Privileged Status of Story

A recent article by the cognitive psychologist Daniel T. Willingham explores what he calls "the privileged status of story." Willingham discusses research over the last 30 years that shows that the mind treats stories differently from other types of information. Something in the format of a story makes it easier to pay attention, to understand and to remember. As all teachers and librarians know, a wiggly child who won't listen to instructions often will settle in miraculously when the teacher tells or reads a story.

Willingham looks at key reasons why stories are easier to comprehend than information presented in, say, a textbook: we know the format and we have a pretty good idea of narrative trajectory, i.e. "the four Cs": causality, conflict, complications, and character. Even very small children are superb at making predictions, inferences and asking questions, the very strategies that make good readers. Willingham cites the theory of some researchers that the brain uses the same processes in understanding actions and characters in a story that it uses in trying to understand the behaviors and intentions of people in the real world.

Paideia is a school bursting with stories. Our children listen to, write and tell stories every single day. Almost daily I hear children exclaim about a situation in a story that is very much like what happened with their own experience, in friendship or family life. Sadly, many schools curtail story hours, teacher/librarian read aloud time, and creative story writing in order to do more preparation for standardized tests. Rather than allowing a child to experience the sense of wonder, empathy and enlargement that reading a story naturally brings, many curricula in the U.S. assign reading "selections" followed by multiple choice questions: "The best title for this story..." or distorting reading choices with incentive and rewards programs. (See Alfie Kohn's "A Closer Look at Reading Incentive Programs.")

Nationwide, school libraries are being dismantled and their book budgets slashed (see the New York Times blog, Do School Libraries Need Books?). All these misguided decisions occur despite voluminous research and more research showing that a well-staffed and funded school library makes a significant difference in student performance and scores. We are fortunate that our school recognizes the library as "a third place," a place besides the classroom and the home, where students can curl up and read, sate their appetite for stories and immerse themselves in an environment that values reading.