior as a result of my presence in the classroom (Adair, 1984).
While my research ethics proposal allowed for the possibility of videotaping,
the parents of the children overwhelmingly rejected that as an option. Therefore, I only
audio recorded the children during site visits using two small TASCAM digital audio
recorders manufactured and marketed to researchers. Using more than one recorder
assisted in data validity as well, by providing multiple points of view not accessible to
one researcher focused on one aspect of classroom life (Carspecken, 1996).
The children were aware of the recorders and could turn them on and off.
Subsequently, there may have been data lost due to over taping, erasing or the turning
off of recorders during various observation times. One boy, in particular, was
extremely concerned with returning the recorders to me if he noticed them during his
play.
As I expected, the children were initially fascinated with the recorders. During
my introduction to the classroom, I had expressly given them permission to handle the
recorders , and they wholeheartedly embraced that mandate. Several of the first audio
taped observations included individuals singing into the recorders, arguing over who
was going to hold the recorders, and figuring out how they worked. I would
frequently be approached and asked to play back the recordings so the children could
hear what they had just recorded.
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In less than a week, the fascination subsided, and the recorders would often be
ignored as I placed them in various locations in the classroom. In several photographs,
the children are playing directly beside the audio recorders with no notice being given
to their presence (see Figure 3-5). By December 8th, I observed: “By today, nearly no
one tried to take the recorders and I only had one instance of the recorder being turned
to pause. A vast improvement from earlier - when I erased about 12 files per recorder
that were either nothing, or 2 seconds of the tape being turned off and on” (Research
Journal, December 8, 2011). Shortly afterwards, I noted that even my presence had
become familiar: “I do notice that I am less interesting in the classroom, and their
conversations don't stop when they notice that I am nearby, or even when I move the
recorders.” (Research Journal, December 21, 2011).
Figure 3 -5 Children working at Lego, audio recorder on table
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My decision to allow the children to engage with the recorders was two-fold.
As I aimed to capture private speech within the natural flow of the classroom, it was
necessary to integrate the presence of the audio recorders as part of the children’s
classroom experience. Furthermore, it was crucial to allow the children to explore the
recorders in order to lessen the power differential between adult researcher and child
participant (Angrosino & Perez, 2000; Aubrey, David, Godfrey & Thompson, 2000).
During every site visit, I recorded field notes in a black hard-backed notebook.
As a seasoned teacher in early childhood classrooms, recording and observing were
daily parts of my practice so this routine felt entirely natural (Jablon, Dombro &
Dichtelmiller, 2007). My field notes, often scribbled and parsed, were intended to give
me later insight into who was participating in various play areas, or to jot down
impressions of scenes. I was not attempting to do a word for word reconstruction of
any given conversation, as I was utilizing the audio recorders for that purpose.
Within my own field notes lay the acknowledgement, continually, of my role
as both adult interpreter and classroom outsider. I frequently used words and terms
like “I wonder,” or simple “???” to indicate pauses in my note taking, places where I
felt unsure or acknowledged gaps in my knowledge. In later field notes, I fleshed out
questions more fully while observing: “What does this (referential) looking mean?”
(Field note, January 12, 2012) or “She insists she can’t draw. That is puzzling!” (Field
note, January 26, 2012). These pauses in the field notes became places that I later
explored more fully in my research journal. While these questions were often not
seemingly directly related to the research question, they often provided me with
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alternate ways to consider an individual child’s development in the context of the
whole of the classroom.
Depending on the intensity and breadth of the children’s play, I would station
myself in various parts of the room. My goal was to fold myself into spaces in which I
could observe, yet not interfere with the flow of the children’s play and conversation.
On some days I was more successful than others, and more than once I had to quickly
reconfigure myself to make room for play that spilled into other areas of the
classroom. The children’s increasing non-notice of me being inside their play areas
signaled to me that they had, for the most part, accepted my presence as part of their
day to day life in the classroom.
The one notable exception came in the form of Maya who, without fail, asked
me every day what I was doing when I would arrive in the play spaces. She would
then turn back to what she was doing, but I acknowledged her daily question as a
means by which she was letting me know that she was aware of me behaving in a way
that she did not anticipate adults to behave in the classroom: “You can hear Maya ask
me what I am doing – I laugh when typing this – She does this every time, for the entire time I
am in the classroom. Everyone else ignores me, but Maya ALWAYS asks” (Audio
transcription, December 7th, 2011). Once I responded to her question, she would return to
her play and pay me no more attention.
After a site visit, I would review my field notes and write any questions or
thoughts in my research journal. As I am a long time blogger, I configured my
research journal as a “locked” blog. This insured the confidentiality of the materials by
limiting access to only myself and my supervisor as well as provided me with a
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platform for my thoughts that was both familiar and easily accessible. Additionally, I
would transfer any photographs I had taken during that visit into the blog, making any
notes about who and what were being portrayed in the image.
Transcription of audio recorders
While every effort was made to transcribe the collected audio files as close as
possible to the site visit date, it became nearly impossible to keep up with transcription
on a daily basis. As such, some audio files labeled by date and often by scene and
child in scene waited until February 2012 to be fully transcribed.
In some ways, this became a strength of the data, allowing me to use the
additional knowledge gained by my time in the classroom to better understand the
conversations and utterances of the children. I also became better attuned to voice and
vocal intonation, allowing me to accurately identify who was participating in each
recorded episode. My field notes became invaluable as a way to double back and
check that I was identifying the correct child in the correct context.
Nearly every audio file reflects the bilingual nature of the classroom, with
children moving between English and French with no hesitation. As a person with
limited French written skills, this occasionally gave me pause. While I could often
understand what was being said, in context, I was not proficient enough to transcribe
in the French language. In those instances, I made notes that the discussion was
occurring in French: “Alex asks Zach (in French) if he wants Jonah to play with them.
Zach is fairly non-committal. Alex designates the “bad guys” and Zach and Jonah
agree – The big spider is a good guy, and the dragon is a daddy” (Transcription,
December 7, 2011).
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The transcriptions reveal far more than the individual occurrences of private
speech within the classroom. They became a rich tapestry of movement documenting
play, conversation, arguments and the mundane. It is from this rich social
environment that I began to unpack the data contained within the transcripts (Altheide,
1987; Corsaro, 1997; Chase, 2005).
Blogging as reflexive habit: My research journal
I began my first blog in 2005. I had just finished my Master’s degree, and
began to miss the intense schedule of writing, reflection and interaction with my peers
that being part of a graduate cohort had offered.
That blog became a place I puzzled out not only questions of my professional
identity, but questions surrounding my larger self: mother, wife, sister, daughter,
citizen, and woman. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was at the cusp of a new wave
of online writing. Blogging became a technology-based way for me to connect with
my now scattered graduate school peers, telling them the stories that would have
previously been shared over lunches and coffee.
This habit of writing was not new. As a teacher, I kept observation and
reflection notebooks on each child assigned to me as primary caregiver and teacher.
Daily, I would write short vignettes about each child in my charge; small observations
about likes or dislikes, achievements or struggles. Beginning language might be
noted, or reminders to ask parents about things I may have noticed but wanted to
discuss in more depth. Once a week I would collate my notes and write an overview, a
kind of grand narrative about that child that week. It was in this way I learned to blend
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observation with recording, using these notes and stories as a means of planning an
intentional curriculum for the children and families I served.
When it came time to start a research journal to reflect on my research field
notes, it felt natural to turn to blogging as a place to find that familiar venue.
In order to maintain the confidentiality of the participants of my research, it
was necessary to set the parameters of the research journal blog quite differently from
those of my personal and openly accessible blog. While my personal blog is
searchable via search engines, my research blog is restricted to the public and requires
a special invitation issued by myself to view any information contained within it.
Following every site visit, I would upload any photographs I had taken during
the visit into the research blog. Brief notes might accompany the photos, noting who
was present, and any other particulars I many have wanted to recall later when doing
the transcription. I would also compose a written an overview of the visit, reviewing
questions that may have arisen after the visit during the drive home or during
transcriptions. I found that I often made linkages after I had done transcriptions and
the full breadth of the classroom conversation and activity had been revealed. This
habit became invaluable once I began analysis of the occurrences of private speech.
The individual threads of data woven together into the research journal afforded me
the opportunity to consider the personalities of the children, as well as the overall
social constructs that were in place during any one occurrence.
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Photographs as data collection method
I can’t recall when I first used the word “documentation” but it became a
cornerstone of a question that I revisited frequently in my career: “How can I
document what I see in my work with young children?”
As a teacher of young children, I knew that photographs could be powerful
totems. When I cared for infants, I asked families to bring in pictures to share on our
wall, at infant eye level, of beloved and familiar people and pets. I used them as a way
to talk with the child about their lives outside the center, as well as a means of
soothing separation anxiety. If, for instance, a child was crying after a difficult
morning separation, bringing the child to a photo and talking about how their mother
would return at the end of the day could create a visual touchstone to remind them that
all was not lost, and she/they would return.
Gathered in a group around the photo wall, we could talk about Moms and
Dads, cats and dogs, grandmothers and grandfathers, sisters and brothers; sharing with
each other the external part of our lives, we created a classroom life together
For young children, it also created a sort of game in which they could
participate in identifying important people in their peers lives or our classroom (see
Figure 3-6), either through recognition of a person in a photograph (i.e., “Where is
Geoffrey’s Mom?”) or by commonality (i.e., “I see that Mary, Ethan and Lilly all have
dogs in their family”).
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Figure 3-6 Shopping Trip (as Mommies) in our classroom, 1995
These things I knew instinctively; that photos can help fill in parts of a story
that can’t quite be articulated, especially for children who are labeled as “pre-verbal”
and that photos tell their own sorts of stories which can connect people not related by
anything else except shared space.
I also took photos in my early years of teaching. Using rolls of film and a fairly
unimpressive camera, I would shoot rolls and rolls of the infants and toddlers at play.
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When the film would arrive from the least expensive mail-developing service I could
find, I would create collages of the images and post them for the infants (and their
families) to reflect on what we were doing in our classroom. For a first time parent,
the photographic evidence that their baby was not only being cared for, but cared for
with tenderness and respect became an invaluable way to build relationships and trust
with “unknown” caregivers. When I look back through those images today, I see
young men and women who are now in undergraduate programs, but who remain
curious babies creating a garden with me in 1992 or infants that I soothed to sleep (see
Figure 3-7).
Figure 3-7 Soothing a fussy infant to sleep, 1992
Photos became a powerful way for me to reflect on my own teaching, and later
as a Director of a child care, they became an indispensable means of showing others
the significance of our work.
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The documentation of the process of children’s work and thinking using
photographs is well documented in the Reggio Emilia schools of Italy (Malaguzzi,
1987; New, 2007). An American “restyling” of the technique can be found through the
“Project Approach” (Katz & Chard, 1989; Helm & Katz, 2001) including the use of
photographs as a way for teachers to document the process of learning with children.
The process of documentation, including the taking of photographs, becomes a
reflexive teaching/learning cycle, enveloping not only the teaching adults in the room,
but the children and parents:
Teachers report that the children become aware of the documentation being
conducted by their teachers, and it is taken by them to mean that their work is
important, worthwhile, respected and valued. Teachers who carefully
document the children’s activities have reported that as they increased the
attention given to documentation, the children became more careful about their
work and more evaluative of their own efforts. (Helm and Katz, 2011, p. 66)
Therefore, it was from this deeply embedded pedagogical philosophy that I
sought permission to take pictures of the research classroom and participants in my
IRB application.
Photography in the research classroom
Eleven of the families granted permission for photographs to be taken of their
child for use in my dissertation. I carefully framed many of my photos to exclude
faces of children, focusing instead on the action of the moment.
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In other collected photos, I asked permission to photograph “buildings” or
other “constructions” made by the children during their play. While these
photographed structures may not have been directly related to my research questions, I
knew that children love to see pictures of their work. This type of “photo-elicitation”
(Collier, 1967; Harper, 1998; Young & Barrett, 2001; Barker & Weller, 2003;
Crivello, Camfield & Woodhead, 2009) allows for the child to see that I value their
work and often provokes more discussion about their thinking behind the object
photographed.
Those conversations, which were never formal interviews, became rich
exchanges of information about a child’s world outside of the classroom and included
home and family discussion far beyond the ordinary Lego vehicle being photographed
(see Figure 3-8). As I note in my research journal:
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Figure 3-8 A snow "pusher" by Alex photographed by his request
Took some more pictures of structures, or areas, sans children or faces, just
Lego buildings etc. I asked permission of the children to take pictures and then
showed them the screen where they could see the digital copy. They were quite
taken by it. While most said I could take pictures of their building - a few said
No, and that was fine. Again, it isn't so much the content of the pictures (as far
as I know presently) but rather getting them accustomed to me being near them
and doing my observations. (Research Journal, December 7, 2011)
As the “odd shoeless adult”, photographs became an entry point of admission
for my interest in the work and thinking of the children in this classroom.
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Summary of chapter 3
In this chapter, I have discussed the complexity of issues regarding the
recruitment of a research site as well as detailed the entry into that site by the
researcher. Data collection methods have been described including photographs, audio
recorders, field notes and research journals.
In chapter 4, I will describe the coding schema used to classify private speech
as different from social speech within this research. As part of that coding schema, I
will discuss data collected in the research classroom related to occurrences of private
speech. Finally, I will describe the selection of the children featured in the narrative
vignettes.
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Chapter 4 – Private (Social) Speech: Definitions, Coding, and Data Collection
In the chapter four, I will briefly define and distinguish between private
(social) speech, private speech and social speech. I will also discuss coding schemas
utilized, data collection and the results of the raw data analysis.
In keeping with my research goals, I also focused on the context of any recorded
private speech occurrences. While I was keenly interested to capture the spontaneous
instances of private speech by the children, I was also intently observing the social
flow of the interpersonal interactions between the children.
Coding of private speech
In order to code the instances of private speech observed and recorded, I relied
on the “Private Speech Coding Manual” developed by Adam Winsler and Charles
Fennyhough (Winsler, Fennyhough, McClaren & Way, 2005).2
Much like Bakhtin’s notion of dialogicality (1986), the accepted unit of
analysis is the “utterance.” Defined as “a complete sentence, a sentence fragment, a
clause with intentional markers of termination, a conversational turn, or any string of
speech which is temporally separated from another by at least 2s” (Diaz, Winsler,
Atencio, & Harbers, 1992; Feigenbaum, 1992; Ramirez, 1992), these utterances can be
coded as “social speech” or private speech (Winsler et al., 2005, p. 6).
It is also of importance to note that for my coding purposes I chose to count
groups of utterances by the same speaker during the same private speech episode as
2
In future research in this area, I plan to use open coding to generate categories that can then
be compared to the prevailing ones. In the present (doctoral) research, I was interested to test
the applicability of existing categories to account for potential instances of private speech in
the social context of the classroom.
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one “occurrence” rather than count individual fragment utterances. This decision was
based on my desire to keep the context and content of the utterances as a unit, versus
disassembling the private speech into smaller speech segments (Copeland, 1979; Diaz,
1992; Kamberelis & Scott, 1992). As a result, the data set may appear smaller than it
would have been had individual utterances been separated out and counted.
As I was not looking to assess for private speech during task problem-solving
situations, nor dyads of adult to child task scaffolding, there were several constructs
which simply did not fit my research needs. The terms most frequently associated with
the study of private speech, such as “task relevant” or “task irrelevant” (Azmitia,
1992) were thus not appropriate for my research.
Social speech defined
I chose to use the definition of social speech utilized by Winsler, Carlton and
Barry (2000) in order to clearly distinguish between social speech and private speech
occurring near another child, as follows:
Social speech: Any verbalization intended for communication to another
individual as indicated by the presence of either:
a. a name or pronoun reference,
b. a gaze at another person during or within one second of the utterance,
c. an intentional physical touch of another person, or
d. a conversation or verbal turn-taking episode. (p. 673)
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Private speech defined
I combined Winsler, Carlton and Barry’s (2000) definition of private speech
with Kraft and Berk’s (1998) coding schemata to classify private speech in my
research classroom, as follows:
Private speech: Any verbalization by the child, which did not contain one of
these social markers, including inaudible muttering and silent verbal lip
movements, was taken as evidence of private speech (Winsler, Carlton, &
Barry, 2000)
1. Affect expression: Emotional expressions not directed to a particular
person. (e.g., Wow! Cool!).
