Introduction
What No Bedtime Story Means: Narrative Skills at Home and School by Heath presents a proportional study of blueprints of language utilization linked to books in a group of literate population in the United States. The book focuses on bedtime stories and the results indicate insufficiency of rampant dichotomy amid literate and oral traditions, and of unilinear child language growth models and dichotomies amide forms of cognitive approaches (Heath, 1982). The purpose of this paper is to offer a preview of significant points highlighted in the argument. The paper serves as a short analysis of major points and an emphasis on the strongest arguments.
Bedtime stories are crucial to children given that they affect their learning and the aptitude during school life (Oakley, 2004). This is because children acquire considerable skills in reading and writing. Bedtime stories also enhance a child’s social life given that literacy is a collectively built ideology. The perspective of literacy benefits skills and knowledge of students. Bedtime stories also functions to promote children’s language acquisition as well as the role of adults in cultivating a child’s language. Literacy competence plays a leading role in a child’s school life.
With respect to the story, it is evident that culture plays a vital role in a child’s cognitive and language development (Heath, 1982). In fact, different cultures, notwithstanding the distances between them, employ different and unique ways in handling their children. The contributions of culture are crucial because they initiate the pace for a child’s life, in school and in the society. Although two communities in the book utilize bedtime stories, the competences of their children at school are different (Heath, 1982). This is an indication that apart from bedtime stories, there are other factors that influences a child competence in school.
Bedtime stories are only influential in early childhood years. This is because children put under bedtime stories perform exceptionally during their early years in school, but later in life they have trouble in learning. As a result, the aptitude to muddle through school life becomes hard as the child grows. Limited participation in book reading actions triggers the difficulties to deal with school life. The skills acquired during interactive reading remain significant in a child’s early years in life. The limitation of participation influences the skills needed to deal with the learning process and high performance.
Communities that do not engage children in bedtime stories see no point of helping children understand their surrounding. They assert that children must learn on their own. Children from such communities find it hard to muddle through school life and their performance level is low (Heath, 1982). This is because social setting which encompasses the natural environment and human beings enhances knowledge attainment and competence. Competent adult intervention enhances mastery and acquisition of knowledge in children.
Conclusion
Bedtime stories promote social interaction besides fostering learning in children. Active engagement in storytelling and book reading enhances performances of children. However, skills attained during bedtime stories differ with a child’s culture. The assistance of adults …