Why should we teach children to be storytellers?

By Sheila of Living Books Curriculum

That question reminds me of a story:

"One night an elderly man seated before a fire somewhere in foothills of the Caucuses Mountains near the Caspian Sea turned to the boy beside him who had listened the  night through to the men tell stories, and he said “Now it is your turn to tell one.”

“I cannot,” the boy said, “I do not know how to begin...and I might not remember every word of the story right.”

“What difference does that make,” said the man, “No two people ever tell any story the same way. Why should they? A story is a letter that comes to us from yesterday. Each one who tells it adds his words to the message and sends it on to tomorrow. So begin.”

Still the boy hesitated.

“Go on,” said the man, “Or you have no right to listen any more. To listen to stories without ever telling one is harvesting grain without sowing seeds; it is picking fruit without pruning the tree.”

When the boy heard this, he knew he could hesitate no longer, and so he began, ‘Once there was and was not.”

(from the preface to  Russian Fairy Tales Pantheon Books,  1945)

By teaching your children to tell stories you are giving them far more than the enjoyment of stories. You are giving your children a foundation in orality. Just as literacy is the ability to read and write, orality is the ability to speak and listen. All four modes—reading, writing, speaking, and listening—make up human communication. Orality is the hand and literacy is the glove. Storytelling is the highest form of orality. Being a storyteller means you have a rich store of language and images to draw from in writing, reading,  and  speaking.

Five tips for teaching children to tell stories:

1. Tell a story of when you were little. Then, ask your child to tell one to you.

2. Read a story from a folktale collection and ask your child to retell (narrate) the story. Rule of thumb: The younger the child, the simpler the story. Best-Loved Folktales is one of the finest collections I know.

3. Listen to a storytelling tape as a family and have a "round- robin" narration to see if all listening can reconstruct the story.

4. Plan a story circle with other homeschooling families in which you have one or two children prepare a story to tell.

5. Make up a story together at the dinner table or driving in the car. The first person says, “Once there was...” and the next adds their bit and the next and so on.

http://www.storynet.org

http://www.storytellingcenter.com