2. Word play and repetition: Repeating words or sounds (e.g., Put the napkin
on your head; put the napkin in your pocket; put the napkin on the table).
3. Fantasy play speech: Role play.
4. Describing one’s own activity and self guidance: Utterances about the
child’s own actions including descriptions, thinking out loud, and planning.
5. Inaudible mutterings. Speech too quiet to make out, or silent, obviously
verbal lip movements. (Kraft & Berk, 1998)
By necessity, I did have to create one additional category; that of “Other
(Echoing)” for observed private speech utterances which did not fit into any of the
aforementioned coding schemas. This category was developed after transcribing the
audio tapes and hearing children engage in an “echo” of conversations that were
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occurring in various portions of the room. As the private speech seemed to have its
roots in a social conversation external to the child/play, it became necessary to note its
unique features not covered by the currently established codes.
By combining these established coding systems with my transcripts of audio,
and my field notes and journal, I was able to separate “social speech” as distinct from
“private speech” in each set of documented utterances or occurrences. This distinction,
using coding schemas currently in use in the research of private speech, is a carefully
considered choice within my research. By using the categories provided by those
coding schemas, I was able to ensure that the occurrences witnessed and recorded fell
squarely in the realm of current private speech research. This feature was important
because I wanted to control for the question of whether or not I could be certain that
any recorded utterances were indeed private speech and not simply overhead or misinterpreted bits of social conversations.
Once private speech occurrences were confirmed through coding, I could then
consider the content and context of the private speech through the larger social lens of
classroom life (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996; Corsaro, 1997; Foley, 2002).
Uncovering private speech in a preschool classroom
Unlike many studies researching “private speech,” I neither requested nor
required engagement in any task specific activity by the children. My goal, always,
was to maintain as naturalistic a setting as possible in order to witness private speech
as produced spontaneously by the children in the classroom. In tandem with the desire
to observe and record spontaneous private speech utterances, I was also interested in
the more social aspects of the production: “Who was nearby when the private speech
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occurred” and “Did the private speech relate to any other event/conversation in the
classroom?” became questions I reflexively considered as I transcribed the audio
recorders (Huberman & Miles, 1983; Tedlock, 1991; Foley, 2002). These reflections
were captured in my research blog as a type of self “memoing” (Glaser, 1978; Miles&
Huberman, 1994).
Using field notes during my time in the research classroom, I would observe
and note who was present and/or arrived and departed from the areas in which I had
placed the audio recorders:
Alex and Jonah in Block area. Ben watches on side and then joins them. (Field
note, January 11, 2012)
‘Sarah and Ziva at sand table. Sarah leaves to go to bathroom, leaving Ziva at
sand table alone. When Sarah returns, she and Emily go to dramatic play. Zach
joins Ziva at Sand table. Jonah sees Zach has moved and joins him at sand
table with Ziva. (Field note, December 22, 2011)
This would allow me, generally, to witness a child engaging in private speech
behaviors. In addition, I would verbally state where I was placing the audio recorder
and what children were present during the time of placement. Reviewing the audio
tapes became an additional way for me to verify the presence of private speech
production.
In the event that I was more closely attending to observations in one area of the
classroom, my field notes denoting who was present and who had entered or departed
helped during later review of the audio tapes.
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The frequency with which I was allowed to be present in the classroom
allowed for my fluid movement of the audio recorders. With the notable exception of
Maya, the children came to accept my presence alongside them on the floor, moving
recorders in and out of spaces as part of the flow of their play:
In many ways I am a unique Adult in the environment — Much more a play
partner or observer, then teacher "proper." I am grateful that the children no
longer seem to stop their play when I am near — it flows as if I were not there
and I take that as a sign that they don't notice me. Even during disagreements
they ignore me - going to Elaine or Julia if they use the "tell a teacher" threat. I
can move in the play areas and watch without notice - or perhaps that isn't true.
I am noticed, but not seen as an inhibitor. Occasionally they still wonder (out
loud) what I am doing - but rarely. (Research journal, January 22, 2012)
I note this fluidity, this acceptance of my presence by the children, to highlight
a fundamental distinction in both the observation and recording of private speech
within my research. Unlike many studies focusing on private speech, I was not asking
children to engage in task specific activities (i.e., build a Lego structure from a
particular illustration). My intent was to capture private speech occurring during the
“natural” rhythm of a day in the classroom. As my research focus was on the content
of the speech produced during any private speech episode, rather than the production
of private speech, it was crucial for me to have the flexibility to move freely through
the class.
As I came to understand, the opportunity or seeming “goodness of fit” for an
activity to provoke the production of private speech was in no way a guarantee for that
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private speech to occur. There were several placements of the audio recorders near
activities I assumed, given my review of the literature, to be prime opportunities to
witness private speech production, only to hear and observe no private speech
behaviors:
Maya painted her whole (paper outline of herself) person with not a word said
to herself @20 minutes. I was nearby, but not overtly close. She did look over
at me a couple of times and smile, but I don’t know that I was a distraction.
(Field note, December 22, 2011)
Alex spends a great deal of time at Lego today with frequent looking up
(referential gazing) to see what is going on in other areas. He will walk over to
the table to see the game, say nothing and return to Lego. No private speech
noted during his almost 40 minutes at Lego table. (Field note, January 11,
2012)
Private speech, for this group of children, was an event that occurred outside of
easily defined or observable boundaries. As a qualitative researcher, I was required to
be an astute observer of the flow of their play in order to anticipate potential points of
convergence.
Coding scheme utilized
Using the previously established codes distinguishing “private” from “social”
speech (Kraft & Berk, 1998; Winsler, Carlton, & Barry, 2000; Winsler, Fennyhough,
McClaren, & Way, 2005), I first coded the total minutes of social speech versus the
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total minutes of private speech (see Figure 4-1). Of the 1325 minutes of recorded
speech, 1267 minutes were coded as social and 58 minutes coded as private.
Minutes of recorded speech
1400
1200
Minutes
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Social Speech
Private Speech
673)
Total Minutes of Recorded Speech
1267
58
Social speech (Winsler, Carlton, & Barry, 2000): Any
Private speech: Any verbalization by
verbalization intended for communication to another
the child, which did not contain one of
individual as indicated by the presence of either:
these social markers, including
a. a name or pronoun reference,
inaudible muttering and silent verbal lip
b. a gaze at another person during or within one
movements, was taken as evidence of
second of the utterance,
private speech (Winsler, Carlton, &
c. an intentional physical touch of another person, or
Barry, 2000)
d. a conversation or verbal turn-taking episode. (p.
1. Affect expression: Emotional
expressions not directed to a particular
person. (e.g., Wow! Cool!).
2. Word play and repetition: Repeating
words or sounds (e.g., Put the napkin
on your head; put the napkin in your
pocket; put the napkin on the table).
3. Fantasy play speech: Role play.
4. Describing one’s own activity and
self guidance: Utterances about the
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child’s own actions including
descriptions, thinking out loud, and
planning.
5. Inaudible mutterings. Speech too
quiet to make out, or silent, obviously
verbal lip movements. (Kraft and Berk,
1998)
Figure 4-1 Total minutes of recorded speech
I examined the 136 pages of transcripts and highlighted occurrences of each
specific type of private speech (see Figure 4-2). In addition, I found that despite my
initial intention to follow established codes, I needed to add the category of “other”, as
there were instances of private speech which occurred in the research classroom which
did not fall specifically within the established codes; in future research, I will consider
whether the five occurrences that fell outside of the existing categories could
constitute a‘type’ in its own right. Within the “other” category, then, were five
occurrences of private speech in which the child engaged in “echoing” or responding
to questions asked by people located in other parts of the room.
14
13
12
Total Occurances of Private Speech by Type
10
8
5
6
4
2
1
2
5
3
0
Word Play,
Singing, Noises
Affect
Expression
Fantasy Play
Speech
Inaudible
Mutterings
Describing
ones' own
activity
Other/Echo
Number of Occurences
Word Play, Singing, Noises
Child uses language in playful manner, rhyming or nonsense words.
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Child may or may not use words while singing, but is humming or
singing a tune in tandem.
Child produces animal or vehicle noises (Vroooommmm or Crash!,
Barking or Meowing)
Affect and Expression
Child uses words such as “Wow!”, or “Cool!”
Fantasy Play Speech
Child engages in creating dramatic play type scenarios: “I’m the
mommy and I say you need to go to bed”
Inaudible Mutterings
Child is observed to be engaged in private speech, but either is
speaking so softly or the audio recorders are unable to capture the
content of the speech
Describing ones’ own activity
Child guides self while doing activity: “Now I am going to build a car
so I need a red Lego.”
Other/Echo
Child engages in “echoing” of other peoples words while engaged in
private speech behaviors: Teacher is across room and asks
“Where is Tyler?” Child repeats “Where is Tyler” while engaged in
private speech.
Figure 4-2 Occurrences and Definitions of Private Speech by Type
Once the total occurrences of private speech were coded, I then analyzed the
private speech by child/speaker (see Figure 4-3).
Ziva
Maya
Hannah
Esther
Dalia
Arella* absent a majority of research
Emily
Nediva
12/5: Wordplay (singing in echo)
12/16: Wordplay
12/8: Other (response to question asked
on other side of room)
1/23: Wordplay (sing/echo)
2/ 8: Wordplay (sings in block area)
12/8: Other (echo of “Coffee Madame?”
2/8: Fantasy play speech
1/23: Fantasy play speech (with barn)
1/26: Affect expression (“wow”)
12/6: Describing activity (counting)
12/7: Describing activity (computer CD)
12/8: Other (echoes of “Coffee,
Madame?”)
12/16: Other (echo of caca)
12/16: Other ( echoes back to Elaine re:
child in bathroom)
12/22: Describing activity (“This is hard”
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Zach
Jonah
Benjamin * absent a majority of research
Gabriella
Alex
Bina
Sarah
self guidance)
1/16: Wordplay
12/7: Wordplay (car noises)
12/8: Wordplay (singing at Legos)
12/9: Wordplay (car noises)
1/11: Wordplay (animal noises)
No recorded occurrences
No recorded occurrences
12/8: Fantasy play speech
12/8: Wordplay
1/11: Fantasy play speech
12/9: Wordplay/echo
1/16: Inaudible muttering in block area
12/23: Wordplay (singing)
1/23: Wordplay (singing echo with Ziva)
1/11: Fantasy play speech (conversation
echo)
1/16: Inaudible muttering in block area
No recorded occurrences
Figure 4-3 –Private speech occurrences codes by child and type
This secondary analysis of the occurrences of private speech by both type and
speaker led to the creation of portraits or “vignettes” of specific children (see Figure 44). This data set offered a unique perspective on the production of types of private
speech by individuals and was necessary to consider the overall content and context of
individual private speech as a potential “social bridge” to one’s peers.
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Private speech by child and type
Wordplay
Fantasy Speech
3
Describing
Other
Affect
Inaudible Muttering
1
1
4
2
1
2
Emily
Zach
1
1
1
Bina
Gabriella
Esther
Figure 4-4 Private Speech by Type and Child
From this second data set, observations emerged regarding the type of private
speech produced by individuals. Most children seemed to have preferred “types” of
private speech in which they consistently engaged, although some also chose a
“mixed” style.
After examining the child and type of speech, I then cross-analyzed my field
notes, research journal and other information offered through transcription to create
“vignettes” (Blodgett et al. 2011; Ely, Vinz, Downing & Anzul, 1997) about the
content and context of the private speech occurrences.
Through this triple distillation of data, I was able to create the “thick
description” (Geertz, 1973) essential to educational ethnographies. My lived
experience as privileged observer inside the classroom offered me the content and
context to co-create the data as story (Geertz, 1983; Van Maanen, 1988).
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Data presentation
Given both the number of occurrences of private speech within the total
classroom, as well as the difference in duration of individual utterances/occurrences of
private speech, I have chosen to initially present my data sets as the raw summaries of
the private speech utterances/occurrences of five selected children.
Miles and Huberman (1994) note that this type of data analysis is a way to “see
what’s there – and to keep oneself honest” (p. 308). While the initial coding of the
data gave evidence of the individual utterances and overall occurrences of private
speech within the classroom, it was the clustering of the data by child that began to
reveal the possibility of a “thick description” (Geertz, 1973) of the context and
content of the speech.
Following the initial presentation of the data, the context of the private speech
will be revealed by a narrative constructed by combining audio transcripts, field notes
and research journal entries (see chapter 6). This technique allowed me to represent
the “lived experience” (Van Maanen, 1988) using the words of the children (Ely,
Vinz, Downing & Anzul, 1997) while weaving a narrative in which the reader can
“judge the credibility of the theory” (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 258).
Narrative inquiry and vignettes
Vignettes are “a culturally relevant method for presenting the unique voices
and stories” (Blodgett, Schinke, Smith, Peltier & Pheasant, 2011) of a group of
participants. As I transcribed and coded the audio recordings from the classroom, I
engaged in a complex sort of “ethnographic content analysis” of the transcripts
(Altheide, 1987). Altheide (1987) writes:
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ECA (Ethnographic content analysis) consists of reflexive movement between
concept development, sampling, data collection, data coding, data analysis, and
interpretation. The aim is to be systematic and analytic, but not rigid. Although
categories and “variables” initially guide the study, others are allowed and
expected to emerge throughout the study. Thus, ECA is embedded in constant
discovery and constant comparison of relevant situations, settings, styles,
images, meanings and nuances. (p. 68)
It is this reflexivity (Macbeth, 2001) which was crucial to my ability to
interpret the context of the individual occurrences of private speech within the larger
frame of the life of the classroom.
Through this reflexive content analysis, I chose the five children represented
here. Small narrative samples from within larger research groups have a history within
ethnography (Blodgett et al., 2011; Chase, 2005; Foley, 2002). In these instances, it is
the “narrative elasticity” and “narrative options” which are often highlighted (Holstein
& Gubrium, 2000, p. 165). The researcher does not seek to provide a definitive,
generalizable answer to a hypothesis, but rather “what is possible and intelligible
within a specific social context” (Chase, 2005; Denzin, 1997; Psathas, 1995). The
narratives represented in chapter 6 are a “joint production of narrator and listener”
(Chase, 2005) in which I use a tacit understanding (LeCompte, 2000) of the theories of
private speech to examine the occurrences within the larger social framework. Chase
(2005) notes:
Narrative researchers view stories as both enabled and constrained by a range
of social resources and circumstances. While acknowledging that every
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instance of narrative is particular, researchers use this lens to attend to
similarities and differences across narratives. They emphasize patterns in the
storied selves, subjectivities and realities that narrators create during particular
times and in particular places. (p. 657)
Using this lens through the content analysis of the complete transcripts, I identified
similarities and differences in the content and context of the private speech of five
individuals.
Selected children
Once the audio recordings were transcribed and coded, I reviewed my research
journals and field notes to select the five children featured in the vignettes.
Emily represented, overall, the most occurrences of private speech recorded. In
addition, she often played a strong leadership role in social situations, actively
scaffolding for peers what she was “thinking”.
Of the four boys participating in the research, Zach produced the most
occurrences of private speech. Reviewing the field notes also showed that his private
speech was always produced as one specific style, in one specific area of the
classroom area; the Lego table. Further review of field notes and audio recordings
indicated that Zach was consistently sought out by his peers as a play partner, despite
his relative “social speech” silence. While not a focus of the research, the gender
implications of the research were noticed and would provide a potentially fruitful area
of future investigation in this area.
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Bina, the only non-Caucasian child in the classroom, produced four recorded
occurrences of private speech. Her private speech varied across the categorizations as
well as location in classroom of occurrence. During my time in the classroom, Bina
had also been assessed by a speech pathologist. I was surprised to find that she had
one of the highest rates of private speech in light of this knowledge. Again, while not
the focus of the research, the cultural/racial dimension may prove to be an important
aspect of understanding the social purposes of young children’s private speech.
While Gabriella had only two occurrences of recorded private speech, it was
while reviewing the transcripts of social speech that I chose her. Her private speech
nearly was always produced after an interpersonal conflict had driven her out of the
dramatic play area. In addition she chose the same space, the classroom circle rug, to
engage in private speech. Gabriella’s example thus potentially draws attention to the
different uses of private speech, particularly in situations involving conflict or
disagreement.
While Esther only produced the one occurrence of recorded private speech, the
single episode was notably the longest in duration. She was also one of the few girls to
choose to not participate in a social dispute between Gabriella and Ziva, preferring to
stay at the table and colour her drawing. The length of her episode singles it out as
distinctive from the rest and worthy of greater study.
