My name is Marlon Kuntze.
My talk today is about reading the word
and reading the world and if in fact
both experiences are similar or different.
That's the question that I pose today.
English for hearing people and English for deaf people
are most certainly not the same.
When you ask a deaf person what English means,
it's a written form of a language.
And when you ask a hearing person what English is,
it's the spoken form
and the written form of their language.
So I will suggest today two premises.
Learning to read is fundamental.
We learn to read using the information
that we are presented on a daily basis.
If we are exposed to language either
in spoken or signed or written form,
that information is processed by our brain
and we acquire that skill of reading the world.
The world provides us so many patterns
throughout our daily lives.
We are inundated with them
and that helps us to read anything!
We read all the time.
We read the world in many different forms.
We can see patterns and recognize them.
Reading the world is only one small -- word --
is only one small part of our daily experience.
My fundamental question is reading the word
and reading the world from a psychological perspective,
is that a fundamental similarity,
or is it in fact a different way
that we process information?
As I mentioned before, we have so much information
that we take in on a daily basis,
that we only absorb part of it.
But what we do absorb becomes what is known.
And then we no longer have
to pay attention to it as much.
What is known then frees up more cognitive ability
to pay attention to what the unknown is.
So we take in information
and if we have seen that pattern before,
we can sort of let it go because we are familiar with it.
For example, a cat.
We all know what a cat looks like.
There are different kinds of cats.
Different cats that have
different colors and patterns.
We know what the properties are.
But when we see an animal
that looks a little bit different.
They may have taller ears.
They may have a different color fur.
They may have a different shape in fact to their body.
It takes a moment.
We understand that they come from the feline family,
but then we are recognizing that in fact
it is a different cat!
We go through that sort of analysis because
that is not something that we have put into our brain
as something that is known.
The known patterns that we have, that we have learned
throughout our daily being again is information
that we can store and free up brain space
for new patterns that we're looking for.
For example, if I did see a cat, I may think of it
as a cat and then upon further observation
I may realize that it's a different animal.
We can think of dogs as another example.
We all know that dogs have certain properties,
but we may look at an animal and take a closer look
and in fact realize it's a different type of animal
that may look similar to a dog,
but comes from a different family.
So that information that is unknown forces us
to take a closer look.
Walking through the forest,
a novice may come across animal footprints.
But we may not be able to recognize which footprints
come from which animal,
or which stories they represent.
There are different types of hoofs for example.
Many different types.
Are you able to identify
which hoof belongs to which animal?
Maybe there is a deer.
And someone who is familiar with a deer
may be able to identify that deer footprint pattern.
But someone who is a novice
or has had different experiences may not know
what animal walked there before them.
But if you were to see two different paws,
you could compare and see that maybe one is a shoe-horned goat
compared to another deer.
Sheep have much narrower footprints than other animals,
and that information becomes what is known
and our minds are free to focus on patterns
that we have not yet been exposed to.
Such as the footprint of a pig or a goat.
So it does take a while for our brains
to discern information that is known and what is unknown.
But basically we all have a theory of the world
that we work within.
And that is based on our cumulative experiences,
the information that we've been exposed to and use.
The data that is constantly being shown to us.
That informs our theory and our theories
about the world changes on a daily basis
depending on the data which we receive.
And I may be fascinated by a new piece of data
and that will in turn shift my theory.
Let's go back to reading and how one learns to read.
As I mentioned before, we are inundated with patterns,
and the written form of a language
is one such pattern.
For example, the alphabet and the way we arrange letters
to create words and sentences
is very much a pattern in our language.
As you see, there are sub-lexical items coming up
on the screen now that can be replaced with letters
in the beginning to make
different vocabulary words.
For example, sub-lexical term "ire" can predict
what would be before that sub-lexical item.
Ire stays constant.
And the letters that come before can be changed
to be "wire" or "haywire." aware, beware.
Again, the sub-lexical is the pattern
that we are familiar with and that leaves more brain energy
to read the letters that come
before the sub-lexical item to read and comprehend that word.
That information is what is known.
Our brains are constantly looking for
and trying to seek out patterns.
When we recognize one, we may see that is a pattern
that we have seen before and that becomes known,
unless there is something different about it.
