Constructing Meaning through Philosophical Inquiry

ecently, the perspective on literacy was changed from the view of considering literacy as basic skills of simple correspondence between sound and letter to the view of considering literacy as high level skills which consider the presenter’s intention and purpose, and the receptor’s background and need in a synthetic communicative context. Literacy is not the translating activity of letters to phonemes, phonemes to letters. Rather, literacy is considered to be very complicated, and a higher mental process in which writers construct meaning and readers reconstruct meaning (Rumelhart, 1981). Literacy also consists of the conventional reading and writing of skillful readers or writers, and the basic skills of oral language. Alongside the changes on the emphasis in literacy, literacy education has also changed from emphasizing decoding letters and teaching words to emphasizing active interpretation and the construction of the meaning of text. In early childhood education, literacy education began to emphasize both the child’s active reading and the transaction between the child and fairy tales (Rosenblatt, 1989). To emphasize meaning construction, a more natural literature-based content is being used. Recently, literacy activities in young childhood education curriculum emphasize meaning construction using draw-ing, reading big books, discussing, writing, and remaking stories. Lipman thought that the meanings were connections and relationships (Lipman, 1991). Vygotsky considered word meaning as the basic unit for meaning construction, and considered meaning construction as making relations between word meanings. According to Dewey, meaning is dependent on perceived connecting context, and meaning construction is the making of connec-tions and relations by interweaving thoughts, words, and actions. Thus, meaning is constructed by searching for or creating various kinds of relationships. Therefore to improve a child’s meaning Literacy