Everyone knows the importance of reading with their children, however for some children, especially those with learning difficulties, the use of books may not be the best or most enjoyable route to start them off with reading.
Storytelling is described as the interactive art of using words and actions to reveal the elements and images of a story while encouraging the listener’s imagination (http://www.storytelling.org/resources/whatisstorytelling) It should be noted that storytelling is totally different from picture-book reading since storytelling is performed without the use of any printed materials, usually with frequent eye contact between the performer and the listener.
Allowing the child to use their imaginations and to fall in love with the stories before they are introduced to pictures and words can be a much more positive and engaging style of storytelling.
Storytelling can happen at any time or place, it is not reserved for bedtime. You can be retelling the three billy goats gruff at the play area, or acting out goldilocks and the three bears over dinner, and the preference and engagement levels may differ child by child or even day by day.
The start of Tales With Ted
I have 2 boys who are 2 years apart and they are so different you wouldn’t have thought they were from the same family. We raised them in the same styles, they were exposed to very similar situations and yet they both enjoy completely different things. My first born “T” is, what I would call, and academic child. He reached those milestones quickly, loved sitting with a book or a puzzle, and throughout his toddler life, we got the “He’s really clever” or “your child is so forward” compliments. The part I loved most though, was how much he loved books. As a first time mom, I thought I had cracked it. Very Naively, I thought his love of books was very much down to me choosing the right books, reading to him all the time, and how I was raising him. If I even looked at the book shelf T got very excited and would pick his spot in the lounge, grab a teddy and blanket and snuggle himself in for the time of his life.
Then came our second child…..
From day 1 B was a mover. Even before he was born, he couldn’t sit still, those legs were always moving and that hasn’t ever changed. Even in his sleep he wriggles and moves. He is also what I would describe as my creative child. T was more interested in trying to eat crayons than drawing however B would happily paint the whole house a beautiful rainbow colour. I exposed B to just as many, if not more books, sat with him and read the same as I did with T, but he would be interested in it for about 30 seconds, then it was off to climb over the furniture or crawl into the washing basket. He just couldn’t sit still long enough to get into a story. For a while I battled with my own mom guilt that it was somehow my fault. That I wasn’t building that love of books that my first had, and meticulously scrutinised how my parenting had changed between the two boys. That was until I started looking less into what he didn’t like and more into what he did like. His play style naturally told stories all the time. The way he explored the house, sometimes a little more riskily than I would have liked, and the way he played with his older brother, he was making up his own stories and adventures.
B’s first Christmas, the boys had a Montessori style climbing frame with a bridge set up. B was nearly 11 months old at this point so was already a pretty confident climber. I sat back and watched the boys climbing all over it on a rainy day, and T started whispering “trip trap” as he crossed the bridge. I pounced on this and said “who’s that trip trapping across my bridge” T’s face exploded into the biggest smile and we reenacted one of his favourite stories with T playing each of the goats. We must have played this 4 or 5 times swapping who was the goats and who was the troll, making the splashes into the water more dramatic each time. After the first couple of times, I noticed B getting involved, I am not sure how much of the actual story he understood, but he was reacting to the right bits, feeling the suspense and bouncing off the emotions me and T were showing. He was joining in with stomping on the bridge, and hysterically laughing when the troll would jump up. It was the most focused I had seen B and all three of us felt a real connection and there was not a single argument between B and T.
That was it. From that moment on, my main focus was researching what this old fashioned style of storytelling did to our children’s development and if there was maybe an over stimulation with books.
Here are some quotes I found from my research into stories for preschool children:
"Reading stories to children is incredibly important for their social, personal and academic development. Stories can transport them to new worlds, help them understand difficult topics and build on their imagination."
"Researchers have found that the brain activity that occurs when we read fiction is very similar to experiencing that situation in real life, so reading about a situation helps children work out how to solve it in reality.
Scientists have found that children who have fiction read to them regularly find it easier to understand other people – they show more empathy and have better developed theory of mind (the ability to understand that other people have different thoughts and feelings to us, which is essential for understanding and predicting other people’s thoughts and behaviour)."
I decided that with B I would put the books away, and our usual reading time turned into story time. I would love to sit here and write that it was an overnight fix to all our problems, but that was not the case. It took me time to 1 – gain the confidence to be big and loud and expressive when telling stories, 2 – choose the right storytelling method for us and 3 – for us to get into a good routine with each other. All in all I just need to RELAX.
I started with a lot of “erms…” pauses, getting deflated when he was walking away. I felt like my little lightbulb moment was actually just a fluke. I now realise it was just the start of my montage. B showed he had his favourite stories, and loves making fun sounds and playing with props. One word, BUBBLES. After a while I began changing stories to include opportunities to use more props, lots of “wind and rain” suddenly entered our stories and it almost seemed like B understood what prop would be used for the different elements. Storytime started to become a favourite and as he got older, and his communication and understanding grew better, he became more interested and focused on the stories. He began pulling the books off Ts bookshelf and looking through the pictures himself. He would make the noises of the animals in the books and doing similar actions. So I bought back down the books appropriate for his age and having the pages up while telling the stories as I had been doing, and he was watching the books more and more. He even started to sit with his dad and brother for an actual Storytime. I felt like we had turned a real corner, and it was fun for me as it was for B. I was sitting up changing stories and looking back over my own childhood memories for the stories I loved and how I could make them fun for Barney. T’s storytelling skills were massively improving too. His imaginative play grew and grew to the point where we can build a story together by me asking prompting questions and T improvising answers.
My inner dyslexic child was thrilled that reading and stories had become an enjoyable experience after years of me struggling with books and reading throughout my education.
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