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Early Child Development and Care

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Aesthetic experience and early

language and literacy development
a
Helen L. Johnson
a
City University of New York, USA
Published online: 20 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Helen L. Johnson (2007) Aesthetic experience and early language and literacy
development, Early Child Development and Care, 177:3, 311-320, DOI: 10.1080/03004430500495576

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 Early Child Development and Care
Vol. 177, No. 3, April 2007, pp. 311–320

Aesthetic experience and early language

and literacy development
Helen L. Johnson*
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City University of New York, USA

Early
10.1080/03004430500495576
GECD_A_149540.sgm
0300-4430
Original
Taylor
02006
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helen_johnson@qc.edu
HelenJohnson
000002006
Childhood
and
&Article
Francis
(print)/1476-8275
Francis
Development
Ltd (online)
and Care

The present paper explores the connections between theory and research in language development
and aesthetic education and their implications for early childhood classroom practice. The present
paper posits that arts experiences make a unique and vital contribution to the child’s development
of language and literacy, as well as to the sense of self as an active and engaged learner. Emphasizing
the significance of personal agency in shaping and motivating language and literacy development,
the paper highlights some critical features that link aesthetic experience and engagement with the
arts to models of learning and teaching. The relationship between these features and the child’s early
development of language and literacy, and the special contribution of aesthetic experience to these
processes, are considered. Exemplars from classrooms that have effectively incorporated aesthetic
experiences with visual arts, poetry and storytelling as integral to language and literacy learning are
presented.

Keywords: Aesthetic education; Early literacy; Expressive behavior; Integrating arts and
literacy; Language development

Introduction
The significance of the arts and aesthetic experience for development and learning
has received increasing attention in recent years among educational theorists and
practitioners. Ironically, the recognition of the importance of experience with works
of art for children’s development and learning has coincided with educational
trends that have constrained the time and resources available for these experiences.
High-stakes testing and standardized, scripted curricula leave little if any time in the
school day for open-ended, child-centered arts activities. The present paper posits
that these arts experiences actually are integral components of language and literacy
processes. As such, they make a unique and vital contribution to the child’s language

*EECE Queens College, 65–30 Kissena Blvd. Flushing, NY 11367 USA. Email:
helen.johnson@qc.cuny.edu

ISSN 0300-4430 (print)/ISSN 1476-8275 (online)/07/030311–10

© 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/03004430500495576
 312 H. L. Johnson

and literacy learning, as well as to the child’s sense of self as an active and engaged
learner.
Recent work on aesthetic education highlights the value of engagement with works
of art, including music, visual arts and story, in fostering a ‘wide awakeness’ that is
critical in the development of self-motivated and engaged learning. At the same time,
aesthetic education emphasizes the social construction of knowledge, and the impor-
tance of contextualizing approaches to learning and teaching. Thus, aesthetic educa-
tion is essentially an interactionist approach, stressing the contributions of the
individual and the environment as well as their ongoing exchanges with one another.
Current work on aesthetic education is deeply grounded in the work of John Dewey
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and Maxine Greene, both of whom have offered strong and coherent visions of learn-
ing and teaching, and the essential role of engagement with the arts in those
processes. The present paper applies a different lens to examine the significance of
aesthetic experience for children from the perspective of developmental psychology,
specifically drawing upon recent work that represents an interactionist model about
early language and literacy development (Chapman, 2000).
A critical aspect of the interactionist approach is its highlighting of the ongoing
reciprocal influences of child and environment through the course of development,
illuminating the mechanisms that underlie developmental change. Indeed, the
dynamic interplay between influences is best understood not in a particular moment,
but rather as it unfolds over time. This process is exemplified in the transactional
model first proposed by Sameroff and colleagues (Sameroff & Chandler, 1975; Seifer
& Sameroff, 1987), which emphasizes the ongoing nature of influences between
organism, caregiving environment and sociocultural context. The individual organism
brings both unique and universal endowments to the process of development. This
combination of temperament, reactivity and biological capacities generates behavior
that is more or less effective in expressing and representing the child’s needs. The
environment’s response to the child’s communicative behavior, however, is not a
simple and predetermined outcome. Rather, it is shaped by characteristics of the envi-
ronment and caregivers in it, framed within the broader sociocultural context that
includes societal expectations about appropriate roles and behavior for parent and
child, and also developmental norms. The environmental response may be more or
less compatible with the child’s needs and characteristics, reflecting the ‘goodness of
fit’—as Thomas and Chess (1977) first called it—that is a significant predictor of
developmental course.
Thus, the transactions that propel development are embedded within multi-leveled
familial and sociocultural contexts. Recognition of the contextualized nature of devel-
opment and learning has served as the impetus for important redirections of both
research and practice with young children and their caregivers. Vygotsky’s (1934/
1962) reformulation of knowledge as socially constructed has spurred a shift in
emphasis away from the content of the knowledge that the child acquires per se to the
social processes and contexts through which that knowledge emerges. The present
paper posits that arts experiences make a unique and vital contribution to the child’s
development of language and literacy, as well as to the sense of self as an active and
 Aesthetic experience, language and literacy 313

