The "untaught" story

I can easily imagine the "untaught" story interpreted to mean the subtext or information conveyed in a book that is not the story's narrative. While that is something to keep in mind, it is not what Patricia Cooper is referring to in her article "Children's Literature for Reading Strategy Instruction: Innovation or Inference." Here, Cooper is concerned about using stories for the teaching of reading comprehension strategies to pre-k, kindergarten, and first grade students, which is currently a common practice in education.

It is quite common for teachers to use real children's books to highlight strategies for comprehension via lessons and mini-lessons, rather than just basal readers or text created for the purpose of language arts instruction. Cooper is concerned that this focus on treating children's literature as something to dissect, analyze, work strategies upon, takes away from its enjoyment for its own sake. Consequently, the "untaught" story is the story that is used just for aesthetic purposes, not efferent ones.

Cooper feels that, particularly at young ages, children should be engaged in stories to foster and satisfy children's imagination - not their comprehension. It is this imagination that will allow students to go beyond the text, rather than simply their comprehension. Another of her concerns seems to be the teaching of strategies that proficient readers do. It seems that she's concerned that students at these ages will indiscriminately use these strategies, unlike proficient readers, and it will cause them to get bogged down rather than be aided in comprehension, much less enjoyment.

In my own teacher training program, the use of these strategies was discussed most often in regard to higher elementary (or intermediate) classrooms. I can't say that I disagree with Cooper's suggestion that much of early elementary students should be spent with stories as untaught engagements. Getting students engaged with reading, getting them to love it and read as many words as possible should be the goal. Cooper acknowledges that she is not trying to indicate that children's literature can never be used for strategy instruction, but rather should it be. She suggests using different texts for skills instruction and saving quality children's literature for story time (which should be the bulk of the day's engagement.) It is an interesting idea that goes against some of the current trends. But with the idea of keeping enjoyment and engagement at the forefront of our students' interaction with books, I can't say it's a wrong-headed idea.

Cooper, P.M. (2009.) Children's literature for reading strategy instruction: innovation or
                  inference. Language Arts. 86 (3) 178-187.