Teach Your Child to Tell Tall Tales
Children who are able to tell tales and verbally share stories with others are doing more than practicing their speaking skills. Storytelling is an intricate combination of vocabulary, inflection, emotions, concepts of time, and social awareness. In yesterday’s post I described the value and importance of storytelling when it comes to adults sharing tales with children. Encouraging children to tell their own stories and retell familiar ones help build important academic and social skills that will benefit them in numerous ways.
What Can Storytelling Do For Your Kids?
There are several benefits for kids who learn how to tell their own stories and retell ones which they have already heard. The more obvious ones are the practice it gives them speaking to others and the opportunity to further develop their language skills. Storytelling can do more, however, than reiterate these academic skills.
When children tell stories they learn how to recognize sequences. Transition words such as first, then, next, and finally become a part of their vocabularies and help them to keep the details straight. Kids have to put events in order in their thoughts before they share them in stories, reinforcing the need for organization of details.
One of the biggest benefits of encouraging your child to tell stories is that you can get a true sense of their emotional intelligence and help them develop it to a deeper level. When a child tells an exciting, dangerous, or scary story it allows him to use language and voice inflection that reflects real emotions. This is a safe way for children to live vicariously through characters in a story and still relate to the emotions involved. Children also learn to be attuned to the needs and reactions of their audiences when storytelling, developing a low level of empathy.
The processing of having children retell stories depends upon the age of the child, but the benefits are similar. When kids retell a tale they have already heard, whether it is a classic fairy tale or something you made up while driving with them, they learn to pay attention to details. These details can include the big ones such as the conflict or central theme, but also the sequence of events, defining characteristics of characters, and moral dilemmas and resolutions. Go ask your child to tell you a story! Then, ask yourself some of these questions to further understand the academic and emotional intelligence levels of your child.
- When your child retells a story, is it evident that he had the same interpretation that others did?
- Was his perspective unique? Why or why not?
- What can you learn about your child from the details he remembers (or forgets) in a story?
- Are there issues with assembling details in sequential order?
How to Help Kids Tell Stories
Storytelling does not seem to be a natural inclination for some kids. This could be because of confidence levels, lack of opportunities, or because they are more inclined to be visual learners. However, there are some easy ways to help kids come out of their shells and share a tale or two.
- Use props for visual learners. If the story is about a magic shoe, make sure they can have a shoe to use in their tale.
- Try puppets to take the focus off of your child’s face if he is insecure about storytelling. The puppet can give him things to do with his nervous hands and eye contact from listeners will often be directed to the actions of the puppet. Puppets can just be decorate brown paper bags, socks, or paper dolls glued onto wooden sticks.
- Encourage her to retell a story she loves. When the topic is familar and favorite kids are more inclined to be enthusiastic about the activity.
- Record your child’s voice as she does storytelling. Kids often find it funny to hear themselves and might be more inclined to tell stories if they get to be their own audience of one.
- Don’t interrupt your child’s storytelling and suggest different ideas. Let them finish their thoughts and then you can ask them questions at the end of the story.
Storytelling can be the opening into our childrens’ hearts and minds. Give them plenty of opportunities to tell tales and encourage them to retell stories. Take the time to listen to their words and you might be surprised at how much you can learn about their souls.
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