What are Viconic Language Methods (VLMs)?
I have received a couple of requests to talk more about Viconic Language Methods (VLMs). Specifically, where do the VLMs come from? There is two parts to my response to that question: 1) methods are generic and used by many people so the methods are not new; and 2) the alignment of methods to a theory is specific in the case of VLMs is unique which is why the VLMs are important. In this blog I will address both parts. As far as I know, I coined the term “viconic,” which Mabel Brown and I wrote about in a booklet titled Balanced Literacy (2002). This term literally means the use of visual (vicon) components as parts of strategies (-ic). This term is similar to the term phonics which is the study of sound (phon) in structural strategies often used for teaching reading, writing, and speaking. Instead of sound, our methods are aligned with what we know about the visual processing of sensory input into perceptual processing into visual concepts or images represented by language. The need for such a visually based term, viconic, is that the majority of people learn using visual processing but methods for basic literacy (speaking, reading, writing, viewing, listening, thinking, and calculating) are heavily sound based (phonics, phonetics, phonological awareness, phonology, phonemes), even for people who are deaf. Such surface forms of teaching is void of underlying acquisition of meaning in the learner based on how the learner processes input. If the majority of today’s population uses visual processing for thinking, then it is only logical to me that the input for learners for literacy forms (speaking, reading, writing, viewing, calculating, listening, thinking) ought to be based on those visual properties. Hence, we coined Viconic Language Methods to refer to those visually based strategies aligned with how people learn (NsLLT; Neuro-semantic Language Learning Theory).
So how does the alignment between theory and VLMs work? Well, the answer to this rests with what speech scientists and neuroscientists have shared with how the eyes and ears work. These two organs process different aspects of the environment. The eyes process light. The ears process sound. Light and sound waves are made of different properties. Therefore, the two organs process different meanings. And my experience over 50 years tells me that the majority of educational, learning struggles are a result of the mismatch between the input and the learner. I have learned about this mismatch by using language sampling of those who struggle. Language is a mirror to the processing of sensory input. To teach literacy forms such as oral language I needed to be able to communicate with my clients in the way they processed. Likewise, I also needed to increase their products of literacy through their processing, not mine. So, I began using visual methods with my first client in 1969. In that first case, I was drawing, writing, signing in addition to showing aligned commercial pictures to communicate (pragmatics) meaningful input that my client could physically utilize. But obviously the species, Homo sapiens, evolved their communication over thousands of years. They also drew, wrote, signed. Petroglyphs and manual signs emerged into hieroglyphs into written forms aligned with signed and spoken human language. Using drawing, writing, signing, is not new. However, it is a form of communication and has levels of meaning that can be conceptualized at various levels based on input that can be processed.
But, the way that these actions such as drawing is used is new and is based in my theoretical framework called the Neuro-semantic Language Learning Theory or NsLLT. For example, comics and cartoons have been around for decades. But, because I know why it is semantically easier for a child to see black and white stick figures across grounded frames versus a colored single picture with a floating object makes my use of cartooning unique, aligned with NsLLT. And yes, the alignment is something that we often don’t do in the schools. But, if the professional does not know why they are cartooning a specific way, then their drawing may not be effective for student, client learning. Understanding where semantics comes from neurologically and how that is used for literacy is an important piece of knowledge for making any methods work. Viconic Language Methods (VLMs) have been effectively used by many people because they know what the underlying basis for their use comes from, the NsLLT.