It may be similar to us,
but there may be a slight difference.
Our brains will take note and pay closer attention
to be able to identify
what in fact that difference is.
Once that pattern becomes familiar to us, again,
that's stored in the known part of our brain,
and that frees up more space to pay attention
to new information and new patterns.
At the word level, we are comfortable with patterns,
when they become more complex, getting to language
as a whole, there are patterns that we recognize.
New pattens will take us a moment to get used to
because the data that we had since been exposed to
hadn't yet shown us that new item.
So data and theory sometimes conflict
with each other and lead to ambiguity.
What I see and what I know may not always align.
For example, we have a picture of a,
if you see a picture of an animal
that does not look like what you expected.
It may be a dog that has some human features
for example, you would discard that because
it's something that's not familiar to you.
But if you were to in fact take a closer look,
you would see that maybe the picture took the nose
from the usual place and moved it to the cheek.
You would see that is a face.
That's a pattern I'm familiar with,
but the data has been misconstrued.
Drawings of two faces that are superimposed on top
of each other and show a head turning
or maybe show different facial expressions
like eyes blinking on the right and then on the left is,
depending on which way you look is another example
of a pattern that may be familiar to us,
but not because we're not used to seeing faces
imposed on each other.
When you hear the words "gray" or "orange,"
you may think I like "orange"
because it's a prettier color.
But in fact, here in D.C., I'm asking you
if you're going to vote for Mayor Gray or candidate Orange.
So without explicit information,
people are left with ambiguity.
We are also left to make inferences.
We make inferences all the time.
The data that we are receiving as we navigate
our world on a day-to-day basis
sometimes leaves gaps in information.
For example, there's a building near Georgetown
right in front of the river, the waterfront.
So in Georgetown there is a building along
the Potomac river and I had passed by that building
wondering what its purpose was.
There is a canal behind that building,
and the Potomac river was in front of it.
And the canal was higher than the river
that was in front of the building.
I took a stand on a peak above that building
and I was able to look at it from a different viewpoint.
And I saw the river flowing
both in front and behind this building.
And there was something down river that I could see
that was certainly in line with this building.
It ended up being the tresses of the bridge.
And this led me to wonder
what the purpose of this structure was.
It was a very odd-looking bridge.
There were grass along either side.
And it didn't in fact cross the canal.
Now the canals had trails along either side of it.
And I later found out that on these trails,
individuals would ride along horses
with their buggies and carry different types of cargo.
But what fascinated me was the design because it
did not coincide with the data that I thought I knew,
the patterns that I had been previously exposed to.
Because you would expect that to cross a canal,
you would see some sort of structure
that actually crossed the water,
but this in fact wasn't built that way.
I wasn't reading it right because I had not been exposed
to that type of pattern.
Now back to the forest.
The footprint.
I am illiterate to these animals' footprints,
but if I were in fact a hunter, I could look at
one set of footprints and tell you an entire story.
I could tell you if an animal was stalking its prey
and if it got close to its prey.
And if the prey started running away from its stalker.
I could tell you if an animal was gliding
or had a different gait because of the measurement
in its paws and the footprint
that it made in the dirt or snow.
I can also tell you in fact if the animal
was jumping through the forest because of the distance
between front paws and rear paws.
I also, if I was a hunter and if I was familiar
with these patterns could tell you
if this animal was running quickly,
or if they were in fact taking their time.
There is such a story.
You could tell if it was in fact a boy, a male deer,
or a female deer just because of the paw print
this animal left.
The female deer has wider hips,
so the rear paws would have been further apart.
And the males have more narrow hips
and it would have been opposite.
My point in summation is
that we read the world every day.
We need our ability to read to comprehend
the information that we are being exposed to.
We don't have to be taught how to read the world.
It's something that is natural to us.
We are recognizing patterns and developing skills
to be able to appropriately
and correctly read the world.
But my question, my most basic question is why is
that same philosophy not applied to those children
who are being taught
how to learn a written form of a language?
Children should be exposed to a written form of language
and in some sense be left to themselves
to be able to discern the meaning of that language.
I come at you with a completely different perspective
that we can learn from our human ability
to read the world and apply that to reading,
especially deaf children
learning how to read a written language.
Thank you.