It was through consideration of intertwining observations, field notes, and
transcripts of the social speech of these children as contrasted with their private speech
that I narrowed my research lens to the five children presented in this dissertation. The
examples (vignettes) are not intended to represent a full accounting of the data set, but
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rather to focus more closely in on the individual private speech occurrences of a subset
of the children that are of potential interest to future research and to use a narrative
inquiry approach to best exemplify the social context in which their occurrence was
embedded. It is my hope that this reflexive examination of the multitude of voices in
play within a classroom gives “an understanding of the social conditions of social
scientific knowledge production and its relation to knowledge reception and context
and thus its capacity for action” (May, 2004, p. 183).
Summary of chapter 4
In this chapter, I discussed and defined the coding schemas utilized in this
research for distinguishing between social speech and private speech. I then described
how the data was filtered through the codes, ethnographic content analysis and
researcher reflexivity to bring the five selected children into clearer focus.
In chapter 5, I will present the private speech occurrences of the five individual
children chosen as I begin to build their narrative vignettes.
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Chapter 5 - Collecting the Yarn
In this chapter, I will present the data set representing the private speech
occurrences of five individual children. Within each data set, codes are applied to
distinguish type of private speech (as defined in chapter 4). Notations of the place
within the classroom that the private speech occurred, as well as if any other child was
nearby when the specified child was actively engaged in private speech are also
included in the descriptions. It is pertinent to note that the excerpts presented here are
free from other notation such as peers present, location in the classroom and other
contextual data and merely represent the coded occurrences of private speech. Within
the vignettes that follow, a more detailed exploration of the context will accompany
the occurrences of each child.
Emily
Emily produced five recorded episodes of private speech. Emily’s private
speech most frequently fell into the categories of “word play” or “other.” In the last
episode, she engaged in “describing her own activity”. In two instances, she was alone
when speaking, while in three others she was next to or very near a peer:
Emily is (alone) at a table making a card.
Emily (to self counting): 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18…
(Audio transcript, December 7, 2011)
Emily is at the drawing table. She is sitting next to Hannah
who is also drawing:
Emily: “Go take your coffee, Madame!”
(Audio transcript and field note, December 8, 2011)
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From the block area you can hear a voice say “Caca!”
Emily : (alone at the drawing table on the other side of the
room) “Caca?”
(Audio transcript, December 16, 2011)
Elaine (near front door): Is Jonah still in the bathroom?
In block area on other side of room; Emily is manipulating
vehicles and Dalia is watching from the side.
Emily (in block area): Maybe he is making a poo…
Emily: I want to sit in the back, Mommy. No! I want to sit in
the back also!
Emily returns to manipulating the small cars, with no speech.
(Audio transcript and field notes, December 16, 2011)
Emily: I’m gonna make a CD. I’m gonna make a computer.
(Pause)
Emily: I’m making the box this ‘posed to be in and then
I…now I’m making the wire for the computer…..the computer.
Now I going to do all of the attics …….all of the attics,….look
the (pause)
(Pause)
(Pushes paper towards Ziva as a means of expressing her
desire that Ziva attend to what she is doing)
Emily: See?
(Audio transcript and field notes, December 7, 2011)
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Zach
Zach was the only boy to consistently engage in recorded occurrences of self
talk in the research classroom. All recorded private speech episodes were captured
either at or very close by the Lego table. Zach’s private speech was primarily that of
sounds, animal and vehicle being most prevalent, although he did engage in singing
behaviors. Zach was most commonly near another child when he engaged in private
speech and would, on occasion, stop or delay talking with his play partner to engage in
private speech:
Zach at table with monkey’s – he is making noises (car and
animal) as he crashes them together.
Zach: Vrrrrooooooommmmm. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.
Zach: Crrrrssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh. Oo,oo,oo,oo,oo,oo,oo
Zach: Vrrrrrrrrrr. Bshhhhhhhhhh.
(Audio transcript, January 11, 2012)
Zach can be heard singing (to himself ) the song they will be
singing at the Hanukkah celebration. He is at the Lego table.
Zach: I came to dance, dance, dance, cause that’s my chance
– chance - chance
Zach: Bling, bling, bling, with all my favorite things things,
things
Zach: I told you once, I told you twice, gonna light it up
Zach: Gonna light it up. Told you once, told you twice, gonna
light it up like the Israelites ( repeat three times)
(Audio transcript, December 8, 2011)
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Zach is at the Lego table. He is making car sounds as he
maneuvers the vehicle around the table:
Zach: Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Zach: (motor noises) Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Zach: (slurping noises) sllllllllllllaaaaaaa,
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm
Zach: (Crash noise) Bshhhhh,Bshhhh, Bshhhhhh!
Zach: Bbbbssssssssssssss (sound of car driving on Lego)
Zach: Mmmmmmmmmmmm ( whine sound)
Zach: Woooo! Woooo! Wooo!!
He repeats these noises for approximately 7 minutes
(Audio transcript with field notes, December 9, 2011)
Zach first tries to get Alex to play saying: “Alex, let’s play!
Alex, let’s play!”
When Alex ignores him, Zach begins to talk to himself, as he
manipulates the Lego construction around the table:
Zach: Whoa! Crrrrrrsssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Zach: Shhhhhhhhhh screeeeeeeeee
bsssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Zach: Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
Zach: Shhhhhhh, yeah!
After 3 minutes, Alex joins him:
Alex: Zach, Put it here! Put it here!
Alex: The bad guys, Zach, the bad guys, out here!
Zach continues to make vehicle noises: Brrrrrrrrrrr,
sshhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Zach repeats these noises for another full minute before
leaving the table to join Alex.
(Audio transcript, December 8, 2011)
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Gabriella
The three recorded episodes of Gabriella’s private speech all occurred on the
large rug in the center of the room. In all episodes, she was alone and using either
small manipulative type toys or dolls. Gabriella’s private speech consisted primarily of
fantasy or dramatic speech play, in which she also took on vocal changes to indicate
character changes in her dialogue. One episode of singing while she was engaged in
puzzle solving was also recorded:
Gabriella is using the dress up dolls – As she looks at the
different outfit choices (it is a lace up activity), she is softly
commenting to herself as to what she sees:
Gabriella: He’s gonna play baseball, cause he needs to take a
soccer ball.
Gabriella: (to herself): I think….this is the way to do it. He’s a
builder. He wants to go to sleep.
Gabriella: You want him to be in the sea? He’s going to be in
the sea. (Singing) He’s going swimming…
Gabriella: (singing to herself) Going in the sea….
(Audio transcript and field notes, December 8, 2011)
Gabriella is singing to herself as she works on an alphabet
puzzle on the circle rug. The song is one they will perform for
the Hannukah celebration:
“I came to dance, dance, dance, dance….my chance, chance,
chance, chance. Bling, bling bling bling..”
(Audio transcript and field notes, December 8, 2011)
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Gabriella is alone on rug – She talks immediately:
Gabriella:(she changes the pitch of her voice – she is doing
different characters – first the baby)
“But I don’t want to go to bed I’m not sleepy” (high pitch)
“ But you’re going to bed right now – Now- Now- Now – or
you’re going to not listen” (low pitch)
“FINE – I’m going to Israel with (?)”(Low pitch voice)
“Noooo, sweetheart, don’t leave Noooooo” (High pitch voice)
“I promise…I promise…” (high pitch voice)
“I promise……I promise…..I promise. (Pretends to cry)
“Don’t take (?)…And I’m going to take your clothes and I’m
never coming back…I’m going to take Daddy’s clothes right
now (This is all spoken in the high pitched voice)
Nooooooo (more pretend crying)
At 1:42 in the recording, Gabriella notices that I am
watching her from the side of the rug. She begins to offer an
explanation of her play to me:
“Because she don’t want to go to bed. Because, so that’s why
the boy, the daddy is sad because she don’t want to go to
sleep, so she is taking the clothes with him.”
Gabriella returns to her play, but is quieter. I don’t hear her
talk again until 2:32:
“But the daddy…..” Noises as she moves the figures around.
“Are you fixing our room? Push! Push! I’m fixing our room”
(3:40)
(4:58 – turns and speaks to me)
Gabriella: “You know what the baby girl is doing now? She’s
cleaning up her mommy’s rooms so she can dress up”
(Audio transcript, January 11, 2012)
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Bina
Bina produced private speech in a variety of locations within the classroom.
Her four private speech occurrences ranged from describing her activity (counting),
mixtures of fantasy play and singing and one occurrence coded as “inaudible
muttering” while in the block area. She produced private speech while alone, as well
as with peers present or within close proximity:
Bina is at the Lego table, alone.
Bina is singing to herself.
Bina: 1,2,3,4 …1,2,3,4…then trail off to silence.
(Audio transcript, January 23, 2012)
Bina begins to talk – extensively when the boys (Zach and
Alex) leave. Her voice is low, but steady and consistent.
(3:28) is when Bina starts to be more clearly heard, although
I suspect she has been talking for longer. It has been hard to
hear over the boys - she switches between French and
English as well
Bina: “I am the baby -I’m the baby and the police, and I was
asleep…” “Zach Says…, “ I was in the kitchen”….
(Audio transcript, January 11, 2012)
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Ziva (singing): Almost done, almost done. Hands up, and you want to make
my party and you gonna play me for-ever. I don’t want to go to the travaux, I
don’t want to leave you and me, we still go dance time… leave all
ting…please don’t even. Please don’t make you come here. You gonna dance
with me. .
There is some kind of conflict in the other area of the classroom. I can hear
several children rush to the art table and begin to take materials. Although
Ziva continues to sing through this entire episode the intrusion is not
appreciated by Gabriella, Bina or Ziva, as evidenced by their sounds of
discontent (Hey! I’m using that!). Mindy has given the “Lets make cards for
Maya suggestion, and the others have come to take the art materials in order
to do just that.
Bina – begins to echo what Ziva has just sang – Just one line – although I
have no belief that this is a song they know, nor do I think that it has any
obvious roots to popular music.
Ziva, hearing the song Bina begins, ramps up her singing, even more
enthusiastically.
Gabriella (at table) practically shouts: I’M NOT SINGING THAT SONG!
And Ziva continues to sing, non plussed, entirely but the lyrics change:“You
don’t wanna sing with me, you don’t wanna sing with me! Don’t Sing! Then
don’t sing!”
There is no eye contact between them. They are both staring down at their
papers drawing
Ziva eventually stops singing.
Bina begins to sing: “I’m just gonna make you can tell something else or you
wanna tell. Just stop colouring!”
Ziva begins to sing again: “I gonna leave you hammatan , I wanna go to in a
dance board. I wanna dance you! I wanna dance you! I wanna turn you, I
wanna turn you I wanna like you in my sun in my wind, in my sun. All the
green, in this. I want to leave with mr, all my time, all my thing, you gonna
leave with me.”
Gabriella: “Can someone give me scissors?”
Ziva sings:“Give me nothin’!”
Gabriella: (emphatically) Give me scissors!
100
Ziva: No, don’t (Ziva stops Bina from giving the scissors to Gabriella)
Ziva stops singing.
Bina (softly) begins to sing the same/repeat words that Ziva was just singing.
Gabriella:“I’m mad at Bina!”
Ziva ( to Gabriella): “Her WORKING! Look! Look!”
Gabriella: “Yeah, but I’m really upset”
Ziva: “Her Working!” ( and then Ziva switches to French)
Gabriella: “So later, later, you’re not going to be my friend – Just Sarah and
Ziva…just Sarah, Esther and, and all come to my house and not you even
Ziva.”
Bina continues to work , singing softly under the blossoming argument
between Ziva and Gabriella.
(Audio transcript, January 16, 2012)
Bina is in the block area. I can see her engaged in private speech activity, yet
am not close enough to hear. When I review the audio recordings, I am
unable to clearly make out what she is saying
(Audio transcript and Field notes, January 16, 2012)
Esther
Esther’s only recorded private speech episode is represented here. She was
standing at a table near the Circle rug, playing with a dollhouse and dolls for the entire
episode. While the private speech produced by Esther falls squarely within the
category of fantasy talk or private speech representing a sort of dramatic play scenario,
it differed in the overall total length of the episode. Esther engaged in private speech
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utterances for 40 minutes before another child, Gabriella, requested to join in her play.
Her private speech was marked by stops and starts during that 40 minutes, yet she
maintained overall continuity in the theme of play; Mommies, babies and bedtimes:
Esther is playing alone at the second table.
Esther engages in private speech, talking about the family in the doll
house:
“I’m gonna sit with the little baby, it’s ok”
“I need this one with my kids, and I need this, my kids, sweetie”
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom!
She then starts to sing a little song with the words “I gotta be…I gotta
be”
Starts with Esther singing: “Lalalala-lah”
Esther continues to talk to herself – singing, then talking…
“I just said get out of this place..I just said get out of this place!”
“But I don’t have cupboards!”
Esther, still at Dollhouse: “But sweetie, you …to go”
“Ooooh- the baby”
“I see”
“My mommy”
Snoring noises when she puts the dolls in bed
“No other movies, you just had”
“Mommy, I want a baby…Ok.
“I don’t have a husband? Baby? So…”
“Let’s go watch TV here”
“Can I play with you? Yeah sure”
After 40 minutes of solitary play, another child (Gabriella) joins
Esther
(Audio transcript, January 22, 2012)
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Summary of chapter 5
In this chapter, I have presented the complete transcriptions of the private
speech of five children.
In chapter six, I will weave together the narrative context surrounding the
occurrences of private speech for each individual child. This context will be built
using naturalistic observations, field notes, audio transcripts and research journal in an
attempt to create the “thick description” of qualitative research (Clandinin &
Connelly, 1994; Geertz, 1973). Through these collected, created and interpreted texts,
I enter the ranks of other ethnographically influenced researchers (Blodgett et al.,
2011; Chase, 2005; Ely et al., 1997; Foley, 2002; Tedlock, 1991), becoming “part of
the process, continually making choices, testing assumptions and reshaping their
questions” (Rossman & Rallis, 2003, p.4).
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Chapter Six: Behind the Words: Weaving the Stories Together
This chapter builds upon the data sets of the private speech of the five children
referred to in chapter five. The data sets comprise the narrative foundation (Blodgett et
al, 2011; Chase, 2005; Ely et al., 1997) for this qualitative research story by providing
concrete data of the content of the private speech of five specific children.
In this chapter, the data are necessarily woven through the other sources of
information: audio transcripts, field notes, photographs and reflective research journal.
Through this reflexive (Foley, 2001; Macbeth 2001; Chase, 2005) process, I began to
“see patterns and themes” as I attempted to understand the social context of the
classroom through the private speech of individual children (Purcell-Gates, 2004, p.
95).
Vignette One: Emily as Flexible Scaffolder
The morning had been loud and busy, full of singing practice for the Hanukkah
performance and dramatic play which had spilled from the block area onto the rug,
then back into dramatic play. There was a substitute teacher in the classroom, adding
an extra layer of unpredictability in the children’s routines.
Two girls have separated from the dramatic play group to use the computer.
They’ve tried to locate a specific computer game to play but have only found an empty
CD case. After asking their French-speaking teacher, Julia, if she knows where the
errant CD may have been placed, the girls asked me. I, too, was no help. The one CD
they did find was, disappointingly, the nap music CD.
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Exasperated, they turned to the art table, where the audio recorder had already
been placed, and settled down to begin to draw. I situated myself at the corner of the
table, on the rug, and was observing their interactions as well as watching children
solve puzzles on the circle rug.
Emily began to talk, although she did not address Ziva, nor did she make eye
contact with her. Her behavior fit the criterion for private speech, although I couldn’t
quite make out what she was saying from my observational vantage point. Emily and
Ziva were side by side at the table, both drawing. Neither had verbally expressed any
particular plan for what they intended to draw when Emily began to talk.
In my field notes, I made this observation:
Emily is sitting next to Ziva – and she IS talking, but she isn’t looking At
Ziva. This feels like private speech, insomuch as she is communicating to Ziva
what she is doing – but is not necessarily asking for Ziva’s input until the point
when she offers the drawing TO Ziva and says “See? (Field note, December 7,
2011)
There are 43 seconds recorded of Emily speaking to herself about the CD she
was making, and until she finally turned to Ziva and said “See!”, there were no other
overt signs that she was engaging in social speech. In fact, until she addressed Ziva
directly, Ziva had been very busy with her own drawing.
