Children's intellect shaped by tales

By Soekanto S.A.

BOGOR, West Java (JP): Parents should set aside time for their children to snuggle up and listen to good stories.

That was the prevailing message of experts and educators during last week's National Storytelling Week.

As life becomes increasingly hectic and fast-paced, storytelling provides one of the best ways to give the quality time all children need and deserve.

Through spending time with their children in telling stories, parents tell them they are loved and cared for.

Almost anything goes, from fairy tales, wayang puppet shadow stories, to whimsical yarns parents can make up as they go along.

What if parents have a limited inventory of stories to tell? This is where a "cousin" of storytelling -- reading aloud -- comes in.

What is so special about finding a comfortable spot to sit together, picking up a book and reading it aloud to young listeners?

Everything.

Reading aloud gives all the benefits that storytelling does, with the plus of motivating children to learn to read for themselves.

It is also a means of developing a child's potential, serves an educational purpose, is a source of information for the development of the child's interests, helps the child channel emotional energy and can be part of recreation.

Jim Trelease says in his book The New Read-aloud Handbook (Penguin Books, 1989) that much of the educational research and practice of the past two decades confirms conclusively that the best way to raise a reader is to read to that child, at home and in the classroom.

"This simple, uncomplicated 15-minute-a-day exercise is not only one of the greatest intellectual (and emotional) gifts you can give a child, it is also the cheapest way to ensure the longevity of a culture," Trelease says.

And "the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children...it is a practice that should continue throughout the grades."

The materials are everywhere at your disposal -- your own library at home, public libraries, book shops, even road signs.

What if the child is addicted to television?

Trelease wrote: "If a plastic box (TV set) in your living room can turn on your children to chocolate breakfast cereal or talking teddy bears, then you should be able to do ten times as much -- because you are a sensitive, intelligent, and loving human being (They have yet to invent the television or VCR that can hug a child)."

When?

A young father once stared in bewilderment when told he should read aloud to his sons. "But they are only four and five years old," he answered. "They wouldn't understand whatever is read to them."

Many experts would now argue the father was four and five years late in introducing the joy of reading to his children. After all, we do not wait until children are five years old before we start talking to them. Remember that as soon as the nurse, doctor or midwife handed you your infant, you immediately started talking to him or her.

"If a child is old enough to talk to, he is old enough to be read to," Trelease wrote. "An early start neither hurts nor wastes time...the earlier you begin, the sooner the child will come to recognize the reading voice as an unthreatening sound, one associated with warmth and attention."

Author Dorothy Butler wrote in Cushla and Her Books of how Cushla Yeoman's parents began reading aloud to her when she was four months of age. By nine months of age, the child was able to respond to the sight of particular books and convey to her parents her favorites. By age five she had taught herself to read.

What makes Cushla's story so dramatic is the fact that she was born with chromosome damage which caused deformities of the spleen, kidney and mouth cavity. It also produced hazy vision beyond her fingertips, and a muscle spasm which prevented her from sleeping for more than two hours a night or holding anything in her hand until she was three years old.

Until she was three, the doctors diagnosed Cushla as "mentally and physically retarded" and recommended that she be institutionalized. Her parents, after seeing her early responses to books, refused. Instead, they put her on a dose of 14 read- aloud books a day.

By age five, Cushla was found by a psychologist to be well above average in intelligence and a socially well-adjusted child.

If such attention and reading aloud could accomplish so much with Cushla, think how much can be achieved with children who have none or few of Cushla's handicaps.

How to begin?

It does not take much to begin reading aloud to children and start them on a lifelong love affair with books. All you need is a little time and the "reading kit" which Trelease calls the Three Bs: Books, Bookrack, and Bed Lamp for when the child wishes to look at the book all by himself at night.

What else?

Studies on "early readers" and "fast learners" in the U.S. show that there are four distinct aspects consistently present in those children's home environment.

1. The child is read to on a regular basis.

This is the factor most often cited among early readers. Additionally, the parents were avid readers and led by example. The reading aloud included not only books but package labels, street and truck signs, even billboards.

2. A wide variety of printed materials -- books, magazines, newspapers, comics -- is available in the home.

3. Paper and pencil are readily available for the child. Almost without exception, an expert says, the starting point of curiosity about written language was an interest in scribbling and drawing. From this developed an interest in copying objects and letters of the alphabet.

4. The people in the child's home stimulated the child's interest in reading and writing by answering endless questions, praising the child's efforts at reading and writing, taking him to the library frequently, buying books, writing stories that the child dictates, and displaying his paperwork in a prominent place in the home.

Providing such a home environment takes some work to accomplish. Given the long-term payoff in the child's development, however, most parents would gladly strive to achieve it.