Six year old's egocentric speech in the collective construction the writing

Abstract

'In this article we aimed at analyzing data on the uses and functions of four six-years-olds s private speech prompted during free graphic productions activities such as drawing and initial writing. Our study was developed from a cultural psychology perspective in which knowledge is constructed dialogically during teaching-learning activities in multimodal literacy processes. In addition, classroom interactions and problem solving involve social practices based on oral, visual and graphic modes of communication. We analyzed four 60 minutes sessions filmed in a first year classroom Junior school in which three sessions involved recount activities and one free writing session all conducted by the classroom teacher. Having episodes as unit of analysis, we applied the categories developed by literature to analyze private speech and created another category from the indexes of the specific situations. Results indicated that the use of egocentric speech functioned in order to organize drawing and spelling during free writing activities. In addition, the use of egocentric speech acquired the following functions directed to generate knowledge in intersubjectivity: a) as a commentary of the social other; b) a commentary of the speaker himself directed to the social other; c) an egocentric speech of the social other; d) an assessment commentary; e) private speeches in collective spelling; f) as present participants commentaries of agreement or disagreement