Making Use of Gestures, the Leading Edge in Literacy Development

Quantitative and qualitative studies of knowing and learning in science and mathematics show that gestures used in conjunction with utterances are the leading edge of cognitive development. That is, gestures express new levels of understanding before a student expresses this new understanding in words; more so, gestures express the new concepts although language still holds on to the old, incorrect concepts. Being attuned to students’ gestures and recognizing when they are ready to learn from instruction is therefore an important implication for teachers of this research. It has already been demonstrated that even untutored individuals are able to distinguish phases in a student’s development by attending to the relationship between the science and mathematics content expressed in gestures and that expressed in language. Furthermore, it has been shown that students are attuned to the gestures teachers use and sometimes appropriate these gestures into their own expressive repertoires, thereby accelerating the development of scientific literacy. In this chapter, I provide several detailed cases to articulate the role of situation and gesture in the development of oral and written scientific discourse. Teachers who are sensitive to contextual and gestural clues can identify scientific content from gestures even before students are ready to articulate verbally or write about their observations and explanations. When there are discrepancies between gestures and talk teachers, students are more likely to understand new concepts and therefore their readiness for instruction. Teachers can also employ gestures in ways that assist students in developing their scientific literacy.