Evaluation
3V0387.01 Peggy varying elements of a transient game; like phrases 2/13/79 Wooba wooba — Peggy hates to have her face washed or her nose wiped. But she does like to take things out of my shirt pockets. Her usual pocket-picking targets are pens or pipe stems. Today, with my having two shirt pockets, she discovered …
3V0384.02 Usage extension; second person agent of imperative 2/10/79 Peggy and I have passed pipe stems back and forth for quite a while. Long ago we began the giving game. That is, when she offered a pipe stem (or some other object to me) I would take it, say “Thank you” and return it with …
3V0384.01 More verbal specificity; productive uses of signifiers 2/10/79 Returning from a three day trip to Boston, I have Peggy in my lap more than usual. At one point, she indicated she wanted Miriam’s belt which lay near by on the floor: /zIt//zIt/. I gave it to her. Peggy chewed it over, and because I …
3V0380.02 Prosodic features dominate sounds in meaning 2/6/79 Peggy’s name — At supper this [evening] Gretchen and I discussed with Robby what words Peggy knew. The question arose when Robby asserted that surely she knew her name. I argued that her response when I said “Peggy” was to the prosodic features and not to the …
3V0355.03 Picture Gallery: extensive discussion: 01/12/79 The change in Peggy’s behavior after I mounted our collection of children’s pictures in the bedroom was so profound it marks a watershed in her development. Let me elaborate, and begin by describing that collection of pictures. When Robby was young, I bought a Nikon 35 mm camera and …
3V0354.01 Functional Application: using a comb (1/11/78) A day or so ago, I washed Peggy’s hair. As I could not find her little brush, I had to use a comb and a regular baby brush. I used the latter while Peggy held the former. She chewed on it a bit, then held one end and …
3V0329.02 Reflections on putting (12/17/78) If Peggy has yet to distinguish the interior of objects from the surfaces (in the sense of not understanding hollowness, how can it make sense to say that she is putting one thing ONTO or INTO another ? What is required is an imputation of a goal to her — …
3V0283.02 Clear Example of Object Concept crudeness -> prefer gradual elaboration (11/01/78) Relevance: This is another example , albeit a peculiar one, of Peggy having a very crude object concept. she obviously recognizes that objects have an “inside”: This blocks box does — for it can be opened and blocks taken out; her cups have …
3V0283.01 Trapped fingers: a really bad bug (11/01/78) Twice in these last several days, as she played with her box of blocks, Peggy has closed the box lid on a finger. The problem quickly magnifies because she leans on the box with her other hand. Peggy screams and cries; it has been clear that she …
3V0278.02 Pipe play: giving as a communication protocol 10/27/78 PIPE PLAY — When sitting in my lap, Peggy frequently ends up with one of my old pipes. (I still carry them about in a shirt pocket and chew on the stem, though I no longer smoke.) These pipes of mine have become a favorite toy …
3V0278.01 “Pick me up” gesture as precursor of causality. 10/27/78; When wanting to be picked up, Peggy’s habit has been to crawl to your feet and look up, crying and wailing. Oftimes, we would hold out our hands as she crawled over to show both our readiness and that we wanted her to come to …
3V0277.01 Rolling Objects (10/26/78) At home alone with Peggy, I brought her from the living room to play in the bedroom while I worked there. Peggy had been playing with tinker-toy connectors of this sort (sketch of wooden cylinder with holes on the top, bottom, and around the side). Even when I put her, sitting, …
3V0269.01 Standing in her crib (Miriam did it) (10/18/78) Peggy has shown much more inclination to stand than to sit. It has been hard even to get her to sit down in a lap. Today, Miriam called out from the girls’ room most excitedly, “Mom, Dad, come see. Peggy’s standing by herself.” And Peggy was …
3V0267.01 Associating Sounds with People. Interesting Action. 10/16 Peggy went through a period of several days where she seemed to associate her sounds with people. The most striking case was ma-ma(repeated an indefinite number of times with no obvious relevant stress on intonational accenting), which she apparently connected with Gretchen. This delighted Gretchen, who would …
3V0263.02 Social Selection of some actions Social Selection of some actions as interesting leads to their entering the repertoire. RELEVANCE (of preceding story in V0263.01) — Here we see an accidental correspondence of two actions selected as significant, of interest, to another person. This stumbling upon an interesting new pattern so pleased Peggy that she …
3V0263.01 Waving, communication through imitation. 10/12 WAVING — Peggy sat in my lap after dinner. We had indulged in some conversations with Peggy. Robby approached my chair and Peggy said /ae/, flapping both her arms as she has long done when excited. Robby repeated /ae/ and waved his right arm. Peggy smiled then /ae/ /ae/, …
