Swapping Stories

From the time she was a baby, we created homemade books for my daughter, with simple stories about familiar objects, people, or plots. Now that she's older, we work together to create short books from her own imagination. Foam shapes, rubber stamps, stickers, or even homemade rebus pictures that can be photocopied and glued to paper are all tools in the process. She dictates a story to me, which I print clearly on large paper, and then she inserts the appropriate image in the appropriate spot. The images then serve as symbolic "placeholders" when I later ask her to read the story aloud. We post it up on the wall and return to it from time to time. She also gives her stories away as gifts and seems quite proud when the recipient settles down next to her and asks to read it together.

Since I purchased a digital recorder a few months ago, our latest experiment in narrative development is improvised storytelling. I start with a sentence or guiding question, and then she elaborates on the topic, filling in the details, characters, and descriptive elements. Though sometimes bizarre, it's interesting to watch how her story-telling ability is growing, how she is influenced by the books she is reading, and how her perception of the process of storytelling changes each time she does it.

Listen to one of our improvised stories

In the end, my perspective on the whole literacy issue is this: the formal aspects of literacy (alphabet, spelling, handwriting, etc.) will come, so long as I focus on the meaningful qualities that lie just beyond the form. Instead of pressing my daughter to memorize irrelevant associations (alligator starts with A), I try to give her a taste of what it means to be literate. I show her the beautiful tropical world of reading, and then wait for her to express an interest in mastering the formalities. And you know, it seems to work. She is determined to get this stuff down and often begs me to bring out the reading skills workbook. Is that cool or what?

How would you answer these questions?
Is literacy a prominent feature of your household? In what ways do you subtly encourage (or discourage) literacy at home?

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