3V0932.01 Reading aloud to herself: characterization; French also (8/11/80)
Peggy has often read aloud to herself, does not feel self-conscious
about doing so (But is reluctant to read to ME as witness on P134).
Her reading procedure seems to call upon two sources of information.
The main (at least dominant) one is the picture accompanying the text.
Her reading is a description of what the picture represents — as she
interprets it, (Thus, asking her to read pictures could be a useful
experimental task to prove her procedures of inference). The second
source is specific recall of past readings by others. this is witness
by her reading correctly individual words of the text [outstanding
example: Woo-oof on p. 12 of Angus and the Cat by Marjory Flack,
Doubleday]. The book Peggy has read most frequently is Richard
Scary’s Great Big Schoolhouse.
Peggy’s style of reading has some surprising consequences. She sat on
the floor a few days ago (8/9/80) and pointing to the text on a page
said, “This says ‘kitty’.” The book was in French. When I said, “I didn’t
know you could read French, ” Peggy replied, “I read French.”