Children’s Thinking about Language and Their Acquisition of Literacy

Abstract

Some of the many currents of research and theory in the field of literacy development are concerned with questions of metalinguistic thinking. By their very nature, studies concerning the perceptual (or motor) processes involved in the activities of reading and writing do not address the question of underlying (explicit or implicit) linguistic knowledge. Similarly, research dealing with educational methods and practice does not often address this aspect either, as emphasis is put on comparisons between different methods, and on the evaluation of the pupil’s performance. Other studies on literacy concern the role of socio-affective factors such as motivation and deal mainly with the content of the material proposed for beginning readers. Researchers who investigate the development of the child’s knowledge of the written system (as a system in itself without particular links to other systems) tend to point to the differences between text and spoken language and leave aside questions of knowledge of a general nature about the object of thought, “language.” In contrast, researchers who view reading and writing as activities that are based on a certain type of transposition of spoken language naturally consider both production and comprehension capacities, as well as metalinguistic knowledge. This brief sketch of the different trends in studies of literacy development serves to clarify the perspective chosen for this chapter. We will describe and discuss research results that belong to the last two trends described, thus leaving aside perceptual processes, motivation, and instruction methods, and concentrating on conceptual components.