The art of telling stories:
Reading is not the only way to increase your child’s language and communication skills. Storytelling, singing songs, and saying rhymes can also do a better job in improving their skills.
We all grew up listening to stories narrated by our mothers or grandmothers. Storytelling is a great skill to teach your kids. It can improve their reading and language skills. It also strengthens their imagination skills along with communication skills. Here are a few ways to enhance your kids’ storytelling skills.
1. Introduce them to storytelling.
You can just take them to a nearby library where they get to choose a lot of stories according to their choice. That may include comics or short stories.
You can also find storytellers in libraries a few times of the day or week. Listening and watching storytelling will give them an idea or urge to learn storytelling.
2. Give them the choice.
Introduce them to different genre stories, short stories, or comics. Ask them to explain the story once they complete reading it. Do not force them to pick your favorite story, give them their choice and listen to their stories.
If they pick their favorite story to narrate to you, they will feel more involved in the story which is an advantage.
3. Be Expressive.
Help your kid to throw their body into storytelling. A good storyteller uses body language, expressions, voice, and many more. Varying voices based on the situation, expressing the feeling through eyes are a few storyteller’s body language.
You can ask them to look into your eyes when speaking which helps in building their confidence.
4. Fewer words, more imagination.
A blank or a white page can be boring but a picture can be more interesting. It is always said that a picture is worth 1000 words. Try buying fewer word books for your kids. The more pictures, the more their creativity increases.
Pictures will also help them to show interest in completing the book or story. Slowly this will become their primary interest for reading books or narrating stories.
5. Practice, Practice, Practice
Nothing is better than practicing. To achieve something or to excel in something the only thing that helps you is Practising.
Ask them to stand in front of a mirror when storytelling or record their story narration and show them after they complete narrating. This will help them in increasing or working on their own self next time to make it more better.
Conclusion:
Storytelling teaches a lot of things about life and the world for your kids. It gives them various opportunities to learn wonderful things that they never came across before. So, it is necessary for parents to spend adequate time with their kids for storytelling either narrating to them or listening to their narration.
It encourages and develops kids’ emotions and feelings. In this technical era, story telling is a completely new and useful skill, unlike just binge-watching or playing games on their mobile phones.
