ABSTRACT
The change has been the development, largely American, of visual organisers and thinking maps. These are designed not so much to communicate ideas, as graphs, designs and maps do, but to work out the ideas, to express them. Decision making is clearly an important skill to be developed. Just as some children are clearly visualisers, some problems are properly visual in the sense that both the problem and the solution are visual and are therefore best treated visually. Closely related to the skill of comparing is that of classifying. They both involve seeing relationships. Space is available to represent visually the advantages and disadvantages of a particular option, leading to a strengthened choice, but still with scope to consider quality. Alphabetical order is one means of visual ordering, of sequencing, a means hugely contributory in eight-year-olds to developing dictionary skills.
