3V1286.01 Singing: a mnemonic method for Peggy; her catalog (1/31/81) This is a very important method of recalling, perhaps even thinking, for Peggy. Let’s try to list her songs: The FOX – her oldest favorite; well known lines and jungles The Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly (Burl Ives movie sound track) New York, New …
3V1277.01 First nearly complete Alphabet song (7/22/81) Peggy is much interested in the alphabet. Recently she sat on the couch reading Richard Scary’s book, saying what the letter picture correspondences implied, “A is for Apple,” etc. Getting stuck once or twice she asked me to tell her what was intended by the picture (eg. Q …
3V1275.01 Computer “rods” (7/20/81) Seeing the trouble she had with the rods always falling over, I asked is a Rods microworld would be easier to manipulate and thus intellectually more accessible to her. So I proceeded to make one, substituting (a later idea) the blinking of numbers in place of partial blanks — that is …
3V1270.01 Alphabets: the litany and “A is for Apple…” (7/15/81) Today Peggy was singing, chanting material about the alphabet. She has “ABCD” pretty well, but later on always goes “L-O-M-O-P” The similarity of M and N appears to confuse her. She also repeated several times, “A is for Apple, B is for Ball…”
3V1267.01 Computer-based cuisenaire rods (7/12/81) Peggy enjoyed playing with the Cuisenaire rods during out experiment P181. Either in that one or the next P182, Peggy first accomplished a set of “stairs.” After the end of the experiment, she continued playing with rods and I heard her mention (at a point where she omitted the 3-length …
3V1264.01 TI Speech Editor (7/9/81) This limited function module appears to do no more that recite letter names. That, however, is now very interesting to Peggy. After watching Miriam and me play with it for a while, she asked to take over. It appears that any combination of letters not separated by a space or …
3V1252.01 Pure Conditionals (6/27/81) Last observation was not accurate or complete. This becomes clear from a very surprising thing Peggy said as she and I had breakfast this morning (actually, I believe she finished first, then returned to the table): “Dad, if I want some orange juice?” I looked at her and asked, “What was …
3V1247.02 Past tense and conditionals (6/22/81) For the past month or so, Peggy has been forming past tenses in the typical non-standard way — ie. RUN, RUNNED. (I will have to see if I can get her to discuss this in the next session, P181 now) — to get at the question raised by Seigler …
3V1247.01 Computer as Word-tester (6/22/81) Peggy sorts through the cards of the BEACH WORLD – She read the card WORLD with a questioning tone in her voice, then adding “I’ll try it and see,” executed it with considerable satisfaction. Later, after creating some objects, she sorted through the cards and picked out DOWN. She acted …
3V1246.01 Edit Shape 16: Miriam makes a pony shape for Peggy (6/21/81) Miriam made a PONY shape and procedure for Peggy’s BEACH WORLD. After I saved these on a tape and Miriam went away, Peggy took over her computer again, In the interim, somehow the shape had been cleared (perhaps a crash). At any rate, …
3V1239.01 Discovering “Turn” (6/14/81) After what seemed initially an unproductive session (P177), Peggy discovered the word TURN. Looking through the RED lettered cards (probably for some other word) she selected and keyed it. The TRUCK (or VAN) which was the current objects reversed as directed and Peggy exclaimed, “It turned !” This does not argue …
3V1238.02 Recalling a Word (6/13/81) Peggy just spelled ZOOM from memory. Two girl shapes were ZOOMing too close together. The FAST card sat nearby so I instructed Peggy to key it. With some trouble, she keyed that familiar word of unknown spelling, copying letter by letter. Disappointed that the current girl was going slow (fast …
3V1238.01 Debugging Spellings (6/13/81) Peggy copies the cards letter by letter, but sometimes she copies wrong. For example, after we returned from the hospital with Kate and Gretchen, and I loaded procedures, Peggy executed WORLD, SUN, UP (many times) then PAINT GREEN; she then tried “VAN”, a familiar shape but a less familiar word; because …
3V1234.03 Reading: one word at a time (6/9/81) Peggy played with the computer — off and on — during most of the day. Mostly she was “on.” (She even left the supper table to play with her “world”) although she took a break now and again to have a snack or to join Robby and …
3V1234.02 Peggy’s Reception of Card-words (6/9/81) After setting up the world subsystem with last minute perfections, I went off to the dentist, leaving four sets of cards stacked separately near the computer with the WORLD word leaning against the front of it. I left with the WORLD display set up, with a HOUSE in place …
3V1234.01 A New Way of Presenting Words (6/9/81) Peggy’s biggest problem in typing words [from a list] was recognizing which word she was copying to the keyboard. I began telling her to look at the first letter of the word and to remember what it was, emphasizing it that way and by identifying it by …
3V1233.01 Peggy’s first Word World: a summary description (6/8/81) Objects: SUN (base color) (via UPx N) (help with WALK/SLOWERx2) GIRL (base color) (Via DOWN x N=4 (started at road) CAR (help with GREEN) (help with MOVE) (via DOWN x 5) (help with WALK/ FAST) DOG (base color) (help with MOVE) (via DOWN x 1) HOUSE …
3V1230.01 Xylopipes and letters (6/5/81) The Xylopipes were set up on the piano bench — an inconvenient place but a flat surface of approximately the right size. Ages ago, I had put letter labels on the pipes as I did also on the piano keys. Today Peggy banged on the pipes with no apparent recognition …
3V1217.02 Spelling “load” and being grown-up; contrast toilet training (5/23/81) Peggy sat alone at the computer. The rest of us were out in the dining room, eating lunch. She called with notable excitement, “Daddy, come see. I’ve spelled ‘LOAD.’ Come see it, Daddy.” Because of her excitement, I left the table, witnessed her achievement (it …
3V119201 Issues in learning graphical language: Logo logon messages (/28/81) Peggy has more or less read “BY” — the common word in her story books. Her reading it shows little discrimination but for length. Today, Peggy began reading (in my presence, for the first time) the Logo Logon messages “Setting up” and “Welcome to Logo.” …