This was the first instance of private speech I observed in the classroom, and it
excited me deeply. I could see it happening, and could hear tiny bits of the
conversation, but could not fully hear what had transpired. I made a note of the file
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number when I retrieved the recorder, reminding myself that I had seen private speech
“in action” and should transcribe this as soon as possible.
Figure 6-1 Emily making her CD, with the “wire for the computer”
Emily: I’m gonna make a CD. I’m gonna make a computer.
(Pause)
Emily: I’m making the box this ‘posed to be in and then
I…now I’m making the wire for the computer…..the computer.
Now I going to do all of the attics …….all of the attics,….look
the (pause)
(Pause)
(Pushes paper towards Ziva as a means of expressing her
desire that Ziva attend to what she is doing)
Emily: See?
(Audio transcript and field notes, December 7, 2011)
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I tiptoed behind the girls, attempting to take pictures of the drawings that they
were making, without disturbing the work in which they were engaged (see Figure 61). I sensed that something was happening, yet I was not sure yet what it was, and
wouldn’t be until I had a chance to review the audio tapes later that evening.
With headphones on that evening, the content and the context of the private
speech became clearer as I made sense of the words I was hearing. Emily was talking
about making a CD for the computer, an offshoot of the frustrated search for the
misplaced game CD that the girls had been unable to find earlier in the morning. I
knew of this failed search, in part, because they had engaged me as part of their search
party.
As I had further observed the act of private speech, I could verify that it had all
of the external characteristics of private speech (Kraft and Berk, 1998; Winsler,
Carlton, & Barry, 2000): Emily had not spoken to Ziva by name, there was no verbal
turn taking, no gazing, and the physical touch came only after Emily had completed
speaking and had been silent for three seconds before moving her paper towards Ziva.
Emily was one of the most verbally and cognitively advanced child in her
classroom. On subsequent days, it was she who drew me into discussions about
magnets, bats and sonar, rattlesnakes and what their tails are made of; fairly complex
discussions which I found myself enjoying immensely. On my introduction to the
classroom, the teacher, Elaine, pointed her out as she was familiarizing me with the
children’s names and said, “You could do a whole paper just on that one! You should
hear the things she talks about!” (Field note, December 5, 2011)
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Socially, Emily was a fluid player. She wove in and out of play, choosing what
was of most interest to her. Her choice of play partners never seemed to have a
discernible pattern, and she played with boys and girls equally; some days spending
her time in dramatic play, other times engaged in blocks and Legos. She
communicated well with adults and children, offering a wide array of knowledge on a
variety of topics. She was unfailingly amenable to the suggestions of others in play,
and if nothing seemed to be happening that appealed to her, she happily chose to play
on her own. She was a “master player” (Reynolds & Jones, 1997) in the classroom, at
ease in every area with every individual.
A month later, it will be Emily that I witnessed actively scaffolding for her
peer during a drawing activity, trying to coach Dalia through how to draw a snake.
Talking her patiently through the various steps saying, “Let me show you what I am
thinking”, (Audio transcript, January, 2011), while Dalia insists that she does not
know how to draw. Emily’s own drawings were treasure troves of developmental
information, and I frequently requested to photograph them once she completed her
masterpieces (see Figure 6-2).
Ziva, the other child featured in this vignette, was a very different sort of
“player”. Her strengths lay in her boundless energy and tenacious nature. She sang all
day, switching between French and English continually. She will appear in at least two
other vignettes as a “person of importance” in understanding the social workings of
this classroom.
It was clear through observation and in checking in with her teachers that
French is Ziva’s “home” language. If she became overwhelmed with emotion she
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would often struggle to express herself in English, finally giving over to the comfort of
her primary language to communicate her feelings
Figure 6-2 Cow, Moon and Grandpa by Emily
Julie, the French-speaking teacher, expressed some personal frustration with
Ziva to me: “She’s so bossy! I want to show her that grabbing things and telling her
friends what to do doesn’t help her get along with people.” (Field note, December 22,
2011)
There was a competitive streak in Ziva. She likes to “race” people, even when
the other party wasn’t interested in racing. When playing a memory game, she became
so ultra focused on who had more matches that she was sent away from the game for
making the other player feel bad (Field note, January 12, 2012).
However, when partnered with “master player” Emily, Ziva happily deferred
to her peers’ lead in creating a CD for themselves, co-constructing an ingenious
solution to a vexing problem (Reynolds & Jones, 1997).
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Vignette Two: Zach as Master of the Legos
On my first day of observation in the classroom, I sat cross-legged on the floor
next to the Lego table. I was awash in names of children, simply trying to recall what
name was associated with which child as they moved from one area to the other. My
senses were overwhelmed with the noise of being in the midst of 15 active, inquisitive
preschoolers.
Out of habit born of years as a classroom teacher, my hand raised to the Lego
table surface, where large plates of Lego had been firmly attached. As I watched the
children, my nails found the edges of the affixed pieces and began to pry them loose,
freeing them for new constructions. With each piece freed, I would place it in the
bucket underneath the table and begin on the next attached piece.
After about ten minutes of work, Jonah sidled over to me. “Can you get that
one off for me?” he said, pointing to a large white plate fastened in the middle of the
table (see Figure 6-3). “Sure, just let me get a few more of the ones nearby off, so I
can get to it,” I responded. I was thrilled that I had drawn a child close to me despite
systematically ripping and tearing my fingernails to shreds digging at the edges of the
Lego. As he waited Alex joined to watch. In an area where there had been no
children working, I suddenly had two highly attentive boys.
As I handed the requested piece to Jonah, Alex became agitated. In French, he
began to chide both me and his peer; “But those are Zach’s! This is Zach’s Table!
Those are Zach’s Legos!”
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Figure 6-3 Jonah's Construction with the white Lego plate
Confused, I looked over to Elaine, the teacher, to clarify. I had no idea why
this child was telling me that this table belonged to Zach. Did Zach donate this table to
the class? Elaine said “Boys! The Lego table belongs to everyone in the class. It
doesn’t belong to Zach!”
Alex told me several more times that I was messing with Zach’s table until it
became clear that his peers and teacher were not going to support him in his
defense of Zach’s ownership of Lego. The other boys, in fact, began
encouraging me to deconstruct more and more of the large stuck on plates,
eagerly accepting them as more parts for their new constructions. (Field notes,
December 8, 2011)
What I didn’t know at the time was that Zach was away for the winter
holidays. It made no sense to me why the “owner” of the Lego table made no claims
or protests with me while I was deconstructing the stuck on bits at the table. I put it out
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of my mind as the observation days rolled on and I saw the boys suddenly playing
with the Lego table anew, as if my removal of the pieces created a “fresh start” for the
area.
Figure 6-4 Zach on the hunt for the right Lego piece
Zach was not a talker. He didn’t spend a great deal of time in conversation,
even with his preferred peers. He generally didn’t choose to involve himself in
activities outside of building, although I did see him wander into the block area several
times, after a Lego creation had been built and was firmly in his hand. He was never
observed to participate in dramatic play like some of his Lego-building peers.
It was not until Zach returned from his vacation that I began to understand the
frantic demands of Alex that I respect the authority of the invisible (to me) Zach. For
Zach was the undisputed leader of the Legos (see Figure 6-4). Upon his arrival for the
day, he headed straight to the Lego table, a plan for building already sketched out in
his mind. It was to him that his peers deferred, asking him to help them find specific
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pieces seemingly lost within the buckets of loose Lego parts. It was to Zach that his
peers showed their Lego creations, seeking his approval and acknowledgement:
Zach can be heard singing (to himself) the song they will be singing at the Hanukah
celebration.
You can hear the boys rifling through the Lego bucket
Zach hasn’t said what he is looking for, but Jonah seems to know, because he asks
him: “Did you find it?”
Zach: “No”
More rifling of Lego
Zach: “Give me one”
Jonah: “No, It’s for Alex. I’m making it for Alex.”
Zach: It’s not your table –It’s MY table (Zach has a table like this at home Elaine tells
me – the boys all refer to Zach as the “owner” of the table)
Jonah: “I dided this for ALEX” (emphasis on Alex)
Zach begins to sing to himself again, and then makes car noises as he drives the Lego
creation across the table. He sings and makes car noises for over five minutes.
(Audio transcript and Field note, December 8, 2011)
Zach was a highly disciplined builder or a “master patterner” (Wolf &
Gardner, 1979). Children with this play style “are builders and artists, sensitive to the
dimensions of objects such as color, size and shape” (Reynolds & Jones, 1997).
On more than one occasion when I observed Zach building for over an hour at
the Lego table, his attention was rarely drawn away from his internal blueprint of what
he was creating. He was almost never alone while he stood at the table, for his most
frequent companion in all play was Jonah (see Figure 6-5).
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Figure 6-5 Zach finds a Lego piece for Jonah
Despite his infrequent or staccato conversation with peers, Zach was the boy
who produced the most private speech in this classroom. At four documented
occurrences, with most of those occurrences lasting five to thirty minutes, he was the
second most productive child in the classroom overall, in terms of private speech.
Zach’s private speech was filled with sounds: vehicles, animal noises, sirens,
and even one episode of singing. He filled in the narrative in his stories with the
sounds that accompanied his play. His eyes rarely left his own construction item or
toy during these play sessions, except when his attention was demanded by another
child repeatedly calling his name:
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Zach first tries to get al.ex to play saying: “Alex, let’s play!
Alex, let’s play!”
When Alex ignores him, Zach begins to talk to himself, as he
manipulates the Lego construction around the table:
Zach: Whoa! Crrrrrrsssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Zach: Shhhhhhhhhh screeeeeeeeee
bsssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Zach: Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
Zach: Shhhhhhh, yeah!
After 3 minutes, Alex joins him (see Figure 6-6)
Alex: Zach, Put it here! Put it here!
Alex: The bad guys, Zach, the bad guys, out here!
Zach continues to make vehicle noises: Brrrrrrrrrrr,
sshhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Zach repeats these noises for another full minute before
leaving the table to join Alex.
(Audio transcript, December 8, 2011)
Figure 6-6 Zach makes noises as he holds his plane
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The only time I witnessed Zach engaged in play other than building, it was at
the behest of Julia, his teacher. She requested that he paint the life sized figure of
himself, a task which Zach did in the manner he approached all tasks: methodically.
Despite my hope of hearing him produce private speech during this relatively solo
endeavor, he never did. Instead, he carefully painted and then precisely cut his paper
figure; all in silence (see Figure 6-7).
Figure 6-7- Zach cuts out his paper figure
It may be tempting for adults unfamiliar with Zach to classify his play as too
“one track”, not imaginative enough. He was a builder. He found comfort in creating
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his vehicles and structures. The content of his private speech, produced always near
the Lego table nearby preferred play partners, filled in the landscape of his rich
internal narrative with animal sounds, singing and spectacular vehicle crashes.
Vignette Three: Gabriella as Savvy Storyteller
“Gabriella ‘rules’ dramatic play. She seems to keep the story together insomuch as her
narrative is very cohesive and she sticks to it” (Field notes, January 11, 2012).
On my first day observing in the classroom, I witnessed an intense argument
between two girls. While I did not yet have a sense of the personalities of these girls, it
was clear that this was not the first time they had clashed, and it would certainly not be
the last:
Maya and Gabriella conflict (over blanket then Hannah intervenes)
Maya: “I got it first!”
Gabriella: “Ok, Bye”
Gabriella (a second time when the threat of leaving did not persuade Maya): “You
give it to meeeeee!”
Maya: “First you give it to me.”
Gabriella: “I’m Leaving, Bye.”
Maya: “Stop being so stubborn!”
Gabriella: “I want ….So, you’re a liar.”
Maya: “You’re….you’re so…you’re so stubborn!” (Her tone indicates she isn’t sure
how to respond to Gabriella’s accusation – which has seemingly escalated beyond a
disagreement over property rights of the blanket)
Gabriella (says again): “You’re a liar.”
Maya: “You’re…You’re… You’re. You have to share. You never share.”
Gabriella (whine): “I had it firrrrrrstttttt……..Mommy!” (Gabriella is appealing to
the other children in dramatic play)
Maya: “I got this first.”
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They begin to struggle over the blanket. They are both sitting on the floor and pulling
it between them.
Maya: “I got this FIRST. Stop being so stubborn.”
Gabriella (whining): “I want itttttt. Mine – need to have sleep” (Both girls want to
use the blanket to put their “babies” to bed)
Gabriella makes a very loud, cry whine sound. Hannah, who had been playing in
various groups and has now been recently observing the Gabriella/Maya dispute
decides to step in and mediate.
Hannah: “She had it first.” (Hannah, in fact, has not been there for the entire conflict
- Hannah is indicating that Gabriella has had the blanket first). “Don’t…..Fight!”
(The emphasis on these words is quite strong)
Maya (indignant tone): “I got it First!”
Gabriella (whining): “No. I got it first.”
The girls continue to struggle over the blanket. Hannah continues to watch.
Maya: “I want…..She took it out of MY HANDS.” (Maya is appealing to Hannah here
– while still holding on to the blanket)
Maya: “You’re NOT NICE! (Looking at Gabriella, strong emphasis on last two
words)
(Audio transcript, December 5, 2011)
In this conflict and in later observations, Gabriella and Maya appeared to be
equally strong personalities. During my observations up to this point, they had not
chosen to play together often. Each one seemed to have others they chose to “lead”
and to whom they gravitated. When they did encounter each other, there tended to be a
strong conflict with each strongly maintaining their ground. Maya’s tone, while
indignant, never moved to a whine. Gabriella used a whining tone early in the
argument when her threat to leave didn’t get the desired reaction of Maya giving her
the blanket (Field notes, December 5, 2011) (see Figure 6-8)
Of course, such a heated exchange between two players drew my interest. Who
were these girls with such strong personalities?
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I would soon come to know Gabriella as a “master dramatist” or a child who
“is alive to many of the personal and social dimensions of experience, such as roles,
attitudes, and strategies. Consequently, dramatists shine in games, socio-dramatic
play, arguments, and negotiations" (Wolf & Grollman, 1982, p. 59).
Figure 6-8 Gabriella and Maya in negotiation in dramatic play
The arenas of dramatic play, arguments and negotiations were certainly Gabriella’s
forte, and she often could be found at the center of classroom disputes as seen in
Bina’s and Esther’s private speech vignettes.
Gabriella’s own private speech style, however, rarely involved others. In her
two recorded occurrences, she was only ever observed to engage in fantasy talk and
was always initially alone on the Circle rug.
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Gabriella’s private speech content involved the ongoing dramatic play
scenarios she played and re-played. Her real life dramatic play interactions were filled
with babies who needed tending and pleas for mommies and sisters to let her get up
from bed. At times, some of her peers would refuse to engage with her in dramatic
play, as she could be quite inflexible about role designation and story changes. The
price of admission to Gabriella’s dramatic play was that any participant had to follow
her script.
At times, this was an attractive option to other participants and Gabriella rarely
lacked for peers willing to join. At other times, her rigidity could lead to significant
conflict and dissolution of the original dramatic play scenario to be re-formed with
other more pliable “players”.
If no play partner could be found, Gabriella was more than happy to take to the
Circle rug and begin her private speech play:
Gabriella is using the dress up dolls – As she looks at the
different outfit choices (it is a lace up activity), she is softly
commenting to herself as to what she sees:
Gabriella: He’s gonna play baseball, cause he needs to take a
soccer ball.
Gabriella: (to herself): I think….this is the way to do it. He’s a
builder. He wants to go to sleep.
Gabriella: You want him to be in the sea? He’s going to be in
the sea. (Singing) He’s going swimming…
Gabriella: (singing to herself) Going in the sea….
(Audio transcript and field notes, December 8, 2011)
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In this and the subsequent occurrence of private speech, it was important to
note that Gabriella started out alone on the Circle rug. However, within a short amount
of time, she had always attracted another member of the classroom who was drawn by
her verbal descriptions of her play. In both occurrences it was Dalia, a more reserved
member of the classroom, who asked to join Gabriella’s play (Field notes, December
8, 2011 and January 11, 2012).
Figure 6-9 Gabriella works on the lace up bears on Circle rug
In the field notes, there is an indication that I sensed what Dalia was doing:
“Dalia has taken a puzzle to the Circle rug and is sitting diagonally from Gabriella.
Dalia doesn’t seem to be interested in working on the puzzle, but is, rather, watching
what Gabriella is doing with the lace-up bears” (see Figure 6-9) (Field note, December
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8, 2011). In both instances, Dalia used Gabriella’s fantasy talk private speech
descriptions to gain permission to enter the play, i.e., “Can I be the swimmer?” (Audio
transcript, December 8, 2011).
