Literacy and awareness 1 AWARENESS AND LITERACY David Wray (An amended version of a chapter first published in Harrison, C. & Ashworth, E. (1991) (eds) Defending Literacy: Celebrating Literacy, London: Simon & Schuster) Introduction In the far off days when I was a teacher of upper junior children I recall having an involved discussion with the swimming teacher as I accompanied my class to the local swimming baths. I complained that the upper junior stage was too late to begin swimming instruction; rather it should begin in the infant school before children's attitudes to and fears of the water had had time to harden. The swimming teacher argued vehemently that it was far easier to teach swimming to eleven-year-old children than to five year olds because "you can tell them what to do and they can understand how to do it". This was my first introduction to the idea that an awareness of what one is trying to learn might help the learning. This idea, since given 'scientific' names such as "metacognition" and, applied to language, "metalinguistic awareness", seems like common sense. One would surely not expect effective learning in anyone who was not sure what it was he was trying to learn. Yet learners may vary so much in the extent and the depth of their understanding of what they are trying to learn and why, that the issue merits further investigation, particularly with regard to the development of literacy. Questions arising include the following: • what does this awareness consist of? • what kinds of awareness do children learning to read and to write seem to have of these processes? • what effects may this have upon their learning of the processes? • what implications does this have for the teacher of literacy? This chapter will attempt to suggest some possible answers to these questions, although it should be stated at this point that research into these issues is still in a state of rapid development. The concept of awareness This concept seems to have two aspects: a knowledge dimension and a performance dimension (Baker & Brown, 1984). To illustrate this with the example of swimming, as used above, we can see that, in order to swim effectively, a person needs to know what swimming involves, what its purpose is and that not all movements in water count as swimming. These are knowledge components. It is actually possible for someone to know all these things well but still not be able to swim. He requires in addition a degree of performance awareness. He needs to know what his body is doing as he attempts to swim, an understanding of how to tailor his movements to the requirements of the moment and