Childhood as an Oral Culture

I think that in many ways being a child pre-writing and pre-reading is much like me sitting in an advanced calculus class. I would recognize sounds and some symbols as letters or numbers, but as far as communication or comprehension I'd be pretty lost. I don't remember what it was like to sit in front of an open book and not have a clue what was in front of me. I think that that is one of the most interesting points that Ong has brought up so far in his text. In true oral culture they have NO CONCEPT of the "word" in a visual field. Whenever I am asked to ponder a word's meaning, I immediately write the word down and look at it. Searching for ways to break it down and find its history. Oral cultures cannot do this. I have NO CONCEPT of what that is like.

I've been thinking, and I believe Ong discusses it too, that to be in a literate culture separates us from our environment in a way that an oral culture would never be separated. As a literate person, I can read about the climate of Montana without ever having to really experience it. When we are children we are in an oral culture insodfar as this idea of human + environment is concerned. As young kids we learn EVERYTHING through experience. What hot is like, what snow is, that all objects have sounds that define them. When I learn to say "water" I have no concept of the word. To me it was only the sound of the word and the water itself that were unified in my mind. I will have more to say on this later. I find Ong fascinating.