In a recent lecture at the Library of Congress, psychologist Robert Ornstein, a pioneer in studying the brain’s two hemispheres said that researchers have found that reading “teaching stories” activates the right side of the brain much more than does reading informational text.  Ornstein, considered on of the world’s foremost experts on the brain says, “The right side of the brain provides ‘context,’ the essential function of putting together the different components of experience.  The left side provides the ‘text,’ or the pieces themselves.  Familiarity with these stories can expand context: enabling us to understand more about our world and our place in it.”

Infants: Very young children love the sound of their parent’s voices.  It gives them the security that there is someone there that cares for them.  It almost doesn’t matter what you say as long as it is in a soothing tone.  I know of a father who was taking care of his young daughter and use to sing to her the stock quotes he was reading from the Wall Street Journal to the tune of “Rock-A-Bye-Baby.”

Toddlers:  The nursery rhymes are all “teaching stories” with morals in them.  In the appendix of my book Teaching with Heart there are the adult histories of the rhymes to help parents understand why they were written.  It is important for parents to not only read the nursery rhymes so that young children understand and value language, but that they talk about what the stories are also trying to teach.

Preschoolers:  I talk about the moral values of nursery rhymes in my book Teaching with Heart and what each story is trying to teach.  In the rhyme “The Queen of Hearts”

I say that we all have choices to make in life.  Some are easy, some are hard, some are good and some are not so good (like taking the tarts from the queen).  Parents should discuss the fact that all choices come with consequences and these too can be good or not so good (like the king beating the knave).  It is helpful for developing critical thinking skills in children to ask question about what happened in the story and why it happened.  Through this process children learn to think about their own actions and the reaction of others to what they are doing.