engaged learner. Emphasizing the significance of personal agency in shaping and

motivating language and literacy development, the paper highlights some critical
features that link aesthetic experience and engagement with the arts to models of
learning and teaching. The relationship between these features and the child’s early
development of language and literacy, and the special contribution of aesthetic expe-
rience to these processes are considered. Insights from classrooms in which aesthetic
experiences with visual arts, poetry and storytelling have been integral aspects of
language and literacy learning are presented.
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Links between aesthetic experience and models of learning and teaching

Within the field of philosophy, the term ‘aesthetic’ often refers to the application of
sensation, perception and imagination in the construction of knowledge. In this way,
aesthetic refers to what Greene has described as the ‘mode of experience brought into
being by encounters with works of art’ (2001, p. 5). While arts education and
aesthetic education are clearly complementary, each has a different focus. Art educa-
tion stresses the exploration of different media within the arts; aesthetic education
addresses the reflection, understanding and creation that become possible through
engagement with a work of art. As embodied in the pioneering work of the Lincoln
Center Institute:
This approach is neither teaching ‘art for art’s sake’ nor using the arts as a vehicle for teach-
ing other subjects, but rather a third process that incorporates some of the elements of both,
involving perception, cognition, affect and the imagination. (Lincoln Center Institute,
2003, p. 2)

What is most critical here is the opening that the work of art provides for the indi-
vidual to stretch knowledge and understanding beyond the immediate here and
know, beyond that which is outlined by the work of art and its immediate context.
This open space is the opportunity for the ‘release of imagination,’ to borrow
Greene’s phrase, through which the learner comes to an unanticipated perspective
on what has been understood previously, or to situate this knowledge in a previously
unexplored network of cognitive and affective connections. Following these open-
ings also leads to an appreciation of modalities of knowledge that may often be over-
looked or devalued. As Davis (2005) recently noted, the arts are notable for ‘leaving
room for and celebrating different “ways into” the same topic’ (p. 13). While educa-
tors give much lip service to theories of multiple intelligences, they are often unpre-
pared (in either their training or their inclination) to incorporate these models into
actual practice with children. As a result, arts activities are commonly treated as
‘add ons’ to the school day, rather than as integral components of the curriculum.
Teachers typically plan a content area lesson and then offer an arts activity (which
could be visual arts, music or creative writing) as the extension. The potential of art
activities as learning experiences themselves is consequently under-utilized. Descry-
ing the lack of awareness of poetry, for example, as a form of knowledge, Sullivan
remarked:
 314 H. L. Johnson

If, however, we are to become literate in a wider range of the forms in which knowledge
may be encoded, we must give attention to these forms. We must stare at them, ponder
them, arrive at an understanding not only of what the forms contain, but also of how form
informs. (2000, p. 223)

Moving arts experiences into the curriculum, however, does not mean that their
purpose is simply an instrumental one (e.g., to accelerate literacy learning or increase
mathematical skills or improve hand–eye coordination). Although these outcomes
may well occur, they are not the primary purpose of providing arts experiences, and
should not be used as the assessment of their impact. It is important instead to
acknowledge the intrinsic value of arts experiences. The reflection and imagination
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that define aesthetic experience, in the classroom or elsewhere, are important in their
own right, as ways of knowing and constructing meaning that are always situated
within social and cultural contexts. Their significance is heightened by their linking
of cognition and affect; a connection that other modes of classroom experience often
fail to address. As Eisner recently remarked, ‘The ability to shape form so that it
imaginatively shapes feeling is a profoundly intellectual task’ (2005, p. 10). In this
way, aesthetic education represents a fundamental synthesis of thought and feeling.
Moreover, this synthesis of thought and feeling, or cognition and affect, provides a
foundation for both representation and expression, key aspects of communicative behav-
ior. For this reason, aesthetic experience is particularly significant in the child’s early
language and literacy development.