Gabriella accepted the play bids in both instances, scooted over to make room
for Dalia as they continued to play. For Dalia, the opportunity to gain an enthusiastic
and imaginative play partner was one that was worth the conformity of adhering to
Gabriella’s scenario. For Gabriella, this one to one time with play partners with whom
she less frequently interacted served two purposes; she could practice her negotiation
skills in a less “high-stakes” situation as well as build her affiliation with other
members of the classroom.
Vignette Four: Bina: Private Speech as Verbal Mortar
Bina was the tallest girl in her class, with large brown eyes and black hair that
was always neatly braided. I noticed her when I first arrived because she was the only
non-Caucasian child in the room. As I sat on the rug, she brought a puzzle to work
with nearby while keeping a safe distance. I could feel her observing me and so I
continued to watch other children, scribbling notes in my field journal.
Later that evening as I wrote my thoughts into my Research Journal, I noted:
“Other girls - Bina, Dalia, and Emily - hover around me shyly. They want chances to
shine, but are unsure how to approach” (Research journal, December 5, 2011).
It would be easy for a child like Bina to get “lost” in the classroom, for her
personality does not demand notice in the way other children’s might. Even tempered,
easily amenable to changes in play, she rarely asserted her will over her peers. Her
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speech to adults was infrequent. During my time in the classroom she was tested by
speech pathologists to assess for delayed language.
I did, however, hear her talking on the tapes with her peers. Her voice was low
and strong when she did talk. Bina, I came to understand, was a master observer. She
missed nothing and could be a powerful ally, if she so chose, in a variety of classroom
dramas.
It was not long before Bina came to the forefront of my notes, as in this Research
Journal entry:
Just transcribed an interesting vignette between Ziva, Bina and Gabriella. It is
a threesome that isn't "normally" found together - but it was a curious set of
interactions.
I need to look to see if I can classify the singing they were doing as a form of
private speech - I think I can, for they were (chunks of the dialogue) not
addressing each other as per the Coding manual.
In the vignette I posted, I think Bina echoed Ziva's singing as a way of gaining
influence. They weren't problem solving - they were drawing - and there was
no need for "self regulation" in the formal way. This was all social - a way to
bond Ziva/Bina and defy Gabriella's wishes.
In terms of social "power" Gabriella ranks pretty high - Very verbal, a good
story teller, and intense dramatic play creator.
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Ziva is mid level. Verbal - but "bossy", she often gets in trouble with her
peers/teachers for being too competitive or loud. She has a habit of grabbing
things from people’s hands if they don't give it to her by asking. She does love
singing, and I have seen her spontaneously sing far more than anyone else in
the room.
She (Bina) doesn't have strong allegiances the way Gabriella or Maya might,
and she moves from group to group as it appeals.
Bina is reserved - she spends a great deal of time watching the others and I
rarely see her initiate conversation - this is why this 10 minutes was so
intriguing - hearing her sing, even. I know she was tested for speech - but I
don't hear anything wrong with her pronunciation when she does talk - she just
doesn't talk often and when she does, she is quiet, a soft strong voice.
(Research journal, January 16, 2012)
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Figure 6-10 Bina enters dramatic play
There were three instances of Bina engaging in private speech. Each took place
in a different spot of the classroom; at the Lego table, at the art centre and in the block
corner. She was playing with and around different children each time Each occurrence
featured signing as a component of the private speech and all featured her “echoing”
words that have been said by children around her.
The back and forth singing revealed in the transcript occurred with no eye
contact between Bina and Ziva. In fact, there was a child, Gabriella, sitting between
them at the table. While this had a flavor of social speech, given that there seemed to
be a rhythm to their singing, it did not meet the criterion for social speech. There was
no eye contact, no name references, no touching to gain the others’ attention.
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Yet, it was the continuation of the singing/private speech that revealed some
deeper issues, a long standing argument between Ziva and Gabriella:
Bina – begins to echo what Ziva has just sang – Just one line – although I
have no belief that this is a song they know, nor do I think that it has any
obvious roots to popular music.
Ziva, hearing the song Bina begins, ramps up her singing, even more
enthusiastically.
Gabriella (at table) practically shouts: I’M NOT SINGING THAT SONG!
And Ziva continues to sing, non plussed, entirely but the lyrics change:“You
don’t wanna sing with me, you don’t wanna sing with me! Don’t Sing! Then
don’t sing!”
There is no eye contact between them. They are both staring down at their
papers drawing
Ziva eventually stops singing.
Bina begins to sing: “I’m just gonna make you can tell something else or you
wanna tell. Just stop colouring!”
Ziva begins to sing again: “I gonna leave you hammatan , I wanna go to in a
dance board. I wanna dance you! I wanna dance you! I wanna turn you, I
wanna turn you I wanna like you in my sun in my wind, in my sun. All the
green, in this. I want to leave with mr, all my time, all my thing, you gonna
leave with me.”
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Gabriella: “Can someone give me scissors?”
Ziva sings: “Give me nothin’!”
Gabriella: (emphatically) Give me Scissors!
Ziva: No, don’t (Ziva stops Bina from giving the scissors to Gabriella)
Ziva stops singing.
Bina (softly) begins to sing the same/repeat words that Ziva was just singing.
Gabriella: “I’m mad at Bina!”
Ziva (to Gabriella): “Her WORKING! Look! Look!”
Gabriella: “Yeah, but I’m really upset.”
Ziva: “Her Working!” (and then Ziva switches to French)
Gabriella: “So later, later, you’re not going to be my friend – Just Sarah and
Ziva…just Sarah, Esther and, and all come to my house and not you even
Ziva.”
Bina continues to work, singing softly under the blossoming argument
between Ziva and Gabriella.
The subtext of this argument between Ziva and Gabriella was one that took me
(Audio transcript, January 16, 2012)
quite a long time to untangle. There was a power play occurring between these words
and alliances were being crafted. Bina was choosing to ally with Ziva over Gabriella,
and was choosing to assert her alliance by echoing the words that Ziva, the perpetual
singer in the classroom, was using. Bina sang because Ziva sang.
Bina’s final instance of private speech occurred in the block area after she had
taken refuge there, after a disagreement in the dramatic play area had spilled over,
disrupting the play and causing tears and turning it into a “hot bed of controversy”
(Field notes, January 11, 2012). She entered the block area where the only other child
present was Alex who had, uncharacteristically, chosen solitary play (Field notes,
January 12, 2012).
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Alex had been participating in dramatic play at a distance. He had been
assigned a role as “the police,” but was not considered to be an active player. He
would occasionally be called over by the players in the area to make an announcement
(helpfully supplied by the players) then wandered back to what he had been doing.
When Bina arrived in the block area, she lay down on the floor. Alex assigned
her a role, folding her into his version of dramatic play (see Figure 6-11). Alex
marched into dramatic play, braving the roiling argument, and appropriated a small
blanket while announcing:
Alex: “This is for Bina and she’s the police baby (Bina has left the dramatic
play area and joined Alex in the block Area). (Audio transcript, January 11,
2012)
Figure 6-11 Bina is the “police baby”, covered by Alex
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Shortly after this announcement, Alex was called away by Zach and left Bina alone in
the block area. It was then that her final occurrence of private speech began:
Bina begins to talk – extensively when the boys (Zach and
Alex) leave. Her voice is low, but steady and consistent.
(3:28) is when Bina starts to be more clearly heard, although
I suspect she has been talking for longer. It has been hard to
hear over the boys - she switches between French and
English as well
Bina: “I am the baby -I’m the baby and the police, and I was
asleep…” “Zach Says…, “ I was in the kitchen”….
(Audio transcript, January 11, 2012)
Later that evening, I will reflect on my observations in my research journal:
The bits and pieces that I can isolate seem to indicate that Bina is replaying the
conversation she just listened to between Alex and Zach, as well as the
dramatic play in which she is involved. She is telling herself the story of the
dramatic play and echoing Zach’s concern that he doesn’t lose his motorcycle
(since he confided in Alex that he should have it in his cubby and no adults
seem to have yet noticed).
Her private speech goes on from the time the boys leave (Alex and Zach) to the
point where the girls in Dramatic play start calling for the Police!...She doesn’t
first hear them, but goes on for several more seconds weaving her own
narrative before rejoining the play (Research journal, January 11, 2012).
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Bina deployed her private speech during times of classroom stress, insomuch
as she was using her own speech to either ally with others, as she did with Ziva, or
made sense of other social conflicts occurring around her. Bina may have been using
her private speech as a means of social positioning (Reynolds & Jones, 1997),
expressing her feelings about social events in a more subtle, indirect manner than
some of her more verbally-inclined peers.
During the conflict in dramatic play, Bina chose to leave and affiliated with
Alex, a socially powerful peer. This gave her leave to “step out” of the drama while
still retaining a role within the overarching narrative. She gained the best of both
worlds: a powerful dramatic play role as the police/baby, and the ability to stay neutral
in the interpersonal conflict occurring in dramatic play.
Vignette Five: Esther: Making Peace through Private Speech
These field and research journal notes document the longest single episode of
private speech recorded during my time in the research classroom.
Esther did not attend child care every day, and when she did she often arrived
after breakfast had been served. Identified as her “best friend” by the socially
powerful Maya, she often appeared as a silent observer in many of the classroom
dramas; Observing, but not interfering, watching, but rarely commenting.
Therefore, it was of considerable interest when I observed her choice to stand
alone at the doll house in the middle of the classroom. In all previous field notes, she
had preferred to be at Maya’s side in dramatic play, or at the drawing table. While
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Maya was present on that day, Esther chose to be at the doll house engaging in her
private speech.
Esther spent an extended time at the dollhouse today - mostly alone. It was
nearly an HOUR of play. Solitary play, with a good deal of private speech which I hope that I got large portions recorded. Elaine heard her too and
moved the microphone closer to try to catch it on tape. Esther, like Arella, is a
bit more sporadic in her attendance so I have had fewer opportunities to
observe her. (Research journal, February 8, 2012)
Esther stands at table with the doll house. She is actively talking; I can see her
lips moving, so I edge the recorder closer to where I hope it can pick up her
voice. She is generally a very soft talker, so I am worried that I won’t be able
to hear her on tape. Elaine noticed her too, pointed out that she is talking to
herself. Funny, that the teachers are now spontaneously noticing the children
engaged in private speech. I wonder if they noticed it before I came to the
classroom. (Field notes, February 8, 2012)
Esther has been at the dollhouse for close to an hour now. She hasn’t stopped,
walked around or even significantly glanced up to see what others might be
doing. She is entirely immersed in her play and the figures/dolls. Occasionally
I try to inch closer to her to hear what she is saying and I catch bits, “Baby”,
“Mom” – a pretty standard doll house scenario. I am cautious as I don’t want
to put her off her private speech by invading her space, so I stand back, just
getting close enough to make sure the red “record” light is still on. Gabriella
has been observing Esther from the side. Gabriella, too, has been close by – on
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the rug – doing some play with the trains. I think Esther’s play must look
appealing to Gabriella – just up her alley, so to speak. (Field notes, February 8,
2012)
While the content of Esther’s private speech reveals no significant details
beyond that of a typical dramatic play scenario, it was unique in length of time spent
in private speech by a single individual. It was Gabriella, the master storyteller, who
finally interrupted the private speech of Esther:
After watching for about ten minutes, Gabriella goes over to Esther and asks
“Can I play?” Esther, in lieu of a verbal answer, scoots over and makes room
for Gabriella. There seems to be no visual distinction (no role or location
change) in story between Esther’s play before Gabriella joined, and afterward.
Gabriella seems able to pick up where Esther left off, as I observe no intense
verbal negotiation that I so frequently see in any dramatic play when a new
player joins the group. (Field Notes, February 8, 2012)
This segue by Gabriella into the play scenario of Esther was notable for several
reasons. Gabriella, as previously noted, had such a strong sense of her story that it was
rare that I have observed her acquiescing to the story line of any other child. The
loudest and longest arguments recorded in and around dramatic play have been
between Gabriella and other children who wanted her to change or adapt her story line
to suit the group. Gabriella would prefer to play alone, as she did on the rug when
engaging in her own private speech, rather than change her storyline.
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Esther is playing alone at the second table.
Esther engages in private speech, talking about the family in the doll
house:
“I’m gonna sit with the little baby, it’s ok”
“I need this one with my kids, and I need this, my kids, sweetie”
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom!
She then starts to sing a little song with the words “I gotta be…I gotta
be”
Starts with Esther singing: “Lalalala-lah”
Esther continues to talk to herself – singing, then talking…
“I just said get out of this place..I just said get out of this place!”
“But I don’t have cupboards!”
Esther, still at Dollhouse: “But sweetie, you …to go”
“Ooooh- the baby”
“My mommy”, “Can I play with you? Yeah sure”
After 40 minutes of solitary play, another child (Gabriella) joins
Esther.
(Audio transcript, January 22, 2012)
A day prior to this recorded occurrence of the private speech of Esther,
Gabriella had been caught in the middle of an intense social argument which had spun
on for a majority of the morning. When I had initially noted the movement of the
argument, I had expressed puzzlement:
The group of girls from the drawing table keep coming over to dramatic play,
quite out of the blue. Gabriella is playing in dramatic play with Daniel and
seems irritated as to why the drawing table group keeps marching over to
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growl at and threaten her. I can’t imagine what this is about – she (Gabriella)
has been in dramatic play for almost all the morning. (Field note, January 23,
2012) (see Figure 6-12)
Figure 6-12 Girls at drawing table
From my outside observer perspective, it seemed that the group of girls from
the drawing table had decided to gang up on Gabriella, who was simply minding her
own business in dramatic play. Not long after I wrote those field notes, the argument
got louder as Gabriella decided to involve Elaine, her teacher:
After the third time the group of girls has come from drawing to dramatic play,
Gabriella has had it. She goes to Elaine to complain about being the other girls
“being mean.” (Field note, January 23, 2012)
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Later, that evening I note this unusual behavior pattern in my research journal:
Maya (normally a pretty devoted dramatic player) leaves after a brief amount
of time (and a tiny bit of play with Gabriella) and goes to the table (art) with
Esther, and Ziva. They begin a discussion (with Elaine at the table) in which
they decide Gabriella has done something they find to be upsetting.
Gabriella is the only one today who finds her "story" and sticks with it; Daniel
follows her into dramatic play and allows her to lead the story. When the girls
(Ziva, Maya, and Hannah) march over and begin to snarl and growl at
Gabriella (who tells them to leave her alone and stop), Gabriella has No idea
what they are going on about, as she has been happily ensconced in her own
play on the other side of the room. I move the recorder to the table about mid
way through the incident, so I am not sure if I can hear the rationale for
the behavior.
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Figure 6-13 Esther remains at the table after the first trip to dramatic play
This goes on - with at least three back and forth visits - from the drawing table
to the dramatic play area to pester Gabriella.
Elaine later tells me that she thinks Ziva began it. That Hannah participates is
a bit odd - she generally is the peace keeper. I am curious to transcribe this bit
of tape to hear what they were on about - if I can puzzle out why she was
participating in the argument. (Research Journal, January 23, 2012)
It is worth noting that while Esther was at the art table, and participated in the
overall conversation regarding the social crime committed by Gabriella, she never
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joined the group that physically moved across the room to threaten Gabriella (see
Figure 6-13).
What did Gabriella do which caused nearly the entire social group of girls to
feel the need to punish her? She had committed this group’s greatest social sin of all:
Not liking another child’s drawing and actively encouraging others to say they didn’t
like it.
In an audio clip captured between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m., I had unknowingly
recorded the beginning of the argument which was now, two hours later, coming to
fruition:
Gabriella: “Like my picture?”
Maya: “I’m busy”
Gabriella: “Do you like my picture?”
Maya: “I love your picture…but I think you should do some else here. You
need to do some more white here.”
Maya: “You like my picture?”
Gabriella: “Yeah”
Maya: “Very nice, huh?”
Gabriella: “MMMmm hmmmm. But I don’t like Ziva’s Picture”. (Ziva is also
coloring, silently at the table)
Gabriella (to Maya): “Do you like it?” (Referring to Ziva’s picture)
Maya: (No response)
Ziva: “ELAINE?!?!”
Maya (in French to Gabriella): “I don’t like it.”