3V0262.01 Peggy Imitating Robby Noises.. 10/11 IMITATION — Peggy was sitting in her seat at the dining room table. Robby was seated at the table also. He made a series of loud kissing noises directed to her. Finally I asked him to stop. In the silence that followed, a soft but distinct repetition of the …
3V0256.01 Verbal Imitation of “shoe” 10/01 Gretchen left Peggy with me while she made cookies in preparation for the first meeting of Robby’s cub scout pack. After trying to constrain Peggy various ways and failing, I let her roam around the floor of our bedroom/ study. After beating the log carrier with her toy giraffe …
3V025401 Miriam naming people for Peggy. 10/03 NAMING — This was one of those bad days for Miriam where her wheezing/ upchucking of medicine kept her home from school. Thus early in the morning she was saddled with responsibility for Peggy. Miriam played with Peggy on the bed and as is frequently the case with …
3V0247.01 Naming buttons in verbal imitation. Gretchen’s instruction “cookie”: 9/26/78; The older children in school and Gretchen chauffeuring a house guest to the bus depot, Peggy was left alone in my care for a few hours today. After her nap and my tending to a variety of her needs, Peggy decided my lap was the …
3V0243.01 Surface phenomena: chewing on the duck appliqué 9/22/78 Last Friday (9/22/78) Peggy went to the doctor’s. I was wearing a blue T-shirt with an anchor appliqué in the center. Peggy showed quite a bit of interest in the anchor and tried to chew on it. Subsequently (9/27 and other times), I noticed her playing …
3V0233.09 Debugging (major story) 9/12 A LITTLE DEBUGGING — Sunday morning I gave Peggy the “Fermi Spool” experiments wheel and axle: two 3″ wooden wheels with a fat pencil between them as axle. This was Peggy’s first rolling toy — and it was able to get away from her. When it came my way I …
3V0233.05 Miriam as Instructor 9/12 MIRIAM AS INSTRUCTOR — Miriam frequently gets stuck with the job of caring for Peggy over short intervals of time. For example, she may care for her while Gretchen bathes in the morning. Miriam’s play varies considerably. Sometimes she plays interactively (cf. 8/26); other times she plays with Peggy more …
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Vn40.1 Logo After Hours 7/4/77 During the bicentennial year Miriam was too young to enjoy the fireworks. She was frightened by the noise of amateurs’ exploding firecrackers and so sleepy by 9 o’clock that we abandoned a half- hearted attempt to watch the display from the vantage of Corey Hill in Brookline. Radio forecasts promised …
Vn39.01 Good News 7/1/77 At lunch today we told the children that Gretchen is pregnant. When the children and I finished our morning’s experiment (Logo Session 33), we joined Gretchen at home, picked up a stack of their favorite books, and all went to the doctor’s office. We all suffered a delay (the doctor was …
Vn38.01 Robby’s Place in the Project 6/28/77 Robby raised a very difficult question today — how much of the work he does at Logo will be a part of my doctoral thesis. The answer Robby required, and it is a superficial answer, that the thesis will be about Miriam’s development, was bound to disappoint him. …
Vn036.01 Losing a Friend 6/25/77 Now that school has ended for the summer, Miriam will see much less of her schoolmates. Of her close, new-found kindergarten friends, most will be away for most of the summer. The child going farthest away, unfortunately, is Maria, Miriam’s closest friend. Maria is going to Spain, has in fact …
Vn035.01 Hatch Who? 6/24/77 The jokes and puns a child is capable of creating and under- standing are a fine developmental index of his ability to conceive of some object or idea in multiple contexts. (For examples of Miriam’s earlier, limited capability see the discussion in Pre-Readers’ Concepts of the English Word). Precursors of the …
Vn034.01 Candle Fire Crackers 6/23/77 We usually dine by candlelight. We enjoy making candles and using them, and the ill distribution of light in our dining area makes this practice a useful enjoyment. Having agreed that he will not play with fire, Robby has the responsible job of candle man: he brings the candles to …
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Vn032.01 The Word Box 6/20/77 As her term end in kindergarten approaches, Miriam brings home more of materials from school. Today came the Word Box — a small plastic case for holding 3×5 cards. As a reading-readiness activity, the children are, occasionally, asked to select some word whose spelling they would like to learn. The …
Vn031.01 Collecting Tolls 6/19/77 Robby and Miriam each receive a nominal ‘allowance’ weekly, regardless of whether they’ve been ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or done what we parents have wanted them to. They know it is computed by multiplica- tion: for each child the ‘allowance’ is 5¢/year times the child’s age. Thus Miriam recently began receiving 30¢/week. …
Vn56.1 TicTacToe 7/19/77 These games of tic-tac-toe followed immediately the arithmetic of Home Session 13. The focus of the session is on the bipolar (i. e. competitive) quality of tic-tac-toe. This focus is maintained by contrasting the game with playing SHOOT around the issue of clever tactics. (My moves are numbers; Miriam’s are letters.) Game …
