Final answer:
Children learn to read and write through an approach similar to how they learn to speak by engaging in a Constructivist learning process, which encourages discovery through trial-and-error, interaction with their environment, and innate grammatical recognition. This approach highlights the balance between nature and nurture in language and literacy acquisition.
Step-by-step explanation:
The approach in which children learn to read and write through trial-and-error discovery, akin to how they learn to speak, is largely rooted in the Constructivist perspective of language acquisition. This perspective suggests that language and literacy skills are constructed by the learner through interaction with their environment and social community. Unlike purer Behaviorist approaches proposed by B.F. Skinner, which emphasize reinforcement and feedback, or the nativist perspective put forth by Noam Chomsky, which highlights an innate language acquisition device (LAD), Constructivism posits a more active role for the learner in the process of language and literacy development.
Children acquire language skills not only through genetic predisposition but also through environmental interaction and the innate human ability to recognize and apply grammatical structure. For example, as a child like the son in the passage receives feedback from his environment and reflects on the functional use of words and concepts, he naturally discovers patterns and begins to apply them, thereby learning to read and write. This capacity seems to be stronger in early childhood when there is a critical period for language acquisition.
The father’s informal experiment with his son mirrors this Constructivist approach, allowing the child to engage with and decode language in a fashion that appears to be both internally motivated and exploratory in nature. The son's gradual understanding of language and successful identification of written words without explicit instruction demonstrates the trial-and-error process empowered by his cognitive and linguistic environment. This experience closely relates to how children learn through play and mimicry, which is observed universally across cultures.