Ziva: “ELAINE! Gabriella and Maya said I don’t like it – my picture…”(Ziva
begins to cry, in earnest)
Maya: “I like it! I like it!”
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Gabriella: “I don’t.”
Maya: “I like it a LOT.”
Ziva: (sputtering in French): “Gabriella…Said!”
Elaine: “Do you like your picture?”
Ziva: “Yeah…” (Crying slows)
Elaine: “OK.”
Maya: “Well, I like her picture.”
(Audio transcript, January 23, 2012)
In this exchange lay the beginning of a two and a half hour argument which
would literally move from one side of the classroom to the other, with social
repercussions that would continue later that week when I recorded Esther at the
dollhouse.
As noted in my research journal, Elaine thought Ziva had organized the group
of girls who had begun to harass Gabriella in dramatic play. What she had forgotten,
and what I never heard, was the beginning to this argument which led to the unusual
actions taken by the social group to punish one of their own. Ziva did have a starring
role in the overall drama, becoming the indisputably wronged party. Ziva’s affiliation
with Maya, who was present at the original offence, provided the catalyst for
punishment. Yet it was through Esther, identified by Maya as her “best friend,” that
Gabriella eventually sought companionship by asking to enter her private speech play
scenario.
While the content of the argument is fascinating, it is the social alliances
created and supported through play which I find most intriguing. This was, after all,
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hardly the first time she and Ziva had come into conflict. The episode in which Bina
had chosen Ziva by echoing her song through her private speech was less than a week
old. Ziva had a list of complaints to bring to her peers by the time Gabriella announced
that she didn’t “like” her picture.
For Gabriella, who experienced a bit of the cold shoulder for several days after
the original argument, there was social value in offering a supporting role to Esther’s
dramatic play. Through alliance with and support by Esther, Gabriella sought to
redeem herself by requesting entry into the private speech play of another child.
Standing side by side with Esther, Gabriella offered a token of peace to her
peer group. In accepting that token, Esther helps to redeem Gabriella by showing that
Gabriella will listen to the ideas of others, showing sensitivity to the importance of
maintaining the groups “rules”.
The content of Esther’s private speech was not necessarily remarkable. It was a
typical fantasy play scenario, complete with babies being put to bed and mommy’s
making dinner. What made it unique was the overall length, without interruption, as
well as the obvious appeal of the topic to a child with the play style of Gabriella.
Additionally, Esther chose to position the dollhouse on the table next to the Circle rug.
Gabriella was most likely to play on the circle rug if not engaged in play inside the
dramatic play area.
It was Esther’s private speech that provided a means for that olive branch to be
offered to and accepted by Gabriella, with normalcy eventually returning to the social
group interactions.
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Summary of chapter 6
In this chapter, I have woven contextual tales around the private speech of five
individual children. Through combining analysis of multiple data sources grounded in
naturalistic observations, field notes, audio tapes, and my reflective research journal, I
sought to uncover evidence that children were using their private speech as a social
tool to communicate with their peers. While the children may have met the established
criterion for engaging in private speech (see chapter four), they were almost never
“alone”. The content of these children’s private speech reveals them to be fully
engaged in the heteroglossia described by Bakhtin (1986) as a multitude of voices
echoing through the words and actions of individuals.
In chapter seven, I will discuss the implications of my data and research
through the lens of what researchers currently know about private speech, and in the
final chapter, offer suggestions for further explorations.
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Chapter 7 - The Warp and Weft of the Cloth: Discussion of the Findings
“Do children use their own private speech as a means of communicating
knowledge to their peers? If so, how might their peers use this information?”
These are the questions which sparked from an observation in a classroom in
2005 and have since guided my dissertation journey. They are the questions that I have
kept in the forefront of my mind as I have transcribed hours of audio recordings,
transferred photographs and blogged in my research journal about my field notes.
They are the questions of a classroom teacher, trained to be reflexive about her
practice and continually looking to, and wondering about, what children might be
telling us through their actions, rather than assuming the presence of definitive
developmental timelines.
Revisiting the theory
As I explored in chapter one, the roots of the question of why children talk out
loud to themselves lay in the theories of Vygotsky and Piaget. While both men noted
the phenomenon, they had differing opinions and theories as to why it occurred.
Termed private speech by Vygotsky (1934/1986) and “egocentric speech” by Piaget
(1923/1962), the occurrence was seen as a marker in the cognitive development of a
child. While each theorist had a different interpretation as to the purpose of private
speech, neither necessarily believed that it was a communicative tool for use between
children.
Tomasello (1999) describes the evolutionary process by which he believes
humans became sensitive to the visual and non-verbal cues of other humans. Through
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these “joint attentional scenes,” humans are sensitized to the specific nonverbal ways
other humans seek to gain and direct their attention. This process begins in infancy
with parent/caregiver and child repeatedly engaging in these “joint attentional scenes.”
This ability to triangulate one idea between two minds is what allows us to understand
what might be happening inside another human’s brain (Tomasello, 1999).
Nelson (2007) weaves the social cognition theories of Vygotsky into modern
research around cultural learning through both passive and active collaboration while
discussing “collaborative construction” (Goudena, 1997; Kutnick & Berdondini, 2008;
Rogoff, 2003; Tomasello, 1999; Tomasello, Kruger & Ratner, 1993; Vygotsky
1934/1978). Nelson (2007) embraces the idea of capable peer serving as cognitive
scaffold for children in a classroom, rather than relying on an adult to assume that role.
Bakhtin (1986) discusses ways in which language belongs to many people, or
heteroglossia, rather than simply being the product of one individual speaker. It is
through our social worlds and contacts that we filter our spoken words, making
conversations “a living social process” (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 86). Any utterance, Bakhtin
argued, is directed “to a particular speaking subject” regardless of the physical
presence of that subject (p. 71).Valentin Voloshinov, a contemporary and writing
partner of Bakhtin condenses it more succinctly: “A word is a bridge thrown between
myself and another. If one end depends on me, then the other depends on the
addressee” (Voloshinov, 1986, p. 86).
In using Vygotsky as a basis for my theoretical framework, there is an
intentional embracing of a conceptualization of all human activity as being
fundamentally rooted in and as a social construction. To this end, I propose that
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everything a child does or experiences in common, including the stages of
development as presented by Piaget, serve a specific and an integral social function.
Thus, the private speech of young children could serve a purpose that may include but
also significantly move beyond the goals of individual cognitive development
previously described by both Vygotsky and Piaget. If one superimposes Bakhtin onto
Vygotsky, then every utterance potentially becomes purposeful in being produced for
a listener. According to Bakhtin’s (1986) notion of “heteroglossia”, listener and
speaker can be combined into one voice reflecting the myriad of social voices
surrounding the child (Cohen, 2007).
The data set presented in chapter five and further represented and discussed in
chapter six (using a methodology appropriate to the social context of the research
situation) throws doubt on the belief that the children in this research classroom were
using their private speech solely as a self regulatory tool. As the data collection
methodology took careful note of the surroundings of the child during any observed
occurrences of private speech as well as captured ambient discussion of adults and
children before and after any individual occurrences of private speech, the context and
content of the speech became more central. The question of “what else was going on
in the classroom” became the frame through which I had to consider each individual
occurrence of private speech.
Unlike the research done by Winsler and others (Lee, 1999; Patrick &
Abravanel, 2000; Winsler et.al, 2003; Winsler et.al, 2006; Winsler et.al, 2007;
Winsler, Carlton & Barry, 2000), I did not seek to associate the incidences of private
speech purely with self regulation or adult assessed indicators of maturity. My
research methodology was specifically chosen to mitigate issues of unfamiliar adult or
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environment, as it was grounded in the theoretical foundation of child as competent
creator of culture (James, 2001). Future research is needed to further explore how
methodologies can be designed to support current directions in research in the culture
of childhood.
The children remained aware and interactive with their surroundings even
while engaged in private speech. In what (as the “Other” category), I came to term
“echoing,” occurrences of private speech happened in which a child would repeat a
term said by another child or adult located on the other side of the room. Emily, the
child featured in the first vignette did this twice, repeating her teacher’s phrase “Go
take your coffee, Madame!” and repeating the word “Caca!”, after it was said by a
peer in an adjoining area (see page 86). This social phenomenon is quite striking and
deserves further investigation.
Building on the data set of the private speech of five individuals exhibited in
chapter five, I attempted to fill in additional pieces of the social tapestry around the
occurrences of private speech in chapter six. The term “social tapestry” draws
attention to both the social context in which many instances of private speech occurred
as well as the kind of research representation required to show interactivity. In each of
those narratives, integral was looking at the whole of the speech in light of the
activities and personalities of the children in the classroom (Chase, 2005). It was not
simply that Emily needed to create a CD for the missing object for which she and Ziva
searched but that she also involved Ziva in that process, modeling for her both English
language writing skills, but also how to achieve a goal in a manner less brusque than
Ziva may generally operate.
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Zach’s status as “master builder” (Reynolds & Jones, 1997) was echoed by his
peers regardless of his physical presence in the classroom. His base of command was
established around the Lego table, and he was consulted in most things that occur on
and around that table. The sounds that he made, both animal and vehicle, filled out his
inner narratives for his peers, giving them glimpses into what he was thinking.
For Bina, private speech became a non-confrontational way of making social
comment on the actions of her peers. In this way, she could exert influence and
express an opinion without becoming too heavily drawn into interpersonal conflict.
Gabriella used her private speech to self-soothe after some of those
interpersonal conflicts have occurred in her realm of dramatic play. Her presence on
the Circle rug and subsequent broadcast of her internal play narrative indicates that she
was open to playing with Dalia, a child she did not normally choose as a play partner.
Dalia specifically used the affiliative words used by Gabriella during Gabriella’s
private speech; “Can I be the swimmer?” to gain entry into the narrative.
Just as Dalia used Gabriella’s words to enter into her play narrative, so did
Gabriella use the words of Esther to request a sort of forgiveness after the social sin of
“not liking” Ziva’s drawing. As I noted in my research journal:
Gabriella tells Maya that she doesn't like Ziva's drawing, a cardinal sin in this
group, and tried to get Maya to agree with her. She almost got it done, too and then Ziva burst into tears, her anger palpable. Maya back pedaled rapidly,
and formed an alliance with Ziva over this issue. This alliance grew to include
almost all the girls in the room that day (Ziva, Maya, Sarah, Hannah, Esther)
who decided that they had to punish Gabriella for her transgression. (Research
journal, February 26, 2012)
It was evident even in Bina’s vignette that a dispute was building between Ziva
and Gabriella. The recording of Bina’s private speech in which Ziva encouraged Bina
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to not give Gabriella scissors took place a full month before the final social straw was
broken requiring Esther’s intervention. Of course, it is only in hindsight that these
connections are made, tracing the threads back through the myriad conversations that
weave the fabric of the day in an early childhood classroom.
Listening and noticing
While transcribing, I was reminded of how incredibly noisy an early childhood
education classroom may become on any given day. At no point in my observations
would I describe the classroom as “loud,” I found myself astounded at the amount of
discussion I could hear while listening to the audio tapes. Despite my being situated
right next to an area in question, I often heard things on the audio tape of which I had
been entirely unaware. In my research journal, I noted:
Noise! The amount of noise in a classroom is absolutely astounding once you
listen to it on audio. One of my major challenges has been to pick out the
threads of conversation among the 6 other simultaneous conversations
occurring right next to each child.
This makes me wonder how they can hear each other and yet they do, all the
time. They hear each other and participate in bits and pieces of conversations
in which they are not necessarily involved. For instance, the way the
three simultaneous play scenes can meld into one then reemerge into different
streams. There is a sort of high level listening that is occurring. I have
questions about how they do that, when I can be right next to them, listening
and yet not hear the things they do. (Research journal, February 16, 2012)
Within my professional identity as seasoned teacher of young children, I have
prided myself on being able to “read” situations between children. Not only did I have
to acquiesce that I was not hearing everything as I waded through audio tape but that
my observations were not entirely accurate. Following the heated dispute between
Gabriella and Ziva (see chapter six, Esther’s vignette), I went back to listen to the
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audio tape to see if I could begin to make sense of what became a serious classroom
event. My research journal notes my shock at learning that I had misread the situation
entirely:
In listening to the last pieces of audio and doing a particularly
complex transcription of an interpersonal dispute between Gabriella and Ziva
which spilled all over the classroom I am taken, yet again, by the amazing bits
of life happening directly under the ears of teachers, but to which we simply
don't hear.
Not, of course, because we don't care. We do care. Very much. It's only that
there is so much competing for attention, and we still are thinking about the
other bits to be done; the lunches, the clean up, the prep work of managing a
class. Even me, who was only an adult observing and not ensconced in that
other part, could be astonished - ASTONISHED - when I heard the "real deal"
of what was happening in an event that I was absolutely sure I had "read"
correctly (Research journal, February 26, 2012).
These realizations made me ask: “How did the children know what was going
on in the classroom when I didn’t?”. I turn back to Tomasello (1999) for a possible
explanation. Building on his explanation of “joint attentional scenarios,” Tomasello
notes that this evolutionary milestone profoundly effects how we become acculturated
to attend to other humans. Tomasello (1999) writes:
This uniquely human form of social understanding has many profound effects
on the way human children interact with adults and other children. In the
current context the most important of these effects is that opens the child to the
uniquely human forms of cultural inheritance. Children who understand that
persons have intentional relations to the world, similar to their own intentional
relations to the world, may attempt to take advantage of the ways other
individuals have devised for meeting their goals. (p. 78)
As novice members of our culture, children may be tuned in to nuances in words and
actions in a way that adults have mastered. As I note in my research journal:
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Again and again, I am taken aback by the conversations happening literally
right under the ears of the adults - Mostly because the adults have their
own agendas and conversations and responsibilities, but that these
conversations ( and the conversations of other children) seem to be absorbed,
processed and reiterated in a myriad of ways, filtered through the heteroglossia
of the classroom.
This, by the way, is an almost perfect metaphor for the "voice" of a classroom
of children. One million conversations and arguments and opinions and
thoughts; all with input from their own social contexts/spheres, all churning
together, mixing, fighting for space until some semblance of “Knowledge” is
constructed. (Research journal, December 16, 2011)
What I may miss with “adult ears” in an early childhood classroom may be custom
made for children to notice, a possibility (limitation) that may need to be accounted for
in future research of this kind with children. This “intersubjectivity” of intent is a tool
that young children actively use to make sense of their world as they acquire language
and knowledge (Tomasello, 1999, p. 106). Would it be so farfetched to consider that
the same communicative tool that the child used as an infant with an adult would still
be in use between peers?
As seen in the data set, the children in the research classroom engaged in
careful observation of their peers. They were highly attuned to shifts in discussions
and events which may take place underneath the radar of the adult teacher. The
children represented in the vignettes used their private speech to make comment on or
influence their peers’ social perspectives.
Stability of peer group
While there is readily available research on the effects of the quality and
consistency of the teacher/child relationship (Howes, 1988b, Howes, Matheson &
Hamilton, 1994; Ridley, McWilliam, & Oates, 2000), there is much less written on the
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question of effects of the long term relationships between and among a classroom of
children as a mitigating factor in the social and emotional development of the child.
Research on the quality and effects of children’s social relationships seems to fall into
a few basic categories: Deficit models (child as problem) or Relationship as
correlate/predictor (child as trajectory) (Ladd, 1999). Less research has been done to
adequately explore the pro-social potential of one group of non-related children
staying together for more than one school year.
The children in the research classroom have been together, as a cohesive peer
group, since they were all two years of age. While they have changed classrooms and
teachers every year, the members of this group of children have remained stable.
Unexpected, and subsequently difficult to define, the question of length of
time the children have spent in the classroom together came to color my thinking
about a multitude of interactions within the classroom. It was after a two week stint of
substitute teachers taking the role of one or the other primary teacher that I began to
wonder why I was not seeing more “acting out” behaviors. My professional anecdotal
evidence was that when young children have frequent substitute teachers, one can start
to assume a level of misbehavior in the classroom. Yet I was observing nothing
particularly out of the ordinary. The children were playing and reacting as they had
when both Elaine and Julia were present in the classroom.
Was some of what I was seeing a result of social negotiations that had been
occurring between these non-related children for three years? Was this variable a sort
of resiliency “buffer,” allowing them to manage substitutes in a manner different from
peers in less stable social groupings?
