Feb. 4, Thursday -- Education experts will address approaches to improving students' academic literacy at a one-day summit from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the ballroom of the UC Davis Activities and Recreation Center. Academic literacy refers to the level of written and verbal English fluency that students need to succeed in U.S. classrooms. Educators and the public are welcome. The registration fee is $125.

Keynote speakers will be Pamela B. Childers, Caldwell Chair of Composition at the McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Brandy De Alba, an eighth-grade teacher at Roosevelt Elementary in Stockton.

Childers, a veteran teacher of writing across disciplines, will demonstrate how to use writing to improve thinking and learning. She also will share examples of effective lessons that can be adapted to all academic levels.

De Alba works with English language learners and at-risk students. As a teacher consultant with the Great Valley Writing Project for the past 11 years, she has been instrumental in the development and delivery of teacher and parent collaboration projects. In 2007, De Alba received the Teacher Leadership Award for writing from the California Subject Matter Projects.

The summit is sponsored by the UC Davis School of Education, the UC Davis Cooperative Research and Extension Services for Schools (CRESS) Center, the Institute for Academic and Adolescent Literacies, Woodland and Yuba community colleges, and the Yolo County Office of Education.

For more information or to register online, visit: http://academicliteracy.ucdavis.edu/summit/2010.