What are the benefits
of storytelling in Primary Education?
“Why is it some children can make up stories so easily? The
answer is that they have read so much (or been read to so much) that they have
internalised the narrative patterns that they need. Avid reading builds up a narrative storehouse
of linguistic possibilities that young writers draw upon.” (Corbett, 2009 p. 1)
Storytelling is one of a teacher’s oldest techniques and has been used within a
Primary education setting for many years to both entertain and educate children
with their own imagination. There are
massive benefits of storytelling in Primary Education as it allows the use of
literacy to be used as an advantage and key skill to enhance a creative and
imaginative nature of a child within the classroom. Not only this, but
storytelling allows children to explore and analyse both fictional or
non-fictional viewpoints of different stories whether they be a traditional
fairy tales or a retelling of a real-life event. This can be supported by Claxton,
(2001) “Stories and fantasies enable children and adults alike to put
experimental flesh on the bones of their own aspirations and see and feel what
alternative future may be like.”
Beneficial effects have been documented in relation to
vocabulary acquisition, language complexity and communicative competence
(Morrow, 1985). I feel one of the greatest benefits of storytelling is allowing
a child to use their imagination and think outside the box. According to Ken
Robinson (2006), ‘We’re taught out of creativity’ so storytelling with infants
is massively important in order for them to discover their creative and
imaginative sides from all viewpoints as the older a child grows and especially
as an adult the less the imagination is used due to the development of our
cognitive processes, so storytelling is important for a child to continue to
engage creatively and build upon their own personal learning development
through imaginative learning. In a study that directly compares the effects of
story reading and storytelling, Myers, P (1990) found that the children showed
a preference for orally told stories over stories read out loud and attended
more to storytelling over story reading. I think this is because many children are already aware of lots of different fairy-tale stories like Red riding hood, the three little pigs and goldilocks for example, that when these stories are read to them just from a book they may lack enthusiasm and interest as they already know what happens in the story. However, story telling allows the teacher to use their imagination and creativity to make their up their own story in order to engage the children and get them thinking creatively and wondering what will happen next. For example, the teacher could ask the children what they think happens next, again engaging them or even ask them to come up with what they think will happen next in the story so it becomes a class collaboration with everyone engaging and co-operating creatively.
Since having digital competence introduced by Graham Donaldson
to be one of the three main core subject focusses within ‘The Donaldson report’
of ‘Successful futures’, digital learning is seen as a massive benefit of
storytelling within the classroom as it allows a child to produce and create
their own stories through the use of apps and online websites. According to
Donaldson, (2015) ‘Children and young people need to learn how to be more than
consumers of technology and to develop the knowledge and skills required to use
that technology creatively’. This can be seen from infant classes all the way
to junior classes. I also feel that another benefit of digital learning is that
it can be bought into and influence many core subjects such as Maths and
English. This allows a fun and engaging way for a child to learn as digital
learning can allow the child to edit their own stories and make them seem more
realistic through the use of effects and other aspects that may not be
available or give the same effect as just preforming the story as a small group
without the use of digital learning. This also benefits a teacher as it allows them to assess a child’s work and also keep records and use examples of children’s stories as a great example of a collaboration and individuality being used in the classroom. In particular, the effectiveness of DST (Digital Story Telling)
has been demonstrated for developing listening comprehension skills in
elementary school English as a second language learner (Tsou, Wang, &
Tzeng, 2006; Verdugo & Belmonte, 2007) which is a massive benefit for a child’s
literacy skills. A story could also be used in maths to explain a certain
question that a child must work out using the information the story has
provided. DST goes beyond the capabilities of traditional storytelling by
generating student interest, concentration, and motivation, facilitating student
collaboration and organization of ideas, helping students to comprehend complex
learning content, and presenting knowledge in an adaptive and meaningful manner
(Robin, 2005, 2008;Sadik, 2008;Van Gils, 2005)
Although storytelling has many benefits within Primary
Education there are also negatives that must be taken into account. Some
children are more imaginative than others, so of course not all children find
it easy to engage or use their imagination and also have the confidence to use
this in their creative writing. Therefore, teachers should except this and recognise that all children's imagination and the way they use or demonstrate it is different. Also, stories would need to be suitable to your
class and different levels of ability to allow children to understand and enjoy
the story so the content must be carefully considered by the teacher. For example, if I was to ask children to answer questions about the story they had read themselves or I had told them, I would tailor my questions to different levels of ability but ensure that all children would gain the same understanding. Creativity such as
storytelling doesn’t always need to be used in all subjects or everyday within the classroom
as this could cause the creative and fun element to become lost and boring to a
child so there must be some form of balance between the teacher and its
use of storytelling in a primary education environment especially through the use
of digital competence as I feel we must not forget that a story can be just as engaging
and creative with a book or a pen and paper. If that's the way a child feels comfortable and confident writing their stories than they should not be forced to use digital competence.
Although the focus of this blogs focus was about storytelling in Primary education we mustn't forget the importance and the benefits that come from a child reading or being read to at home by a parent or even a sibling. I don't think reading should be left to a schools priority, to me, it should also be a parents too. If a parent reads to their child from a young age I really do believe that it will give them a head start and be used to their advantage when they start school.
References
Claxton, G. (2001) Wise Up. Learning to live the Learning
Life. Network Educational Press Ltd.
Morrow, L. M. (1985). Retelling stories: A strategy for
improving children’s comprehension, concept of story structure and oral
language complexity. Elementary School Journal, 85, 647–661.
Myers, P. (1990). Stories from print. Language Arts, 67,
824–831.
Robin, B. R. (2005). The educational uses of digital
storytelling. Retrieved November 1, 2011, from.
http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/getting_started.html.
Robin, B. R. (2008). Digital storytelling: a powerful
technology tool for the 21st century classroom.Theory Into Practice, 47(3),
220–228.
Sadik, A. (2008). Digital storytelling: a meaningful
technology-integrated approach for engaged student learning.Educational
Technology Research and Development, 56(4),487–506.
Tsou, W., Wang, W., & Tzeng, Y. (2006). Applying a
multimedia storytelling website in foreign language learning.Computers &
Education, 47,17–28.
Verdugo, D. R., & Belmonte, I. A. (2007). Using digital
stories to improve listening comprehension with Spanish young learners of
English.Language Learning & Technology, 11(1), 87–101.
Comments
Post a Comment