149
There was, however, one unique set of research results which seem to support
the idea that the longitudinal nature of peer friendship may have beneficial, and not
well researched, consequences. Howe (1987, 1988a) conducted a longitudinal study of
a group of toddlers in child care over three years. Her findings were that children who
lost a friend through the friend leaving the peer group were less able to reform
friendships. Howe (1987) suggests that peer group stability has far more to offer than
simply a testing ground for how to make and keep friends. Howe (1988a) later
comments that this finding did not correlate to the notion of transitory friendships
among young children and that researchers may have to re-frame the idea of the need
for stability in peer friendships using the lens of attachment theory (Ainsworth et al.,
1977).
This question: “Does the length of time in a stable social peer group have an as
yet undefined impact on other facets of social and emotional development?” became
one that I would revisit again and again in both my field notes and research journal
and one to which I have no easy answer. Researchers may need to consider that peer
friendships exhibit qualities not unlike those described in Ainsworth’s (1977) theory
of attachment between parent and child.
Educational philosophy of teacher
While not a focus of this current research, the educational philosophy of the
lead teachers within the classroom could influence the style of children’s play and as
such, the production of “private speech.” As seen in Kraft and Berk’s (1998) study, the
philosophy of the teacher had a measurable difference on the amount of private speech
produced by the children. While the criteria for choosing the preschool can be fairly
150
fluid, there are indicator markers as defined by the literature (Manfra & Winsler,
2006) can improve the chance of eliciting private speech in children. Classrooms
having a “play centered” curriculum as defined by the National Association for the
Education of Young Children (NAEYC) are more likely to see increased incidences of
private speech due to the process oriented nature of the basic curriculum design
(NAEYC, 2005).
The children in the research classroom had ample time to play. Aside from
limited requests to participate in an art project or Circle time, the children were able to
choose the area of the room and type of play which appealed to them the most on any
given day. Further research could examine both types of early childhood programs
and teacher educational philosophy to see if they negatively or positively affected the
production of private speech for social communication.
Summary of chapter 7
In this chapter, I wove a narrative tale around the private speech occurrences of
five individual children. That narrative reflects the deeply engrained complexity of
long standing relationships between peers. In this narrative, it becomes easier to see
that the focus becomes not simply that children are engaging in private speech, but
what they are talking about and to whom they are addressing when they speak.
In chapter 8, I will conclude this dissertation with reflections on the limitations
of the study, as well as offer suggestions for further research.
151
Chapter 8 - A Cloth to Wrap Around me
I end where I began, with a question: “Do children use their own private
speech as a means of communicating knowledge to their peers? If so, how might their
peers use this information?”
Yes. I believe that the data provides support for believing that the children in
the research classroom did use their private speech as a means of communicating
knowledge to their peers. The data also suggests that their peers used that information
in a variety of ways, not the least of which was social.
As explored in chapter six, the narratives woven around the individual occurrences
of private speech divulge complex content which goes far beyond the relatively simple
understanding of production of private speech.
Perhaps part of what researchers of private speech have underestimated is that the
knowledge being shared through private speech is being specifically produced for
children by children. What if private speech is not the sign of an immature cognitive
system, or problem solving and self regulation, but a multipurpose and specific
scaffolding tool between children—a bridge built from one mind to another? Would
this not more fully explain some of the observable parameters, such as those
happening more frequently when in the presence of other children or in specific spots
of the classroom while near preferred peers? Could this act as a sort of “fast pass” to
knowledge that the individual child deems relevant and broadcasts to his/her peers; a
shorthand primer for peers to the “social language” of this particular child?
To this end, based on the present research, I propose that children may be attuned
to each other’s conversations in ways that adults in the classroom simply are not and
152
therefore tend to hear the private speech of their peers in ways that adults don’t
typically hear.
Rather than seeing these novice communicators as at a deficit, I suggest they
simply use different tools. With these child specific tools, such as “joint attentional
scenes” (Tomasello, 1988) and “collaborative construction” (Nelson, 2007), they build
bridges between and among each other’s consciousness. They use each other to
aggregate the bits of culture they have each distilled to more fully construct the larger
picture of the people and world around them. As children mature into more skilled
communicators, they may drop this tool of private speech as they develop alternate,
savvier and faster ways to trade information with the other children around them. This
“tool” does not disappear but is rather subsumed by more useful structures within the
child’s social cognitive system. It remains in the foundational construction of
communication; present, but not always active.
Traditional classroom models, with one teacher and one peer group that are
brought together for one school year continue to be what many children encounter in
their early childhood and primary school settings. In considering a peer group through
the lens of attachment theory (Ainsworth, 1977) some serious questions emerge about
whether this is best practice for novice communicators. Would some educational and
social concerns, such as bullying, be mitigated through a stable peer group who has
time and space to build attachments to one another?
Following a Vygotskian view of how children learn, it becomes clearer that young
children are pushed to individual problem solving styles before they are ready, as well
as asked to then develop group problem solving skills for cognitive tasks for which
153
they are not prepared. They have not practiced social problem solving with their peers
before being asked to assimilate a cognitively sound model of working as a group.
Young children need time and space to listen to each other’s private speech while
engaged in a myriad of situations in order to construct a social framework which will
allow them to develop the skills needed for cognitive development and the
development of a healthy group work model. Children need to hear the inner thinking
of their peers in order to develop the knowledge to build a collective, situation specific
social cognition (Bakhtin, 1981).
If further research can link the development of the cognitive child as intrinsically
dependant on development of the social child, we can more deeply probe what early
childhood educators have intuitively known. Play, deemed by Vygotsky (1934/1978)
to be the “leading activity of childhood,” is curriculum. The content and context of the
conversations between children becomes as valuable as academic skills testing and
cognitive readiness. Children may come to be assessed not simply on the basis
acquisition of cognitive skills, but on being a member of a socially adept and flexible
group.
Projecting further into the lifespan of individuals, would children who are skilled
at constructing a social framework and sharing knowledge with peers in the “zone of
proximal development” become confident problem solvers both in academic and
social settings? Would this decrease bullying and the rise of other social issues being
faced in many elementary and high schools today? Would our children's academic
achievements become a function of their social adaptability? Are they showing us the
path to their cognitive development through their private speech? Furthermore, the use
154
of incidences of interpersonal uses of the private speech originating from others may
give us a clearer picture of precisely how and what children learn from their peers as
opposed to the “Teacher/Adult as expert” model many have come to know.
Child culture, now a discipline of study in its own right, is not adult culture and to
research it as if the intended goal was adult cognition and social understanding is
shortsighted. Nelson (2007) writes:
Children gather their experiential knowledge through participation in the
activities of the world, including the verbal discourse about the world that
swirls around them. What they make of what they hear is influenced by what
they know from experience, as well as by the activities and circumstances in
which they hear it. (p. 224)
Adults researching children would be best served by standing to the side, carefully
attending to the experiential knowledge of children as they tell us what they know,
how they learn best, and what we can do to support them.
Limitations of the research
The research was time limited from December 2011 to February 2012. While
care was taken to maximize the amount of time in the classroom with the children,
there were other intervening considerations including school and classroom schedules,
holidays and other events impossible to plan for such as winter driving. However, the
focus of the research was not on production (over time) but on content, for which the
richness of the data transcripts provided grounds for this exploratory research. A more
serious limitation was that (for ethical reasons) the research happened to be done in an
155
older preschool group than may have been hoped for, however the research was
successfully conducted as an exploratory study within a naturalistic setting, which was
one of its primary objectives, demarcating it from the canon of private speech research
and allowing it to push the envelope of research in this area in potentially new and
exciting directions.
The research was carried out in a relatively homogeneous group setting, with a
convenience sample of children. As all the children shared a similar religious
background and history together as a peer group, it is difficult to tell if these
similarities influenced the findings of the research, a question that would be of interest
to further research, as it may prove to be (in certain contexts) highly relevant to social,
cultural, or gendered purposes of private speech. Furthermore, parental surveys were
not used to gain any background on family such as education, socio-economic status
or other variables, but would enrich a more extended ethnographic investigation of a
preschool classroom.
An ethnographic design also meant that the research was reflexive and highly
attuned to the rhythms of the classroom. Exact replication by myself or even another
researcher would be nearly impossible, despite my attention to procedure with field
notes, transcriptions and research journals, but what can be replicated is reflexivity of
the researcher within the context of the classroom: a key tenet of qualitative research.
In choosing audiocassette recorders, there were limitations as to where any one
recorder could be at any given time. While I made every effort to move the recorders
as children’s play interests shifted it is entirely possible that some data was lost due to
miscalculation of play area interest. In addition, the children had semi-autonomous
156
access to the recorders and as such often turned them off and on at will. Data could
have been lost, erased or simply never recorded. A longer time in the classroom would
offset such limitations.
Implications of research
The implications of the research suggest that children are using their private
speech to communicate a great deal more information than the status of their cognitive
self-regulatory ability. As the children represented in this research have shown, private
speech may be quite rich in social content and context, in ways that have been
underestimated given the focus on self-regulation.
From a theory standpoint, this research may call into question the dual roles
that private speech may be serving for young children. This may require that
researchers broaden their perspective to look beyond private speech as a predictor of
self regulation to also consider content and context as a lens when observing the
private speech of children. Vygotsky’s theory of “private speech”, as well as Diaz’s
(1992) definition of private speech may need to be modified to encompass the strong
possibility of its role as a social communicative tool.
This research further suggests that children may have a “style” of private
speech which belongs uniquely to them (at a given period in their lives). For each of
the children represented in the vignettes, there was a distinct preference in
type/category of private speech. This “private speech style” may correlate with play
style, temperament or other factors not formally accounted for in the current research.
Further research could explore whether certain play styles matched certain categories
157
of private speech, or if there is any link between production of private speech
categories and areas within the classroom.
The primacy of the social group comes into clear focus within this research.
The children in this classroom define and reinforce highly specific social norms to
which they expect their peers to conform. Violation of those rules, as when Gabriella
failed to “like” Ziva’s drawing, set off a firestorm of protest which lasted for several
weeks after the initial event. That kind of intensity should not be dismissed as
inconsequential, but rather seen as a sign of a well-functioning culture that holds their
members accountable.
Finally, this research emphasizes the importance of reflective observation and
listening to children during non-instructional times. The classroom is a noisy, busy
place with a multitude of competing needs within bids for time and attention.
Curriculum, conversations with parents, conversations with other staff, feeding, doing
head counts and the million other things that fill the lives of teachers of young children
can and do rightly take the attention of teachers.
However, there is a wealth of information about the individual learners who
are inhabiting those classrooms skimming under the ears of the adults every day. One
doesn’t need to do a worksheet to see if Emily is understanding the idea of letters or
can recognize numbers. One doesn’t need to ask Zach to repeat a pattern with pencil
and paper in a workbook to see if he understands patterning and counting. All of these
skills are being practiced, continually, through the play of the children.
I was an outsider, completely unknown to the children in the research
classroom prior to my arrival at their doorstep. Through focused listening and
158
observations, I uncovered what appeared to be of vital daily importance to that group
and the internal structure of their social world.
Suggestions for further research
The research of private speech as a social communicative tool is relatively
unexplored and this dissertation represents preliminary research. There is a multitude
of ways in which this research can be expanded to more deeply explore the connection
of content and context of private speech to individuals and occurrences.
While not the focus of this research, gender differences in the production and
possible type of private speech within a social context could warrant further research.
My sample size of four boys, one of whom was absent a majority of the time I was in
the classroom, gave me limited data as to overall production of private speech of the
boys in this classroom.
There are known gender differences in the production of expressive language
(Galsworthy, Dionne, Dale & Plomin, 2000; Hardy-Brown, Plomin, & DeFries, 1981;
Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryk & Seltzer, 1991; Van Hulle, Goldsmith & Lemery, 2004),
which could affect the production of private speech overall by gender.
In their meta analysis of the role of gender in children’s speech, Leaper and
Smith (2004) note “that narrative reviews suggest that girls are more likely than boys
to use language to connect with others” (p. 994). Given the very small sample of boys
within the research classroom, it is difficult to conclude that this was the reason for the
difference in production of private speech between genders. There is some research
that suggest that girls are more talkative than boys (Hyde & Linn, 1988; James &
159
Drakich, 1993) although Leaper and Smith found no “average gender difference
during peer interactions” within their meta-analysis of children’s language research (p.
1019).
Research suggests that gender differences in language may develop from the
play choices made by individual children through a social constructionist
interpretation (Bussey & Bandura, 1999; Leaper, 2000; Liben & Bigler, 2002; Martin
et al., 2002). This observation raises a number of intriguing issues involving the
private speech of individual children. Is there a gender specific style inherent within
private speech? Is the private speech of David a result of the mediation of his gendered
play choices? Did Bina use an affiliative style of language within her private speech
due to her gendered play choices? This remains an area which should be more fully
examined within the research on private speech.
Another interesting direction could be looking at the private speech of children
who are bilingual, as were the children in the research classroom, with children who
spoke a single language. Research has looked at the private speech production of
second language learners (DiCamilla & Anton, 2004; Lantoff, 2000; McCafferty,
1998, 2004; Saville-Troike, 1988) with a closer focus on the private speech produced
by adults. It is unknown if the multiple language ability of the children in the
classroom played any role in the type or amount of private speech they produced
within the limits of this study.
This research could hold some additional insights into the private speech of
children with autism. Winsler et al. (2007) note that it is thought that children with
autism may have impaired executive function and other self regulation tools which
160
would change the way those children engaged in private speech. If the social speech of
children with autism is found to be “off topic” (Adams, Green, Gilchrist, & Cox,
2002; Loveland, McEvoy, Tunali, & Kelly, 1990; Wetherby & Prutting, 1984), does
this also extend to the private speech of children with autism? Winsler et al (2007)
found that this was not the case after coding the private speech of children with autism
versus their control group, noting that:
there were neither group differences in the overall quantity of PS used during
the tasks, nor in the frequency of relevant and irrelevant speech utterances.
Proportionately speaking, the majority of autistic children’s self-talk was overt
and relevant to the tasks in terms of content. (p. 1631)
Other research suggestions may include looking at age of child and type of
social information conveyed: Does a two-year-old engaging in private speech have
similar content to older children? What of a seven-year-old child? Is there a
generalizable developmental framework or is it always intimately tied to individual
social groups?
As discussed in chapter seven, these explorations could include play style as an
indicator of type of private speech. Each child described in both the data set of chapter
five and the vignettes of chapter six seemed to have a unique private speech style
which could possibly be linked to play style. The possibility of predicating type of
private speech produced to play style is one that is intriguing. That linkage may
become a consideration when planning for room environments to encourage social and
cognitive growth and development for young children.
161
The issue of social group cohesiveness and the attachment of peer friendships
were also questions that arose during the research. There seems to be a gap in the
research in regards to considering the peer friendships of young children as more than
transitory. While there is a significant amount of research on issues of turnover of
adult teacher and its negative impact on the overall emotional health and cognitive
development of young children (Howe, 1988, Howe, Matheson & Hamilton, 1994;
Ridley, McWilliam, & Oates, 2000), there is scant discussion on the effects of
frequent peer “turnover.” It stands to reason that young children, if affected negatively
by the loss of an adult caregiver, would be negatively affected by the loss of peers. As
suggested by Howe (1987), researchers concerned with young children may need to
look towards the attachment work of Ainsworth et. al (1977) to begin to frame the
discussion of the depth and importance of peer friendships, regardless of age of peer.
Beginning again: A new cloth to weave
“I look forward to tomorrow. I forgot how being in a classroom lights me up inside,
makes me forget the time as I immerse in conversations while figuring out how the
children understand their world” (Research journal, December 5, 2011).
The work is not done. Then again, it is never done. I know this as a teacher of
young children. There is always more to be figured out, more to be tested and
observed, another day to be explored. Any question I seek to answer is replaced with
five new questions brought up in the course of seeking the answer to the first question.
It is the nature of my profession, my calling.
As I begin to shift my own gaze to life post dissertation, I have sought out a
setting to become my research “home.” During interviews for faculty positions this
162
past winter and spring, I peered into university early childhood education centres,
seeking the next place for me to wrap myself inside the words and worlds of young
children.
What stories await me inside those early childhood classrooms? What rich
tapestries have those children woven inside their play and words? The tantalizing
potential of this data, which considers the use of private speech as fundamentally
social, urges me to return to the next classroom to carefully watch and listen to the
words of young children.
163
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Winsler, A., Carlton, M.P., & Barry, M.J. (2000). Age-related changes in preschool children’s
systematic use of private speech in a natural setting. Journal of Child Language, 27,
665-687.
