Distinctive Experience

          My first clue to the possible identity of one "particular" which hasn't been firmly established, came when I was rereading Heath's (1983) well known Ways with words. In it, Mrs. Gardner employs an "unusual course of action" when she is assigned 19 first grade students "all of whom had been designated as potential failures "on the basis of reading readiness tests" (284). She approached the text of the story as an object rather than a narrative interaction or for motivation. Gardner labeled and outlined and pointed at the text of the story (285-286). She did not engage with "Eddie Elephant" or, apparently, engage with the story. The class looked at the text of the storybook. She developed a highly text-attentive strategy, emphasizing such aspects of print literacy as phonics, word recognition, alphabet, print function and arrangement. This strategy was successful (1983: 287). The weak link between storybook uses and learning to read and write is visible here. When she experienced great urgency, she left the story to focus on the text.
          I was puzzled. Why didn't she use stories to do her work? There is almost no mention of storytelling in the class.(1) Considering that her students are adept storytellers, well known for their complex oral abilities ranging from fussing, play-song insults to high poetic expression, stories seemed like an apt strategy. Her students entered school with a rich, ready storytelling tradition (Heath: 73-112; 149-189). Furthermore, Mrs. Gardner was teaching during the first great wave of socially diverse storybooks. Shelves of excellent 'multi-cultural' storybooks books are available. Instead, faced with a classroom of high-risk students, Gardner used a strategy of labeling, naming, and persistently directed attention to text. Her successful teaching for phonemic awareness, leading to word recognition, meant directing children's attention from the story to text.(4) They look at the page to see letters and words; phases and sentences. This is probably the most critical early goal of literacy teaching: It demands a high degree of text attentiveness.
          Significantly, among "the particulars," it is this ability, this goal that resists establishment in a causative link with storybook reading aloud. A fine example can be found in a study by Morrow et al. (1990). Children in four experimental classes were provided with daily storybook experiences in an investigation of the effects of storybook reading.(5) At the study's conclusion, children who had daily storybook experiences scored notably higher on story retellings, attempted reading of favourite stories and comprehension tests. However, no significant differences existed between the groups on standardized measures of reading. Students made gains in several important areas, but not in the area usually considered a primary goal. The relationship between reading aloud and reading skills was not predictive.
Because the link between literacy ability and storybook reading aloud is otherwise so strong, this point might be brushed aside. However, it seems to me, this particular weak link indicates that the relationship between the listener or reader with a story text is in significant difference from other kinds of text interactions. Unlike most other engagements, a story resists text attentive motions or invitations. Further, print literacy teaching frames frequently impose a relationship with text that conflicts with a story engagement. In a general literacy teaching frame where print is print, educators are "portraying learning to read as a technical activity -- a matter of mastering a finite number of skills" (Dudley, Marling & Murphy 1997: 464). I admit this is generalized and literacy teaching approaches are not so easily characterized. For instance, the growing body of reading response approaches to literature successfully meshes and overlaps story experience with print literacy interests. But in the interest of bringing focus to a particular difference and to begin a discussion about its implications, I will proceed with a description of story communications nearly freed of print literacy interests. I want to consider the experience of engagement with a story during a story event. This reveals four aspects which encourage text-inattentiveness.
          The distinctive and complex character of that engagement suggests a concurrent learning event is in process. It has its own particular subject and ability distinguishable from print literacy interests. Another language, knowledge and facility are practiced during storybook reading aloud.
Inside the story: Imagination and experience
           I was a Rat (Pullman 2000) is the third book we're reading in our class this year. We're near the ending and, like Bob the cobbler and the Rat boy, many children haven't figured out who Roger is or where he's come from yet. They are no further than the beginning when Bob lit a candle and went through the dark cobbler's shop to unlock the front door. Standing in the moonlight was a little boy in a page's uniform. It had once been smart, but it was sorely torn and stained, and the boy's face was scratched and grubby.
"Bless my soul!" said Bob. "Who are you?"
"I was a rat," said the little boy (4).
          Children are sprawled on the floor, limp in their desks, or sitting up straight and staring through Linda, the teacher. One child is winding a string around his pencil. We're all there, at Bob's door, while we're here in the classroom. The children "lose themselves in a (told) story in the same way that fluent readers lose themselves in a book" (Greene 1996: 34). They leave one world for another. Story listeners slide into "an altered state, caught in a web..." (Barton & Booth 1990: 66). Popular descriptions call this the magic of storytelling.