The development of additional knowledge, including that knowledge known as literacy, as extensions to or transformations of earlier knowledge. In particular, the developmental model emphasizes the development of oral language from earlier, prelinguistic knowledge, and literacy as an amalgam of prelinguistic (stages 1 and 2) and linguistic (stage 3) knowledge. Literacy includes the procedural knowledge (processes) used in guiding information pick-up and processing by the visual, auditory, and other perceptual systems, and declarative knowledge generally representable in oral and graphic symbol systems (this includes content knowledge such as mathematics, geography, etc. when learned).

Learning as Information Processing

In addition to the models of the human cognitive system and the development of literacy, the conceptual framework to be used in interpreting literacy assessments in the Compendium includes a conception of learning as the outcome of constructive, information processing activities.

The information processing approach to learning emphasizes internal mental processes involved in learning. It views the person as an active, adaptive organism busily ordering and arranging an internalized representation of life space. According to this view, learning is the result of an active, constructive process on the part of the learner working with information from the internal or external environments. This differs from a strict behavioristic conception in which learning is the result of some fixed, automatic process of association among stimuli, responses, and their consequences.

The information processing approach to learning emphasizes internal strategies for dealing with information, such as the use of imagery or mnemonic (contextualizing) devices to aid in learning a list of words. Thus, the information processing position would lead us to seek different internal processing strategies even though certain stimulus-response sequences may be the same. For instance, interest would focus not only on whether or not a problem is solved, but also upon how it was solved. It is thus analytic, stressing the detailed analysis of tasks in regard to the knowledge and mental operations involved "inside the head" between the occurrence of a stimulus and a subsequent response (i.e., "cognitive task analysis").

A most important aspect of the information processing approach to learning is the emphasis upon the active, constructive nature of the person as he or she draws upon prior knowledge to function in the current learning context. This suggests that cognitive assessment and instructional programs should offer an environment for and a stimulus to active information seeking, mental representation and re-representation to bring a larger share of prior knowledge to bear on the learning task, and external communication to check, confirm and further develop learning.

In summary, the theoretical framework used herein to interpret research on literacy includes the concept of a human cognitive system comprised of a long term memory with its knowledge base and a short term working memory that operates through information processing activities on the information in the long term memory and the external world of information. Cognition includes both knowledge and the processes for developing knowledge.

The long term memory develops over the life of the person as the latter undergoes the transitions from pre- language, to oral language, to written language based information processing. As the key developmental information processing outcome in our literate society, the person comes to acquire the information processing skills involved in a wide variety of cognitive acts involving graphic symbol systems for language processing and for performing various cognitive tasks involved in problem solving and reasoning.