Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Domains, questions, and directions
- 2 Language and literacy in Morocco
- 3 The cultural context of schooling
- 4 Doing fieldwork in Morocco
- 5 Learning to read in Arabic
- 6 Social factors in literacy acquisition
- 7 Beliefs and literacy
- 8 Learning to read in a second language and a second literacy
- 9 Functional literacy: School learning and everyday skills
- 10 School dropout and literacy retention: Out of school, out of mind?
- 11 Literacy and poverty
- 12 Linking research and policy
- 13 Literacy, culture, and development: Concluding thoughts about a changing society
- Appendix 1 Cognitive consequences of Quranic preschooling
- Appendix 2 Details of test construction
- Appendix 3 Parent interview
- Appendix 4 Student interview
- References
- Name index
- Subject index
- Plate section
Appendix 1 - Cognitive consequences of Quranic preschooling
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Domains, questions, and directions
- 2 Language and literacy in Morocco
- 3 The cultural context of schooling
- 4 Doing fieldwork in Morocco
- 5 Learning to read in Arabic
- 6 Social factors in literacy acquisition
- 7 Beliefs and literacy
- 8 Learning to read in a second language and a second literacy
- 9 Functional literacy: School learning and everyday skills
- 10 School dropout and literacy retention: Out of school, out of mind?
- 11 Literacy and poverty
- 12 Linking research and policy
- 13 Literacy, culture, and development: Concluding thoughts about a changing society
- Appendix 1 Cognitive consequences of Quranic preschooling
- Appendix 2 Details of test construction
- Appendix 3 Parent interview
- Appendix 4 Student interview
- References
- Name index
- Subject index
- Plate section
Summary
For many people, rote learning evokes recollections of Latin lessons, unending biological terminology, perhaps even the nine-digit U.S.postal zip codes. It may bring to mind the drudgery of elementary and high school lessons, even though rote learning was supposed to have been eliminated from so-called modern schools in most countries many decades ago. The word rote, a variant on the words route and routine, is defined by Webster's Dictionary as “learning mechanistically, by memory alone, or without thought.” As is evident from the scientific literature, memory often has been seen to have a dual and even paradoxical role in education: first, as a low-level skill that replaces thought, and second, as a basic skill necessary for all types of school learning.
The history of rote learning and memory is surprisingly rich and diverse. Prior to the advent of writing systems, keeping track of accumulated bits of information contributed to an increasing burden on human memory. The oral tradition, which relied on the individual's memory, helped promote the use of mnemonics or specialized strategies that improved on earlier methods of rote memorization. Yet one apparent cause for the rise of formal educational settings (where students are explicitly taught a given body of knowledge) followed directly from the fact that haphazard remembering was an inefficient manner of storing and conveying large amounts of information (e.g., Goody, 1977; Yates, 1966).
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- Information
- Literacy, Culture and DevelopmentBecoming Literate in Morocco, pp. 271 - 281Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994