Early development of language and literacy

From the outset, the infant’s communicative behavior has both social/representa-
tional and personal/expressive functions. The act of naming assigns and specifies
meanings for things, and situates them within the realm of shared meanings. At the
same time, naming the people, objects, events and feelings in one’s world is central
to the development of self. The child moves into language to accomplish these dual
purposes, and representation and expression both are central functions of communi-
cation from the start. The developmental literature has placed heavy emphasis on the
representational/cognitive/meaning making functions of early language. The child’s
ability to understand and verbalize increasingly complex cognitions is a primary focus
in studies of early childhood. Scaffolding from adults is central in terms of both the
child’s reaching to the limits of the ‘zone of proximal development’ at each develop-
mental juncture, and the child’s socialization into the syntax, semantics and pragmat-
ics of the larger community. There is a sense, however, in which this focus on the
social construction and interactions of early communicative development has resulted
in a lack of attention to personal expression, or intentionality.
In recent years, there has been increasing acknowledgement of the significance of
the expressive nature of early communicative behavior. The seminal work of Lois
Bloom and colleagues (Bloom et al., 1996; Bloom & Tinker, 2001) has documented
the importance of expression in early language, beginning with infants in the ‘first
words’ period. For while communication is an interactive, social and representational
 Aesthetic experience, language and literacy 315

behavior, at its core there are thoughts, feelings, wishes and questions that the infant
seeks to identify, explore and share. In this way, the agency that is so central to
aesthetic experience is at the core of communicative development as well.
Even young infants demonstrate communicative inclinations and embeddedness in
interpersonal/social contexts. Responses to sound, to caregiver’s voice and early
vocalizations are all evidence of early capacities for communicative behavior. By three
or four months, the infant already is cooing conversational turns with the caregiver.
These early exchanges provide the infant with pleasurable lessons about communica-
tive forms and conventions. At the same time, the experience of personal effectiveness
in early communicative exchanges provides a foundation for an emerging sense of self
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as competent and worthy. The infant is thereby motivated to maintain and expand
engagement, and communicative development is elaborated further. In this recipro-
cal relationship, the infant’s enhanced sense of self stimulates efforts to communicate;
and the success of early communicative efforts (embodied in caregiver responsive-
ness) further enhances the infant’s sense of self-efficacy.
The early links between affect and communication are apparent in Robinson and
Acevedo’s (2001) findings that the early emotional vitality and expressiveness
predicted language and cognitive skills at two years. Specifically, infants who demon-
strated higher levels of emotional reactivity and reliance on mothers for emotional
support in challenging situations (e.g. a game of peek-a-boo) at six to nine months
had more highly advanced language and cognitive skills at two years.
The links between early affective and language development are also evident in
findings reported by Meins (1998). The data indicate that in comparison with inse-
curely attached peers, securely attached 20-month-old infants had larger overall
vocabularies, and proportionately more nouns as opposed to frozen phrases (i.e. their
language showed more variety and flexibility). In addition, Meins found that mothers
of securely attached infants were more likely to attribute meaning to their infants’
utterances. This finding underscores the interactionist foundation for differences in
infant communicative behavior. In the securely attached dyads, each partner
supported and encouraged the communicative engagement of the other. These moth-
ers showed greater recognition of their infants as individuals with distinct wants,
needs and interests. This awareness was associated with greater responsiveness to
infant vocalizations, which was associated in turn with more advanced infant commu-
nicative behavior. At the same time, the increasing complexity of these infants’
communicative behavior elicited more engagement and responsiveness from their
mothers.
Both of these studies illustrate the interwoven nature of communication and affect
in early experience, and emphasize the interaction between child and caregiver in
shaping development in both domains. But too often, the focus on interaction, in
which the caregiver guides or scaffolds the child, does not examine the unique contri-
butions of the individual child in initiating and directing the focus of communicative
transactions. Vygotsky’s (1934/1962) description of language as a cultural tool has
guided much of the current research on language development. There has been
considerable emphasis on the significance of language in children’s inculcation into
 316 H. L. Johnson

the reservoir of meanings and history of their culture. The emergence of self in social
context, supported and bounded by the conventions and idioms of the cultural
community, constitutes a critical phenomenon in the development and education of
the individual child. Another central element of Vygotsky’s view of language,
however, is the sense in which it enables humans ‘to transform the world rather than
passively adapt to the world’s conditions’ (Stetsenko, 2004). Stetsenko notes that in
linking this aspect of language to freedom, Vygotsky emphasized the transformation
in the child’s world that accompanies the emergence of language, engendering an
entirely new system of behavior characterized by:
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an emerging ability to steer actions in a desired and pre-planned direction, turning those
actions into a voluntary, self-regulated, and purposeful complex activity planned over
time, according to certain meaningful goals. (Stetsenko, 2004, p. 500)