Winsler, A., De León, J.R., Wallace, B., Carlton, M.P, & Willson-Quayle, A. (2003). Private
speech in preschool children: Developmental stability and change, across-task
consistency, and relations with classroom behavior. Journal of Child Language,
30, 583-608.
Winsler, A., Feder, M., Way, E., & Manfra, L. (2006). Maternal beliefs concerning young
children’s private speech. Infant and Child Development, 15, 403-420.
Winsler, A., Fennyhough, C., McClaren, E.M., & Way, E. (2005). Private speech coding
manual. Unpublished manuscript. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
Available at: http://classweb.gmu.edu/awinsler/Resources/PsCodingManual.pdf
Winsler, A., Manfra, L., & Diaz, R.M. (2007). “Should I let them talk?”: Private speech and
task performance among preschool children with and without behavior
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New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
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M. Franklin (Eds.), Symbolic functioning in childhood (pp. 117-138). Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
189
Wolf, D., & Grollman, S. (1982). Ways of playing: Individual differences in imaginative
style. In D.J. Pepler & K.H. Rubin (Eds.), Contributions to human development. (pp.
46-64). Basel, Switzerland: Karger.
Woolgar, S. (1991). Knowledge and reflexivity: New frontiers in the sociology of knowledge.
London: Routledge.
Young, L., & Barrett, H. (2001). Adapting visual methods: Action research with Kampala
street children. Area, 33(2), 141–152.
190
Appendix I: Letters to Site
Dear School Name Here,
My name is Dawn Rouse, and I am a PhD candidate at McGill University in
the Department of Integrated Studies in Education. I am interested in the teaching and
learning of young children (birth through age 8) in group settings, such as child care
and preschool classrooms. I am contacting you about becoming a potential research
site for my dissertation research.
Research Focus:
My dissertation focuses on young children’s use of private speech. Vygotsky
suspected that when young children are seen to be talking out loud to themselves, they
are using “private speech.” He thought that young children practice ‘talking through’
problems out loud before later solving the same problems inside their heads without
talking, like most adults are said to do.
While I believe that this may be true, I think that young children are also using
this “private speech” to communicate to their peers, giving their peers ways to “hear”
them thinking. By using that information young children may get to know how their
peers think. This may allow them to use this information as a sort of Shortcut to
together solve problems (social and academic), faster and more efficiently. Private
speech at this age may also be building stronger social ties between children, leading
to greater empathy and understanding.
What am I asking of you?
I am asking to be an observer in a preschool classroom of yours for a period of
between three and four months, starting in the Fall of 2011 through Winter 2011, two
days a week for 3 hours per visit. All visits will be arranged, in advance, with the
classroom teacher.
I plan on observing the child/ren during different parts of their classroom day.
These observations may include informal interviews about their friendships,
photographs, work samples, and recorded audiotapes. Taping the conversations
between children will allow me to examine the conversations more closely in order to
catch things I may miss if I am only transcribing the conversations immediately as I
hear them.
I strongly view research as a collaborative process between researcher,
classroom teacher and children. While I will be present as an observer during the
observation times, I will consult with the classroom teachers to help me understand the
social construct of the classroom and the school.
191
Furthermore, I will seek conversations with teachers to assist me in validating
my observations and reflections. Teachers may be asked to informally share
observations about their students or to clarify questions related to the researcher’s
observations.
Teachers will also be invited to read researcher observations in order to assist
the researcher with verification of data.
What will happen to the data collected as part of this research project?
The audiotapes and all other information that is obtained during this research
project will be kept strictly secure and will not become a part of your child's school
record. The videotapes will be kept in a locked file cabinet and will be accessible only
to the researcher. The audio tapes will be transcribed by the researcher and
pseudonyms assigned to the participating children.
Children’s confidentiality will be protected at all times. Any defining
characteristics, such as names will be removed from any work sample collected. These
pseudonyms will be used in any dissertation, reports, publications, or presentations
about this research. Participation in this research by any child and family is completely
voluntary.
The research will then be used primarily for my dissertation. It may also be
used for journal papers or conference presentations. At all times, the same
confidentiality agreements shall remain in effect.
After five years, the data will be destroyed.
Possible Benefits of the Research
Potential benefits could be:
1. Deepening understanding of how young children communicate with their peers
in classroom situations. This could, in turn, lead to better teaching practices of
young children and benefit the field of theory and practice in Early Childhood.
2. When adults understand how children learn, it allows them to create
environments in which children can better learn and grow. This research aims
to understand a piece of that process, by examining if children are
communicating important social information to their peers through their own
“private speech”.
3. The research could also be helpful when preparing new teachers to enter the
classroom by giving them more information on how best to plan their
curriculum to encourage social learning.
192
4. There could be an opportunity for teacher professional growth.
5. Having a professional collaborator who is not evaluating them, but rather
seeking to understand their students can be valuable opportunity to consider
their pedagogy outside the day to day challenges of the classroom.
I will be calling in a few days to follow up with you about the potential
collaboration between your school/classroom and myself and schedule a time to visit.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the proposed research.
You can reach me by email at [email protected] or phone at 514-3694744 (home)
You can also verify the ethical approval of this study by contacting Lynda McNeil,
the Research Ethics Officer, Tel: 514-398-6831, [email protected].
Regards,
Dawn Rouse
PhD Candidate, Department of Integrated Studies in Education
McGill University
[email protected]
514-369-4744
193
Appendix II: Letter to Teachers
Dear Teacher,
My name is Dawn Rouse, and I am a PhD candidate at McGill University in
the Department of Integrated Studies in Education. I am interested in the teaching and
learning of young children (birth through age 8) in group settings, such as child care
and preschool classrooms. I am contacting you about becoming a potential research
classroom for my dissertation research.
Research Focus:
My dissertation focuses on young children’s use of private speech. Vygotsky
suspected that when young children are seen to be talking out loud to themselves, they
are using “private speech.” He thought that young children practice ‘talking through’
problems out loud before later solving the same problems inside their heads without
talking, like most adults are said to do.
While I believe that this may be true, I think that young children are also using
this “private speech” to communicate to their peers, giving their peers ways to “hear”
them thinking. By using that information young children may get to know how their
peers think. This may allow them to use this information as a sort of Shortcut to
together solve problems (social and academic), faster and more efficiently. Private
speech at this age may also be building stronger social ties between children, leading
to greater empathy and understanding.
What am I asking of you?
I am asking to be an observer in a preschool classroom of yours for a period of
approximately 16 weeks, starting in the Fall of 2011 through Winter 2011, two days a
week for 3 hours per visit. All visits will be arranged, in advance, with the classroom
teacher.
I plan on observing the child/ren during different parts of their classroom day.
These observations may include informal interviews about their friendships,
photographs, work samples, and recorded audiotapes. Taping the conversations
between children will allow me to examine the conversations more closely in order to
catch things I may miss if I am only transcribing the conversations immediately as I
hear them. During the audio recordings, teacher voices may be captured as part of the
normal classroom noises. This would be incidental and not intended to be used for the
purposes of the research.
I strongly view research as a collaborative process between researcher,
classroom teacher and children. While I will be present as an observer during the
194
observation times, I will consult with the classroom teachers to help me understand the
social construct of the classroom and the school.
Furthermore, I will seek conversations with teachers to assist me in validating
my observations and reflections. Teachers may be asked to informally share
observations about their students or to clarify questions related to the researcher’s
observations.
Teachers will also be invited to read researcher observations in order to assist
the researcher with verification of data.
What will happen to the data collected as part of this research project?
The audiotapes and all other information that is obtained during this research
project will be kept strictly secure and will not become a part of your child's school
record. The videotapes will be kept in a locked file cabinet and will be accessible only
to the researcher. The audio tapes will be transcribed by the researcher and
pseudonyms assigned to the participating children.
Children’s confidentiality, as well as that of Teachers and the School will be
protected at all times. Any defining characteristics, such as names will be removed
from any work sample collected, audio recordings or photographs. These pseudonyms
will be used in any dissertation, reports, publications, or presentations about this
research.
Your participation in this research must be completely voluntary. If you decide
to participate, you may withdraw at any time without any consequences or need for
explanation. If you withdraw from the study, your data will be destroyed and not used,
unless you agree otherwise in writing. Participation in this research by any teacher,
child or family is completely voluntary and individuals can refuse to be interviewed,
audio recorded, photographed, or otherwise participate at any time.
The research will then be used primarily for the dissertation of Dawn Rouse. It
may also be used for journal papers or conference presentations. At all times, the same
confidentiality agreements shall remain in effect.
After five years, the data will be destroyed.
Possible Benefits of the Research
Potential benefits could be:
6. Deepening understanding of how young children communicate with their peers
in classroom situations. This could, in turn, lead to better teaching practices of
young children and benefit the field of theory and practice in Early Childhood.
195
7. When adults understand how children learn, it allows them to create
environments in which children can better learn and grow. This research aims
to understand a piece of that process, by examining if children are
communicating important social information to their peers through their own
“private speech”.
8. The research could also be helpful when preparing new teachers to enter the
classroom by giving them more information on how best to plan their
curriculum to encourage social learning.
9. There could be an opportunity for teacher professional growth.
10. Having a professional collaborator who is not evaluating them, but rather
seeking to understand their students can be valuable opportunity to consider
their pedagogy outside the day to day challenges of the classroom.
Concerns and Questions:
While there is no anticipated risks of harm to participants, participating
in research often causes inconvenience.
There is no compensation which will be provided to participants of this
research.
In order to assure myself that you are continuing to give your consent to
participate in this research, I will ask you during interviews whether you have any
concerns and if so, how you wish to have them addressed. You can also contact me
electronically, by phone or in person at any time.
I will be calling in a few days to follow up with you about the potential
collaboration between your classroom and myself and schedule a time to visit. Please
feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the proposed research. You
can reach me by email at [email protected] or phone at 514-369-4744
(home). You can also speak with Teresa Strong-Wilson, my supervising professor at
McGill at [email protected] or by phone at 514/398-4170 (McGill).
You can also verify the ethical approval of this study by contacting Lynda McNeil,
the Research Ethics Officer, Tel: 514-398-6831, [email protected].
Regards,
Dawn Rouse
196
PhD Candidate, Department of Integrated Studies in Education
McGill University
[email protected]
514-369-4744
Your signature below indicates that you understand the conditions of
participation in this study and that you have had the opportunity to have your
questions answered by the researcher.
I understand that:






I may withdraw at any time without repercussions until the time that data are
analyzed;
a pseudonym will be used to protect my identity;
all information gathered will be treated confidentially and discussed only
among the researchers;
any information that identifies me or the institution I am associated with will
be destroyed within five years of completion of this research;
neither my school nor my identity will be disclosed in any documents resulting
from this research.
I understand that the results of this research will be used only in the
dissertation of Dawn Rouse, presentations and written articles for other
educators.
With full knowledge of all foregoing, I agree, of my own free will, to participate in
this study, as indicated by my signature below:
To allow photographs of myself to be used for the purposes of the data collection?
YES
NO
To allow photographs of myself to be used for the purposes of publications, such as
dissertation conferences, or journals?
YES
NO
To audiotape my voice during classroom observations for the purposes of data
collection?
YES
NO
To participant observation in my classroom?
YES
NO
197
If you have any questions or concerns regarding your rights or welfare as a participant
in this research study, please contact the McGill Ethics Officer at 514-398-6831 or at
[email protected].
Name of Participant
Signature
Date
A copy of this consent will be left with you, and a copy will be taken by the
researcher.
You can verify the ethical approval of this study by contacting Lynda McNeil,
the Research Ethics Officer, Tel: 514-398-6831, [email protected].
198
Appendix III: Letter to Parents of Children
Dear Parent:
My name is Dawn Rouse and I am a PhD Candidate from the Department of
Integrated Educational Studies at McGill University. I am interested in early
childhood education and how young children communicate with their friends in group
setting, such as child care or preschool. I would like to include your child, along with
his/her classmates, in my research project about the private speech of preschool
children.
Purpose of the Research:
My dissertation focuses on young children’s use of private speech. Vygotsky
suspected that when young children are seen to be talking out loud to themselves, they
are using “private speech.” He thought that young children practice ‘talking through’
problems out loud before later solving the same problems inside their heads without
talking, like most adults are said to do.
While I believe that this may be true, I think that young children are also using
this “private speech” to communicate to their peers, giving their peers ways to “hear”
them thinking. By using that information young children may get to know how their
peers think. This may allow them to use this information as a sort of Shortcut to
together solve problems (social and academic), faster and more efficiently. Private
speech at this age may also be building stronger social ties between children, leading
to greater empathy and understanding.
What I will do:
I plan on observing your child/ren during different parts of their classroom day.
These observations may include informal interviews about their friendships,
photographs, work samples, and recorded audiotapes. Taping the conversations
between children will allow me to examine the conversations more closely in order to
catch things I may miss if I am only transcribing the conversations immediately as I
hear them.
These observations will take place for approximately 16 weeks in the Winter
of 2011, two days a week, for 3hours per visit. All visits will be arranged, in advance,
with the classroom teacher.
Your child will not be academically assessed by the researcher. This research
study is focused on better understanding the social construction of language between
199
peers and how this knowledge can be used to improve teaching and learning in the
classroom.
What will be asked of the students:
My research focuses on the day to day normal interactions between children.
They will not be asked to do anything different from their normal day to day schedule
at child care/preschool. I may occasionally ask them to explain something I hear or
note during my observations. The children are under no obligation to answer any
question I may ask, and are free to ask me to stop audio recording , photographing or
observing them at any time.
Your child's participation in this project is completely voluntary. In addition to
your permission, your child will also be asked if he or she would like to take part in
this project. Any child may stop taking part at any time. The choice to participate or
not will not impact your child’s grades or status at school. There will be no
assessments of your child done as part of this research project.
I do not anticipate any risk to your child associated with this research.
What will happen to the data collected as part of this research project?
The audiotapes and all other information that is obtained during this research
project will be kept strictly secure and will not become a part of your child's school
record. The audiotapes will be kept in a locked file cabinet and will be accessible only
to the researcher. The audio tapes will be transcribed by the researcher and
pseudonyms assigned to the participating children.
Children’s confidentiality will be protected at all times. Any defining
characteristics, such as names will be removed from any work sample collected. These
pseudonyms will be used in any dissertation, reports, publications, or presentations
about this research. Participation in this research by your child and family is
completely voluntary.
The research and data, including photographs will then be used primarily for
my dissertation. It may also be used for journal papers or conference presentations. At
all times, the same confidentiality agreements shall remain in effect.
After five years, the data will be destroyed.
Benefits of this research:
When adults understand how children learn, it allows them to create
environments in which children can better learn and grow. This research aims to
200
understand a piece of that process, by examining if children are communicating
important social information to their peers through their own “private speech”.
The research could also be helpful when preparing new teachers to enter the
classroom by giving them more information on how best to plan their curriculum.
Questions?
In the space at the bottom of this letter, please indicate whether you do or do
not want your child to participate in this project. Ask your child to bring one copy of
this completed form to his or her teacher by Date TBD. The second copy is to keep for
your records. If you have any questions about this research project, please feel free to
contact me either by e-mail ( [email protected] ), or telephone (514369-4744). Please keep a copy of this form for your records. You can also speak with
my supervisor, Dr Teresa Strong-Wilson by phone at 514/398-4170 (McGill) or
514/725-6063 (home) or by email ([email protected])
You can also verify the ethical approval of this study by contacting Lynda
McNeil, the Research Ethics Officer, Tel: 514-398-6831, [email protected].
Sincerely,
Dawn Rouse
PhD Candidate, DISE
McGill University
[email protected]
514-369-4744 (home)
*********************************************************************
I give permission for my child, __________________________________________,
To participate in the research of Dawn Rouse regarding the private speech of young
children.
201
I grant permission for my child’s
conversations to be audiotaped and
transcribed for use in the dissertation of
Dawn Rouse.
YES
NO
I grant permission for audiotapes of my
child’s conversations to be used in
publications, such as thesis, journals, with
an assigned pseudonym.
YES
NO
I grant permission for photograph’s of my
child to be used by the researcher for data
collection.
YES
NO
I grant permission for photograph’s of my
child to be used by the researcher for use
in publications, such as journals, with an
assigned pseudonym.
YES
NO
In all instances, children will be assigned pseudonyms to protect their identities.
_____________________________________
Signature of Parent/Legal Tutor
__________________
Date
202