ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the ways of taking from printed stories families teach their preschoolers in a cluster of mainstream school-oriented neighborhoods of a city in the Southeastern region of the United States. It describes two quite different ways of taking used in the homes of two English-speaking communities in the same region that do not follow the school-expected patterns of book reading and reinforcement of these patterns in oral storytelling. The chapter underlies the two assumptions that are treated in detail in the ethnography of these communities: first, each community's ways of taking from the printed word and using this knowledge are interdependent with the ways children learn to talk in their social interactions with caregivers. Second, there is little or no validity to the time-honored dichotomy of "the literate tradition" and "the oral tradition." The chapter suggests a frame of reference for both the community patterns and the paths of development children in different communities follow in literacy orientations.