This increasingly deliberate planfulness, as well as the central role of the individual
child’s needs, wants and interests in communicative behavior, is highlighted in the
intentionality model proposed by Bloom and colleagues (Bloom et al., 1996; Bloom
& Tinker, 2001). The agency of the child is central in this model, as Bloom and
Tinker note:
It is the child who perceives, who apprehends, who constructs the intentional state, who
acts to express it, and who interprets what other do (including what they say) to construct
a new intentional state. These are not unconscious, automatic processes that run accord-
ing to a prescribed schedule of contingencies. They could not be automatic, given that
virtually all events (even those for which the child might have learned a ‘script’) have unex-
pected and unpredictable aspects. (2001, p. 10)

Their data indicate that even very young speakers are not simply responders; they
initiate communicative exchanges because they have things that they want to talk
about. But ‘talk’ is a narrow description of children’s early communication. Gesture,
movement, music and art all are part of the child’s early repertoire of communicative
behaviors. These modalities provide experiences of personal expression independent
of language, as well as in ways that elaborate and extend early verbalizations. In this
way, early expression through the arts bolsters the child’s experiences of successful
communication, thereby fostering further communicative development.
The intentional, expressive nature of communicative behavior is integrally linked
to aesthetic experience. For the active engagement in the creation, transformation
and sharing of meaning that is central for the child’s communicative development
also defines aesthetic experience. This shared core has significance for current efforts
to take an ‘asset’ approach to early childhood education, in terms of both defining and
implementing constructive literacy experiences. First, it argues for a broader notion
of literacy that encompasses the deliberate, reflective and expressive engagement that
young children sometimes demonstrate in their experience with works of art. The
capacity of the child to focus and sustain attention, with consideration of both text
and audience, constitutes a literacy event. The elaborated speech that young children
produce during their engagement with works of art (cf. Ehrenworth, 2003; Carger,
2004) is further evidence of the communicative significance of these experiences.
 Aesthetic experience, language and literacy 317

Second, the shared core of literacy and aesthetic experience highlights the synergis-
tic effects that become possible when arts are infused within regular classroom activ-
ities, enabling children to truly stretch their understanding of the world through
multiple modalities. Artists themselves have long been aware of the connections
between experiences in different domains, and their synergistic effects on learning.
Kandinsky described the ‘inner sound’ of colors, which he believed has ‘a profound
effect, which occasions a deep emotional response … calling forth a vibration from
the soul’ (Wasserman, 2003, p. 24). This fusing of responses across modalities high-
lights once again the critical link between aesthetic experience and emotional
response. It is the emotional response that provides the motivational underpinnings
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for engagement across various domains of learning. Children learn best when what
they are learning matters to them. Dewey’s model of child-centered education is built
upon the notion that starting from what is meaningful to the child increases the
child’s learning. This is at the core of current ‘asset-based’ approaches to instruction,
which begin with a recognition of what the child brings to learning rather than what
the child lacks. The challenge for educators, especially in this era of increasingly high-
stakes testing, is to maximize the opportunities for children to extend their learning
through experiences that build upon their natural and naturally diverse modes of
communication and understanding.

Integrating aesthetic experiences with language and literacy learning

The diversity and variability of children’s approaches to learning make aesthetic expe-
riences particularly significant in creating constructive learning environments. At
each point in time, children bring with them, always, content and meaning, thoughts
and feelings to express. Sometimes the teachers in my graduate education classes
comment that a particular child does not participate effectively in written or oral
language activities ‘because he doesn’t have anything to talk about.’ This statement
is not an adequate description of any child. It is encumbent upon the teacher to
provide ways for children with unusual or non-traditional experiences to draw upon
them within the context of classroom experiences. Children in educational and care
settings that are less congruent with their own cultural and ethnic traditions face an
increased likelihood that their personal initiatives and interests will be overlooked or
misinterpreted. Aesthetic experiences, which allow children to articulate their
personal meanings through engagement and construction of works of art, are
extremely important in this regard.
As Carger (2004) recently noted, infusing arts experiences into the core of
classroom activities is particularly helpful for children whose home culture differs
substantially from the schools. For them, ‘Art held the potential to be a vehicle
not only for self-expression and imagination but also for the expression of knowl-
edge’ (Carger, 2004, p. 287). Based on her experience integrating visual arts
experiences into her reading groups with bilingual/bicultural second and third
graders, Carger recommends providing experiences with a variety of media (some
familiar, some unfamiliar), including art objects that are related to the cultural
 318 H. L. Johnson

