Reading, reasoning, and reality

s a part from a whole he is always drawn back to work on the distortions he created by abstracting it. Eventually, the critical dimensionsing it. Eventually, the critical dimensions of mature thought are developed. Achieving the capacity for mature thought in which logical thinking plays an important part depends on the opportunity that the individual finds in the transactional environment of people, things, and patterned events. It proceeds through a spontaneous capacity for growth and development. It will occur in proper sequence, proportion and in balance if the individual is an actor in his own learning and if the environment is suitably designed to support all the developing mental capacities of the individual. The individual must always be acting in a patterned whole environment which displays structure, interdependence, and order in the parts. A valid sub-whole must be totally present for the child to interact with. The teacher must be aware of the sub-whole, present varied manifestations of it and display it in manipulable form. An unordered environment, or one beyond the rudimentary organizational capacities of the individual, cannot be understood by him and can support only primitive assimilation. A too ordered repetitive environment, without varied content, can support only accommodation per se imitation. Neither will build the mind nor lead to the achievement of logical thought. To summarize thus far, learning theories can contain directives for the development of logical thought for education in the elementary school and for reading instruction. Among these directives are the following: 1. The learner must be active in the environment. He is only beginning to think according to a mental review of the actions he would take in solving a problem as an actor in the environment. He uses and rearranges mental summaries (or abstractions) of events in the environment according to strategies or logical operations abstracted from procedures used as actor in the environment. He learns real knowledge when he can check his understandings by action in the

Balance (ability · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Epistemology · Imitation · Linguistics · Reading (process · Transactional analysis · Transactional leadership · Computer Science · Education and Critical Thinking Development · Psychology · Social Psychology

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