Stories create magic and a sense of wonder at the world. Stories teach us about life, about ourselves and about others. Storytelling is a unique way for kids to develop an understanding, respect and appreciation for other cultures, and can promote a positive attitude to people from different lands and religions.

If you want your children to be smart, tell them stories. If you want them to be brilliant, tell them more stories.-

Benefits of Storytelling

When you tell your first story, there is a magical moment. The children sit enthralled, mouths open, eyes wide. If that isn’t enough reason, then consider that storytelling:

• Inspires purposeful talking, and not just about the story — there are many games you can play.
• Raises the enthusiasm for reading texts to find stories, reread them, etc.
• Initiates writing because children will quickly want to write stories and tell them.
• Enhances the community in the room.
• Improves listening skills.
• Really engages the boys who love the acting.
• Is enjoyed by children from kindergarten to the end of elementary school.
• Gives a motivating reason for English-language learners to speak and write English.

In schools where improving basic literacy levels is a priority, storytelling can be used to quickly raise standards while developing skills, knowledge and confidence in a range of other areas.

Another advantage of listening to stories is that children grow in academic learning. Story telling introduces lot of new vocabulary to children. At homes, people communicate with limited number of words. But stories will have academic level vocabulary and lot of newer words for the kid to learn. It is easy to teach the meanings of the words as kids learn faster from the context of story.

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.

You can increase the memory capacity of children by asking them to remember the stories you have already read for them or asking them to remember where you stopped the previous day. Always demand kids to share their contribution in the stories. Ask them to narrate a possible climax or encourage them to create a new story with the same characters in a story.

Differences between cultures and various lifestyles are introduced to kids through stories. All the stories are informative to children, as being new to the world; they may know very little things about the life in the world. Stories help kids to visualize the plot and characters.

Parents need to take care of certain aspects when reading out stories for children. If you want kids to listen actively and understand the story, you have to read out the stories emotionally. Change the pitch of sound according to the feelings and emotions depicted in the story. Use effective body language to convey ideas in the exact way. Perfect storytelling is acting out a story. Storytelling parents are found to have more emotional bond with the children. It teaches the children to be creative and make them dynamic thoughts and action.

SHIJINA RIJESH