A Richer Life



You may have tangible wealth untold;

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.

Richer than I you can never be

I had a mother [and grandmother] who read to me.

--Strickland Gillilan

Listening to Stories

In the famous fifteen year "Bristol Study," in which sociolinquist Gordon Wells observed a representative sampling of children from the utterances of their first words until the end of their elementary education, he concluded that of all the worthwhile activities helpful in the acquisition of literacy, only one is significantly more beneficial than all the others. That activity?  Listening to Stories!  Why is listening to stories so beneficial?

(1)  In listening to stories read aloud, children are already beginning to gain experience with the sustained meaning-building organization of written language and its rhythms and structures.  When they read books for themselves, they will find the language familiar.

(2)  Through stories, children vicariously extend the range of their experience far beyond the limits of their immediate surroundings.  In the process, they develop a much richer mental model of the world and a vocabulary with which to communicate about it.

(3)  Stories provide an excellent starting point for collaborative talk--between a child and parent or a student and teacher.  As the adult helps the child explore his or her own world in light of what happens in the story, the child begins to understand the significance of his or her own experiences.  This gives validation for the child's own inner story--that internal mode of meaning-making which is as deeply rooted in human nature as language itself.

Worlds Await

What We Have Loved

What we have loved others will love

And we will teach them how.

--William Wordsworth

One Reason I Read

"I read because one life isn't enough, and in the pages of a book I can be anybody." --Richard Peck