We are surrounded by information in one form or another. As I drive my 4 year old to school each morning, he asks me about the signs by the road. The question "Mommy, what does that sign say?" is asked over and over. Sometimes it is very hard to drive through sign littered urban sprawl and respond appropriately to the questions while keeping an eye on the road. There are road signs, speed limit signs, store signs, real estate signs, advertisements for music teachers, cleaning services, and community events. Of course the questions don't stop in the first exchange. The next question is usually "What does that mean?" And so on. This dialogue is familiar to parents and seems ordinary until the parent realizes that he/she is explaining the connections between the symbols (letters) in the sign, its meaning, and its relation to other things that are known by the child. This dialogue could be represented as a graph with links and nodes.
As a child, I used to play a mental game while my parents drove me to various lessons. I picked two "points" -- a starting point and an ending point. These points were things and the objective was two connect or chain the first thing to another thing until I reached the chosen ending point. The relationships between the things was not strict -- it could anything from same color, rhymes with, is next to, is contained in, etc. I wonder when my 4 year old will begin this game. I do not recall learning this game from anyone....
