Customer Reviews

Psychology of Literacy

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This book is quite a unique contribution to language, literacy, linguistics, and cognitive psychology as it addresses such themes. The Vai people (African: near Sierra Leone and Liberia) in this "Vai Project" were subjects in the testing of linguistic theory pertaining to literacy - and its development in society. The ethnography carried out was ethical and ecological.

The act if writing is quite unique to the human species - and unarguably literature is an act only carried out by human beings and as pointed out a recent act dating back to apx. 3500 BC. This book looks at Vai script in its encapsulated environment and how written text was used in this community through bush schools (boys and girls taken from their homes for 5 years of education).

One of the most interesting chapters for me was "Chapter 13: Studies of Memory" and the effects of Qur'anic learning. I am generally interested in memory so this is a very "specialist" dealing with memory pertaining to rote learning in literacy.

If you have a deep interest in literacy studies this is quite a unique book. If you are a linguistic anthropologist I assume you know of this book as it certainly must be a classic in the field (although I cannot confirm this). If you like to think of the ways of the mind and how text/written words shape our world this will also be an interesting academic read for you. I can recommend this book to engaged undergrads in such areas (anthropology, linguistics, linguistic anthropology, literacy studies) and certainly for graduate students in such fields.