Vignette 27.1 Emberley’s Faces (2) 6/17/77 A large portion of Miriam’s drawings during the past year have taken the form of presents she makes to others. She has spoken of them as presents many times. One formal element of these notes reflects that character. Each typically bears a tag of the form: “TO _______/ LOVE, …
Vn004.01 The Clever Hack (2) 5/12/77 At dinner this evening we talked over some of the incidents of the day. It had been one of novelty for Robby. His friend John (the son of a former naval officer with whom Robby shares an interest in naval battles and model building) came to Logo with Robby …
Vignette 26.1 The Clever Hack (3) 6/13/77 After not using the SHOOT programs for nearly a month, today (in Logo Session 24) Miriam returned to playing with that game. She started using the Clever Hack to run up her score (keying ‘H’ followed by ‘SHOOT 0’; the former locates the turtle inside the origin-centered target, …
Vignette 25.1 TicTacToe (4) 6/3/77 Miriam wanted to play a few games of tic-tac-toe before going to bed this evening. After vignette 15’s instruction in the proper ordering of three rules, 1. Look for a way to win (complete a row of three) 2. Look for a way to lose (make all forced moves) 3. …
Vgn024.02 Writing Stories(2)6/12/77 After dinner this evening, Miriam, who has been making late Mother’s Day presents for Gretchen, brought me “an early Father’s Day present.” The present, duplicated as Addendum 24 – 1, shows combined a typical drawing with another story in the WRITER model. Miriam could not spell the words, so she dictated it …
Vn024.01 Writing Stories Robby called me from Miriam’s bedroom: “Dad, come see the puppet show.” They have played with, even made, hand puppets for a while and enjoy giving shows — whose typical script has been, “Hello, my name is Owl. Goodbye.” I was in high spirits after a very successful arithmetic session with Miriam …
Vignette 23.1 Arithmetic Ripples 6/5 & 11/77 Miriam does not yet recognize the existence of negative numbers. The typical problem this causes her was shown as we rode home from buying a Sunday paper (the children go with me to buy chewing gum). Miriam was discussing making change with Robby. She knew that paying for …
Vn020A In the Gymnasium 6/2/77 Twenty four children filing into the gym, a space about 20 by 40 with a wall-wide, wooden climbing rack at one end. During the half hour, when any children did not want to play some game or other he might climb around on that climbing rack, come sit on the …
Vn019 Rehearsal 6/2/77 Last night Miriam asked me to come to kindergarten this morning to help out with a rehearsal of ‘Goldilocks.’ (see Logo Session 17, 5/1). When Miriam began showing an interest in plays (cf. Vignette 3), I mentioned to her that those years I spent at Yale were in the Drama School, that …
Vn01703 Arithmetic Ripples 6/1/77 Miriam was playing in the kitchen with Scurry this morning. Gretchen and I were discussing some topic, and I mentioned a division problem. Miriam piped up, “I can divide, Daddy. . . . 8 divided by 8 is 1.” I congratulated her on her prowess. For Miriam the formula she recited …
Vn017A Arithmetic Ripples 5/28/77 After the session in which I introduced Miriam to adding large numbers (see Home Session 4, 5/28), passing Miriam’s room I noticed in her open loose-leaf book a page of computation. Miriam later gave it to me and I include it as Addendum 17 – 1. Note that the written form …
Vn016 Binet Test 5/27/77 Miriam has known for over a week that our next trip into Boston would be for taking a test. I had introduced her to the idea with the explanation that nearly everyone takes such a test some time and that she was simply taking this test earlier than most other children. …
Vn015 Tic tac toe 5/24/77 Miriam emerged from her bath not at all ready for bed but looking for someone to play with her. I agreed she could stay up and that we could play together while Robby was getting ready for bed. The game was my choice. My objective was to induce Miriam’s copying …
Vn014.1 Housekeeping Corner 5/24 & 27/77 Since Miriam started recounting where she spends her time in kindergarten (see Vignette 12), it has become clear that she spends most of her time in the ‘housekeeping corner.’ When I’ve been in the kindergarten class, I’ve usually found myself playing with blocks, or making designs and elaborate towers …
Vn013 Phonemics 5/23/77 In discussions some weeks ago with a distinguished Genevan psycholinguist, the question of instructing children in phonetics came up. My earlier work on children’s conception of wordhood (‘Pre-Readers’ Concept of the English Word’) and pig-latin (not available) had convinced me that children should learn how to read before delving into phonetics. (Such …
Vn009.01 Tic Tac Toe (2) 5/22/77 Miriam asked Robby to play with her this afternoon, offering “Sorry,” “Raggedy Ann” and “Chinese Checkers.” All were refused. Robby finally agreed to playing TIC TAC TOE. I asked the children to come sit in the reading alcove. They did so while I got out my tape recorder. Two …