Language and Literacy - Building Narrative Skills

Introduction and Importance

Early language and literacy development rely heavily on storytelling. Being engaged into the creative process, it encourages child to create and share his or her concept while helping preserving imagination and pare coming up with solutions. It also increases children's language acquisition, by explaining new vocabulary, sentence structures, and narrative techniques. For example, sensory storytelling with books that include the sound and touch help toddlers to relate the words with sensory experience. In however, if activities do not align with the developmental stages of the children, or do not get children engaged, the impact of storytelling may be dampened (Maureen et al., 2018).

Theories and Perspectives

In Bruner’s narrative theory, he imagines storytelling as a key learning tool by which children arrange their experiences in sequence to make sense of the world around them. A simple story about sharing toys, for example, can help a child learn to share, or learn logical reasoning. Vygotsky emphasizes how dialogue plays into storytelling emphasizing the part of the social part of storytelling where children talk to the educator who develops children’s language. Open questions like those asked by a teacher help children to develop their vocabulary and find words from a 'vocabulary stock' they hear others use (Isbell & Akiko-Yoshizawa, 2020). However, storytelling activities need to be facilitated carefully so that each child actually participates.

Resources and Materials

Tactile and visual stimuli that will engage children are traditionally provided through the use of picture books, story cubes and puppets. They encourage children to sequence events, to be duplicitous (to sequence in their head the events and settings), to develop characters, and so on. Digital resources in the form of interactive eBooks and apps such as Toontastic give a dynamic dimension to stories; allowing children to animate their stories and improve their digital literacy (Behnamnia et al., 2020). Toontastic allows children to make short animated stories: visual, auditory, and narrative elements in one. Nevertheless, I would be equipping with a well-balanced use of both the traditional and the digital tools so as to be able to support both the imaginative play and the technological fluency.

By Age Group - Learning Experiences

0–2 Years

• Sensory Storytelling: Use textured books to provide multi-sensory engagement, helping children explore words and their own versions of narratives.

• Interactive Reading: Read aloud using finger puppets to bring stories to life, promoting language awareness and engagement.

2–3 Years

• Picture Card Stories: Encourage children to create stories using picture cards, teaching event sequencing, and expanding vocabulary.

• Repetitive Story Rhymes: Engage children with rhyming stories that reinforce language patterns and memory skills.

3–5 Years

• Writing and Illustrating Stories: Collaborate with children to write and illustrate simple stories, fostering early literacy and creative expression.

• Story Mapping: Use visual maps to help children organize and retell stories, enhancing comprehension and narrative skills.

6–8 Years

• Collaborative Story Creation: Utilize apps for children to collaboratively develop plots and characters, building teamwork and advanced narrative skills.

• Digital Storytelling: Guide children in creating digital storybooks using text and visuals, integrating technology with literacy development.

Original Learning Opportunities with Evidence

Language and Literacy (0-2)

Language and literacy (2-3)

Language and literacy (3-5)

Critical Reflection

A future educator, I am mindful of the way that storytelling could help children imagine and learn to tell stories. In addition to helping children structure their thoughts, storytelling helps the children explore complex emotions and scenarios. For example, writing about experiences that created resilience and problem solving can inspire resilience and problem solving. I want to be able to provide a variety of storytelling experiences, using both traditional tools like picture books and digital platforms like Toontastic.

Developing collaboration and communication skills is also primarily through storytelling. Collaborative writing of a story is a useful group activity for teaching children to share their ideas while listening to others. However, I will be aware that people do not necessarily participate in the same way at equally, some children may for example be less actively encouraged to join in. This made me ponder and create an inclusive classroom environment where every child is encouraged to story what they felt like.

I aspire to create spaces for young learners to grow creativity, language skills, emotional intelligence by integrating storytelling into my teaching practices. Having these skills is crucial to academic success and for encouraging lifelong learning and curiosity.