Inside the Storytelling Classroom

03/23/2022

Inside the Storytelling Classroom

I firmly believe reluctant readers need to be allowed to see that books can be fun and silly. Once they see books can be fun, they’ll stick around to discover all the other wonderful things books can be.
Toby Price, Former Assistant Principal

In the newest Exchange Essentials “Literacy: Storytelling, Reading and Writing,” early childhood director Kate Massey illuminates the power of storytelling in shaping identity. She writes, “Much more important than the factual story of a person’s life is the way that person frames it when he tells it to himself. The way that we make meaning from the events in our lives becomes the reality of our lives. Any given life event could be one of victimhood or one of agency.” She goes on to say, “In relationship with young children, the kind of language that we use to tell and retell classroom or individual stories becomes a model for the way that children speak to themselves. Children, like all of us, take the stories that surround them — family anecdotes, casual stories, fairy tales, and television shows — then identify with them and borrow themes and language to tell their own stories.”

Massey shares how her team uses Vivian Paley’s Story Play curriculum to support children’s meaning making and foundations for literacy. As children narrate their stories to an attentive scribe, and their stories are shared and acted out with peers:

• Children’s stories are made visible to their community of peers, giving them an audience to appreciate moments of humor, suspense, and delight.

• Children understand written language as a code that saves their words and ideas for later.

• Children develop a regular practice of constructing meaning through storytelling.
Massey concludes, “In a storytelling classroom, children learn to appreciate each other’s stories and to feel the warmth of being appreciated.”

Massey’s article and nine more in the newest collection of Exchange Essentials are designed to help teachers reflect on and build a strong foundation for supporting literacy development with young children.

For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.