Storytelling is a pre-literacy activity
Date :
Monday, June 21 2010
Source:
Autourina Mains
When my children were little, I had very little money to spend on books because I was a single mom raising three kids on very limited budget. We went to garage sales to buy books and we visited the library quite often. However, I grew up hearing stories and folktales, so though I had little money to purchase books, I had a library of stories in my memory that I could share with my children. My parents told us stories of Assyria (an ancient Biblical civilization) and ancient Persian stories as well as Biblical stories about Abraham, Jacob and Esau. Often times when we went on family trips, my sister and I entertained the children (her three and my three) with stories. They each had their favorite story. They never seem to tire of hearing the same stories and asked for them over and over again. They especially loved to hear stories about their infancy and toddler years.
Though I loved to tell stories to my children, little did I know of all the benefits of storytelling. As I earned my degrees in early childhood I began to learn about the many benefits of storytelling. Research has shown that storytelling has the following impact on preschoolers’ growth and development:
- Improves cognitive processes, short-term and long-term narrative recall
- Develops critical and active listening skills
- Oral language development
- Increases and enhances comprehension
- Improves fundamental understanding of the story
- Stimulates imagination
- Assists metaphoric fluency and articulation
- They become more familiar with narrative pattern, speech pattern and flow of language
By telling stories that were handed down to me, not only was I sharing my heritage and culture with my children but they were actually gaining important skills. To this day all three of my children have very strong language skills (oral, reading and writing). One of them is multilingual like I am and he has the ability to pick up languages quite easily.
I have brought my storytelling in to my preschool classroom as well and the children absolutely love it. They prefer me telling them a story to reading a book. When I tell them a story, they become active participants rather than quite recipients. For instance when I tell the story of Goldie Locks, the children listen to my cues and participate at punch lines. We work together and collaborate to tell the story. In order to capture their attention I have to change my voice and pitch and I have to be more demonstrative. They watch my face and hands and body gestures. They are learning that communication involves the whole body (body language). Perhaps the most beautiful part is that I can tell a story where ever we are….the park, the classroom, playground, nap time, quiet time or during meals.
There are wonderful fables, folktales, and fairytales you can share with your preschoolers. It can teach them about different cultures and traditions. Storytelling is a wonderful way to teach morals and values about friendship and help preschoolers build character. So start telling stories and you’ll see the strong bond you will build with your little ones as you help them build important language and early literacy skills.