Storytelling sparks imagination, builds problem-solving skills, and strengthens communication. Engage your child with rich, emotional stories and reminiscing to boost memory, language, and emotional awareness.
“Stories are memory aids, instruction manuals and moral compasses.” - Aleks Krotoski
Key Concepts:
- Storytelling plays a profound role in all cultures, connecting people and ideas. You don’t have to be literate to understand and appreciate storytelling.
- When your child listens to a story, their brain is activated in a similar way as it is when they ACTUALLY experience the event themselves.
- Research shows that storytelling helps children to gain problem solving skills and practice responses to invented circumstances AS WELL as improve language and communication skills.
- Reminiscing is incredibly important! When children engage in reminiscing with their parents, their memory can improve.
- Elaborative Reminiscing: detail rich, collaborative and emotional conversation that focuses on past events. Parents can engage in elaborate reminiscing by using details and emotions in their storytelling. This type of reminiscing is tied to many positive outcomes like improved reading comprehension, language and memory.
What to Try:
- Tell stories! About you, your culture and your family. You can tell fables or myths, stories with morals/values, too! Storytelling can happen at any point in the day - try during bedtime, bathtime or in the car.
- Use the “wh” questions - who, what, where, when and why - when you’re reading or reminiscing. For example, “What’s happening on this page?” or “What part did you like best at the park?”
- First echo, then expand. For example, if your child says “the dog is eating” you can say “yes, the dog is eating his dinner very quickly” (this is echoing) “because he hasn’t eaten since this morning” (this is expanding).
- Connect to other experiences by asking questions like “what does this remind you of? Where else did we read a story like that? When else have you felt like that?” Connecting the experiences helps to build emotional awareness and coping skills.