noteroomassignmentsaretentative,but.docVIP

Writing Research Across Borders Conference Schedule February 22 — Friday Sessions 8:30 am -- Registration in the University Center Lagoon Plaza 8:30 am - 1:00 pm -- Snacks coffee available in the University Center Lagoon Plaza A Session: Friday 9:30-10:45 Conference Welcome: Chancellor Henry Yang, U.C. Santa Barbara Dean Jane Close Conoley, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at U.C. Santa Barbara Plenary Session: The transformation of children’s knowledge of language units during beginning and initial literacy Chair: Charles Bazerman Emilia Ferreiro, National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico During literacy development, children acquire new knowledge about language (usually called “metalinguistic awareness”). In particular, they learn to transform oral language, which they usually master as a tool of social communication, into an object of inspection and inquiry (in epistemological terms). A literate adult speaker can segment the flow of speech into units at various levels. Some of these units are of linguistic interest. Which units are available before and during beginning literacy (ages three to five)? Which units are acquired during initial literacy, when formal instruction usually begins (ages six to seven)? Do these units evolve? Children’s written productions will be used to focus on three main units: a) The word as a conceptual unit and the word as a graphic unit. The theoretical status of this unit is controversial but its psychological status is very strong. In AWS (alphabetical writing systems), the “word” unit has peculiar relevance. (A string of letters separated from other strings by empty spaces is considered to be a single word.) b) The syllable is a strong psycholinguistic unit (“The shortest bits of speech that people recognize ‘automatically’ are syllables” – P.Daniels, 2006). However, the syllable is not marked as such in AWS. Linguistic interest in this unit is growing. c) The phoneme is without doubt the most important of the