backgrounds of the children, and encouraging discussion of illustrations as well as

of text.
Ehrenworth (2003) has suggested that literacy is best understood as an aesthetic
experience, whose purpose is ‘to illustrate the human condition.’ Starting from this
vantage point, one finds multiple points of connection between literacy and other art
modalities. Using visual arts, Ehrenworth encouraged children to find different ways
into writing, so that they write ‘willingly and purposefully.’ The writing that children
did after reflecting on Picasso paintings demonstrated narrative fluidity and personal
expressiveness. In this instance, experience in one modality, visual arts, enhanced
children’s facility in another modality, creative writing. This should not, however, be
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construed as using art instrumentally, simply to support writing development.

Instead, what Ehrenworth’s experience illustrates is the synergistic relation between
expressive communication across modalities.
The significance of literacy activities themselves as aesthetic experiences reiterates
the importance of expression and agency to motivating language and literacy devel-
opment. Dyson (1994) described a third-grade classroom where the children were
engaged in ongoing aesthetic experiences with the reading and writing of personal
stories. Students wrote, shared, edited and commented on one another’s work as
authors and critics. One student, William, prepared a story in which he wrote, ‘I like
to get in fights.’ When the teacher suggested to William that parents and teachers
visiting the classroom might not like that statement, he replied ‘That’s too bad they
don’t like it. I’m gonna express myself’ (Dyson, 1994, p. 155). In this classroom, chil-
dren were active initiators and shapers of their literacy activities and products. The
experience of self as effective communicator was reinforced by responses from peers,
and acceptance, although not without revision, from the teacher.
Dyson documented the impact of these classroom activities on children’s commu-
nicative development. The children’s sense of agency in communication was strongly
endorsed, with important consequences. Children used language to express and work
through feelings that previously would have been handled physically, and both the
expressiveness and the structure of their writing improved significantly as well. Later
in the year, in response to an assignment to write about rain, William wrote a 237-
word text, observing in part,:
Rain make me mad because I hate it. It just put a curse on me and it’s like I have a choc-
olate head with no brains and no blood. It makes me cry. And when I go home do you
know what happen? I get a whipping from my mom if I get in trouble and I cry so the bed gets
wet like rain. (Dyson, 1994, p. 163; original emphasis)

Clearly, William was doing more than completing a writing assignment about rain.
Combining linguistic devices and strong affect, he had created a sophisticated and
also poetic personal story.

Spaces for action

Cargar, Ehrenworth and Dyson each offer a powerful example of literacy learning
framed as aesthetic experience. Rather than providing solutions to curriculum issues,
 Aesthetic experience, language and literacy 319

however, their work stimulates further questions, and suggests further inquiry about
language and literacy learning as aesthetic processes. As Greene commented in
reviewing the experiences of teachers in aesthetic education workshops at Lincoln
Center Institute:
There are no recipes … for translating all this into classroom practice; there are no gener-
alized formulations that can be applied to the situation-specific occasions with which we
deal as teachers. (2001, p. 142)

What the work done thus far on literacy as aesthetic experience does illustrate,
however, is the fundamental importance of creating spaces that permit the emergence
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and elaboration of actions that, as Greene points out, entail ‘taking an initiative,
beginning, setting something in motion.’ In this active role, the child engages in
language and literacy learning as an expression of personal interests, feelings and
needs. Language and literacy become aesthetic actions, ways of defining and acting
on the world. In this way, as Greene describes, the learner is:
Moving from the predictable to the possible. The predictable is what is seen and measured
from the outside …; the possible is what is seen from the vantage point of the actor, the
one with a sense of agency, the beginner. (2001, pp. 142–143)

The findings from early development highlight the presence and importance of
agency in the child’s early communicative behavior. Children do not first learn
language and then learn to use it expressively; expression is an essential motivation
and function of the earliest utterances. The child is active, not passive in early
communicative exchanges.
Creating open spaces for actions that support and elaborate this sense of agency
utilizes the strengths and motivations that every child brings to learning. Every child
has funds of knowledge and stories to tell. Aesthetic experience that acknowledges
and expands these personal resources motivates children to value and engage in
language and literacy learning as ways to actively create, transform and navigate their
worlds.

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