Introduction

Several approaches in early childhood programs have embraced the concept of wholistic learning. A program is considered wholistic when it attempts to enhance the whole child in every developmental aspect as the child matures. Individual aspects of this development are not separated but overtly encouraged by student exploration and through teacher guidance. The connection between sensory-motor development, cognition, and literary abilities is strong. Several developmental programs for early childhood attempt to build background experiences that not only coordinate sensory-motor development but also enhance the child's ability to draw on this development as literary abilities evolve. Cognition is reinforced as the child internalizes these abilities and makes decisions for future actions. These programs recognize the importance of developing the whole child, taking into consideration the environment and the uniqueness of individual growth patterns, rather than compartmentalizing these as discrete subjects. This chapter develops the foundation of this type of teaching and describes early programs for wholistic comprehensive instruction for reading.

Types of cognition

Many researchers have developed theories for cognition that provide a look at different abilities and sub-abilities in the individual. Some are discrete, some are developmental for the child, and some are maturational through adulthood. It is worth considering these foundational theories that explain the areas of the brain involved and delineate the stages of growth. Wechsler's research in the area of verbal and nonverbal cognition allows us to understand anatomically where certain functions of cognition take place. In the left hemisphere of the brain, verbal information is learned, processed, and expressed. The left hemisphere processes in a linear, analytical manner and is sequentially oriented for processing. It is the seat of most language processing. The right hemisphere is functionalized for dreaming, intuition, visuospatial processing, quantitative thinking, and gestalt thinking.

There are four distinct hierarchical stages of cognition. Schema is considered the fundamental representation of a witnessed event or object. Symbol is a contrived mental representation standing for an event or an object. A concept is a representation of multiple events or objects. Rule pertains to a predictable relationship between multiple concepts.