There is tons of literature in the field of education that discusses the way narrative story structure is embedded in human interaction. There’s a beginning, middle and end to everything with drama in between.
Non-fiction structure is not universal and for some that explains the added difficulty kids have in making sense of it.
Being in schools and seeing loads of kids K-12, I’ve seen the way story structure plays out in their lives, the ways they manipulate it in their writing and understand it in their reading.
But yesterday was the first time I saw it explicitly in my own kids. On the way to get our Christmas pictures, I had a story playing in the car. An unfamilar tale. And yet, when the narrative was winding down, almost four year old Beth said, “This is almost over.” Jake who just recently turned five replied “Yes, Bethy, they’re wrapping things up.”
I love that stuff. Hopefully it leads to actual literacy competence. If not, they’ll know a good story when they hear one.
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I just read an article about literacy levels now, and projected literacy levels in twenty-five years. Since I hope to earn my living writing, I found that article scary indeed. So anything we can do to increase literacy competence is fantastic! 🙂