Multiple Sign Systems

1
Multiple Sign Systems

• Are communication systems
• Used to construct and express meaning
• Uniquely different from language
• Can represent concepts not easily represented in
  other ways

• Are used together to express meaning in multiple
  ways
• A sign is anything that stands for something to
  someone
• Signs mediate or stand between two human meaning
  makers

2
Multiple Sign Systems

• Not a one-to-one correspondence between meaning
  expressed by the originator of the sign and the
  meaning constructed by the person perceiving the
  sign

• Vygotsky explained that signs give humans the
  power to reflect on behavior and learninghelping
  us remember and construct meaning

3
Multiple Sign Systems

• Research is showing that children learn at a
  higher cognitive level when art and music are
  incorporated into the learning experience

• Critical thinking
• Reflective thinking
• Affects emotional and motivational processes
• -more interested
• -ask more questions
• -offer their views
• -enjoy learning

4
Multiple Sign Systems

• In early learning children make sense of the
  world through dramatic play, drawing, dancing,
  singing, and other communicative systems

• Young children express complex thoughts through
  use of multiple sign systems
• This (drawing, etc.) should continue past 1st-2nd
  grade

5
Multiple Sign Systems

• The teacher does not have to be an expert in the
  sign system
• Children need time to explore the media
• Continually change invitations to use the media

• Pair up with other teachers
• Make use of an inquiry process and big conceptual
  questions to guide the work such as what is
  real?
• Draw children into the reading and writing
  process through multiple sign systems

6
Multiple Sign Systems

• Howard Gardner-schools are using only a fraction
  of learners capacity
• Moving flexibly among sign systems as a reader
  promotes a sensitivity to the full range of human
  meaning-both cognitive and emotional

• Use of multiple sign systems expands rather than
  narrowly defines what counts as reading and
  knowing
• Now technology allows learners to create visual
  images, sound/music bites, video clips,
  animation, and the written word

7
Multiple Sign Systems

• Engage the child in the reading and writing
  process!
• Help children find reasons to read and understand
  in any text

8
Learning Centers

• It is important to distinguish between
  independent activities that create excitement
  about reading and writing and those that actually
  require students to interact with print while
  reading and writing.

9
Learning Centers

• While any number of cut, color, and paste
  activities done in response to or in support of
  reading and writing experiences about reading can
  help to create excitement about reading and
  writing instruction, these activities do little
  to require students to actually interact with
  print. This interaction is essential for
  learning about print and intensifies the power of
  center-based instruction
• (Ford Opitz, 2002)

10
Learning Centers

• -a focus or purpose for the lesson
• -an explanation (info related to the purpose)
• -role play (guided practice)
• -direct application of information learned

11
Cambournes Considerations

• Frees the teacher up to work with students
• Provides for collaborative learning and group
  work for other students

12
Cambournes Considerations

• Engagement
• Internalization and transfer
• Promotion of collaborative, independent, and
  interdependent learning

13
Cambournes Considerations

• Not a stand alone activity-but linked explicitly
  to other parts of the class
• Teacher explicitly states the learning purpose
  for the activity
• Collaborative experiences
• Use of multiple sign systems-with choices
• Use semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic systems
  of language (sentences, words, phonemes.)

14
Cambournes Considerations

• Encourage transfer of meaning across multiple
  sign systems (art to text text to drama)
• Accept products with a variety of responses (but
  not an anything goes attitude)

15
Cambournes Considerations

• To be effective, teaching-learning activities
  must be embedded within a complex system called
  the classroom setting. One of these is the
  system of teacher understanding and teacher
  knowledge. This system is part of another
  complex of beliefs, values, and ideology which
  teachers hold (Cambourne, 2001).