There are endless books about what every third grader must know that use the idea that factual knowledge is the basis of the ability to read as their justification. Unfortunately, the writers of these tracts have misunderstood the cognitive science behind those statements. It is difficult to read things when you don't understand what they are about, but it does not follow from that thatthe solution is to ram that knowledge down kids' throats and then have them read. It is much more clever to have them read about what they know and to gradually increase their knowledge through stories that cause them to have to learn more in order to make the stories understandable to them.
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About Roger Schank
Roger Schank was a 20th-century American scientist. Roger Carl Schank was an American artificial intelligence theorist, cognitive psychologist, learning scientist, educational reformer, and entrepreneur. Beginning in the late 1960s, he pioneered conceptual dependency theory and case-based reasoning, both of which challenged cognitivist views of memory and reasoning. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Education — The importance of teaching, learning, and intellectual curiosity