Stories are magical. Most people have a special memory connected to a special story. Some of us have a special story that connects us to our past and even supports our identity. For many reasons, stories have existed for millennia, and are integral in social societies.

        Stories and storytelling provide children with ways of learning and growing in many important and basic developmental areas: cognitive, social, emotional, and self-identity. Story telling enriches and expands the pupils ‘experience.  It introduces them to stories that have true to life worth.  It arouses in them the desire to read stories as interesting as the ones they heard.  It sets for them, a pattern for effective story telling.   It makes them appreciate the value of well chosen words, good pronunciation, and proper expression in storytelling.  It also makes the pupils feel that the teacher is a close friend, just like a mother and elder sister.

    

Why is it important to have storytelling in school?

 

Children today are losing the ability to imagine, to create their own images. Television and picture books give them someone else’s images and tell them precisely what those images are doing. A storyteller speaks simply, though often stretching the children’s vocabulary through poetic use of language and through use of foreign and archaic words. The child has to elaborate and embroider the simple terms used in the stories — to truly see in the mind’s eye a princess “as tall and slender as the reeds the grow by Loch Erne” or a bed “as soft and white as the heart’s desire.”

If children hear exciting stories from books beyond their reading level, they will want to learn to read better so that they can read such fascinating volumes. Storytellers as purveyors of literature are role models of readers.

When I enter gifted classrooms, I often see posters that admonish children to be polite, kind, or generous. As any preacher or rabbi can tell you, moral messages are better conveyed by subtle stories than by strict lectures. Evil, rude, greedy characters often have their way early in a folk or fairy tale — as in life — but goodness always wins in the end. Storytelling also encourages better relations between children of different cultures by showing through stories from all over the world that all peoples laugh and love and grieve and desire in much the same way.

If you wish to more fully comprehend the emotional and psychological value of storytelling for children, I suggest that you read The Uses of Enchantment; The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim, a child psychologist. He writes that “without fantasy to give us hope, we cannot meet the adversities of life.” A storyteller once said that “Oral storytelling is the activity in which the child listening is most certain of the speaker’s total gift of attention to him/her, and it therefore has a healing power in an unloving world.” I have found in my own experience that stories create trust and love within myself and the listeners. This could be used effectively in schools. For example, if a third grade teacher would tell stories in the spring to the second grade students, they wouldn’t be as worried about starting her/his class in the fall.

A well-trained storyteller always uses good breath control, careful enunciation, appropriate gestures, effective pauses, and other speech techniques that mark a perfect speaker. Any child or teacher can learn from the teller’s example In fact, storytelling is used in the high school speech contests that I have judged.

There are many other educational purposes for using storytelling which can be found in books and articles about storytelling at your local library. None of them obscure the fact that storytelling is just plain fun!

Tips in Selecting a Story to retell.

 

1.Choose the story that is really good both in plot and in style.  Your story often serves as an appetizer to make children hungrier for more stories, hence they would read more books.

2.Choose one that is rich in sense and impressions.  Stories that are full of actions and rich in surprises are appealing to children.

3.select stories that are personal and true to life and related to school room activities.

4.Select a story that is suited to the interest to the class you are teaching.

5.Select a story that is simple in structure.  Children get mixed up and confused listening to stories with complicated plots.

6.Select a story that has fascination of newness.  Never attempt to retell a story that had been read by many of the pupils.

 

       One of the roles of stories is to allow us to understand and “try on” different roles. As we listen of characters that run the gamut of descriptors, we travel from the “evil villain” end of the spectrum to the “delightful princes” or “brave and strong hero”, and back again. Though these can be cause for stereotypes, I believe it allows children to “try on” different roles while listening, but even more so when enacting stories themselves. This sets up children to make decisions about who they will become in the future, and how and why.

      Story time should not be overlooked, dismissed, or glossed over. It is a very important part of childhood development. Learning so much during what appears to be a simple activity is what childhood is really all about. So, be it The Paper bag Princess, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, or Bible Stories, I highly recommend reading to your children at every given opportunity, and to play out these games with them after reading. Make it a special time involving simple, repeated rituals that enhance the experience.

 

By: Elvie R.Mendoza | Teacher III | Saysain Elementary School | Bagac, Bataan