The use of Story-sacks & Benefits for learning

                      A reflection of story sacks and their benefits on learning   

 

Story sacks? What are they?

If I was to explain what a story sack is, I’d define it as a large cloth drawstring bag that contains a range of items such as a children’s books and other materials to support and stimulate reading activities. This is similar to the definition defined by the National Literacy Trust campaign (2017) which explains a ‘Story sack’ as an encouraging activity that involves an easy material resource of a large cloth bag with a favourite children’s book, consisting of other supporting materials.  These items and materials within the bag may vary from small stuffed toy characters from the book, CDs and tapes of the book or music from the book as well as all kinds of other props all to help a child re-create the story within the story sack. Props to accompany the picture books in Story sacks add ‘interest and sometimes a frisson’ (Mallett, 2010).

 

So… who uses them?

Story sacks can be used by anyone as I myself have had experience with using story sacks. I experienced them within a seminar. My group had to re tell the story of "The Big Hungry Bear" as you will see at the end of my blog and even at the ages of 18 + we were all engaged, co-operated and found the activity very enjoyable. However, the main ages to use them is more children in early years (up to eight years old). Story sacks can be used in classrooms for groupwork to  encourage creativity, fun and engagement of a child. Story sacks are also used by learners with learning difficulties to of course stimulate a reading activity in a way in which they can enjoy and co-operate rather than just being forced to read from a book. Booker (2012) points out that the illustrations in picture books can often complement and enhance the story, and sometimes even tell a contradictory story to the text.

Story sacks have many benefits to all that uses them. For example, they can be made by anyone from teachers, parents, children or both from the support of each other.  Barron and Powell (2003) points out the importance of parents’ involvement where they learn themselves to construct understanding about how literacy works, so that they have a clear understanding before continuing with the activity and I couldn't agree more. A parent having a greater or similar understanding will benefit their child's learning massively because the parent has the ability to pass on their understanding to the child. Another benefit of story sacks is that their genre can easily be tailored and there’s always a story suitable for all whether they target a female, male or mixed audience. Of course any child should be free to engage in any kind of book they want to but according to Clark (2013) he finds that different genres of fiction appeal more to boys than girls; boys are more likely to read crime, war/spy stories, science fiction and sport whereas girls choose romance and animal stories so this can be used as an advantage with using story sacks to engage children with active reading as it engages their interests and imagination.  However, its important that we don't fully take Clark's (2013) findings to be completely accurate or be influenced by them when it comes to teaching as all children regardless whether they're a boy or girl should be free rather than restricted to read whatever genre of book they find interesting. Story sacks also offer the opportunity for the use of multi-sensory/model. According to Bearne and Wolstencroft (2007) ‘multimodality’ involves the complex connection of word, image, gesture and movement, sound, including speech.

Other benefits of story sacks include:

·        Early reading skills which can encourage and foster an early love for reading

·        They’re fun

·        Engaging

·        They encourage early literacy skills such as rhythm, listening skills, repetition and oral kills

·        Encourage group work

·        Stimulates the imagination

·        Encourages collaboration

·        Easy to use

To explore further into the points above, of course they encourage and help build upon reading skills but if we focus on using story sacks in group work it allows children to collaborate and take responsibility in distinguishing who will play the different roles within the story which is a great way in ensuring that children are engaged within a task as they will need to co-operate and communicate to re-create and preform the story they have chosen. This was something that we had to do when we used story sacks. This is also positive as for a child to play and understand their role in the story they must be imaginative.

Finally to finish, I feel all schools and even parents should try and enforce or at least have a day where a child experiences story sacks as they are something I wished I could have experienced during school as I was never interested in reading as a little child. I feel story sacks could have encouraged me more to enjoy reading as they get you more involved in the story than just reading it from a book.

 

References

Clark, C. (2013)  Children and Young People’s Reading in 2012.  Findings from the 2012  National  Literacy  Trust’s  annual  survey.

Bearne, E., and Wolstencroft, H. (2007) Visual Approaches to Teaching Writing Multimodal Literacy 5-11. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.

Booker, K. (2012) ‘Using Picturebooks to Empower and Inspire Readers and Writers in the Upper Primary Classroom’, Literacy Learning: the Middle Years.20 (2) pp.ixiv

I, Barron & J, Powell. (2003) Citizenship, Social and Economic Education, 5.3. Institute of Education, M20 2RR. UK

Mallett, M.  (2010) Choosing and Using Fiction and Non-fiction 3-11. Oxon: Routeledge.

https://literacytrust.org.uk/resources/how-make-and-use-story-sack/