Telling Tales; The Benefits of Oral Storytelling for Children
There is an old Scottish saying, ‘A story should be told, eye to eye, mind to mind and heart to heart’ and that’s just the way Ulf & I love to tell our tales to children; No books, just the children, a story and us. And we have discovered that in this intimate space, magic happens…
Experts in the field of education & child development, while they may not believe in magic, they are now extolling the virtues of the ancient art of oral storytelling. Of course, story reading has long been recognised as a wonderful educational tool, however oral storytelling is now proven to have many extra benefits.
The oral storyteller focuses his or her attention on the listeners, ‘connecting eye to eye, mind to mind and heart to heart’, while the story reader must focus their attention on the text, occasionally looking at the listeners. The story reader is bound by the book and the text, while the storyteller is free to respond to the listeners’ reactions. The storyteller may even change the story, expanding sections when the interest is great, including contributions from the listeners or altering the story to fit the needs of the listeners. The storyteller also brings their own unique personality to the story telling, giving the storytelling its sense of intimacy which is especially important to younger children.
Oral storytelling is a shared experience in which the child becomes an active participant in the creation of the story, while children who are shown illustrations and read to, are passive consumers. Oral storytelling encourages children to exercise their imaginations, to create the pictures in their minds, that the storyteller forms with words, facial expressions, tone and gesture. There are many benefits to this exercising of the imagination such as, the development of empathy by the ability to place one’s self in another shoes and greater problem solving skills.
Recent research shows, storytelling enhances listening and concentration skills in children, with storytelling listeners retaining more information and demonstrating better comprehension skills than children who were only read to. This supports the ‘active’ nature of listening to storytelling, where the children are working their imaginations, over the ‘passive’ nature of the read and show method.
Storytelling is also of huge benefit to children who are not ready to read or are having reading difficulties, as it is an enjoyable, non-threatening activity which increases their vocabulary and teaches them the sound and form of narratives. (We’ve had very young children tell our stories almost word for word after hearing them only once)
Storytelling also enhances emotional intelligence. The reactions of the storyteller to the story, the teller’s tone of voice and facial expressions, model emotions and the appropriate responses to emotions. Learning how to recognise emotions and how to express them is a vital step in child development. Listening to oral stories, also gives control to the child over the level of fear they experience, as they create the images in their minds that they are comfortable with.
Now that you know just some of the benefits of oral storytelling, we hope you feel inspired to put the book aside and try telling a story eye to eye, mind to mind and heart to heart…it’s magic.
*Links to Academic Articles on our website.
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Some of our Early Childhood Shows
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