Celebrating Storytelling

Learning to read is hard, this we know. It’s complicated, technical and highly specific. Despite best efforts, it’s not – in the first year or two – so much about relishing and loving fantastic children’s literature as drilling in the mechanics.

The joy (hopefully) comes once the skills are mastered and the incredible world of words is unlocked. But there is another way to introduce children to the world of words, not instead of them learning to read, but as well as, and that’s oral storytelling or reading aloud.

Of course, we all want our children to ultimately be able to read independently – that’s the goal, but it’s a process, and it’s really interesting to consider storytelling as a key, fundamental part of that process. Unlike reading, oral language is natural and instinctive, it does not require explicit instruction, but develops intuitively in a way that is very different to learning to read.

The cognitive load of learning to read is such that there’s little capacity for anything else, whether that be comprehension, prosody, vocabulary consciousness or pleasure. The paradox is that without the pleasure component, there’s little motivation to read or develop the skills required…

Children need early, frequent and continuous positive experiences of books, literature and stories to buy into the process. In reading aloud to children, the focus can be on meaning making and enjoyment, due to listening comprehension exceeding the ability to decode.

The benefit of this, apart from creating an enjoyable experience (which incidentally applies equally to the reader as the listener in terms of mood, heart-rate and connection), is the impact on vocabulary, background knowledge, social-emotional skills and fluency, in addition to comprehension.

Because of the advancement of listening comprehension, being read aloud to enables exposure to more challenging language than would be accessible in an independent reading context, or most other contexts for that matter.

If we’re to believe the estimation that children need to have a vocabulary of approximately 50,000 words to thrive at school, any tools to support that feel pretty pertinent. Particularly, when you consider that children who are read aloud to daily hear 1,483,300 words, compared with the 4,662 words that children hear, who are never read aloud to. It’s a compelling argument.

But oral storytelling provides so much more than just vocabulary knowledge, it also models fluency, prosody, reading with expression and tone – all critical for comprehension. Hearing words and learning what they mean is really valuable, but hearing them in context, with the appropriate tone and stress, and pronounced correctly will help children develop into confident, fluent readers themselves.

However, perhaps the most valuable aspect of reading aloud, is the discussion around the text that it facilitates. The space to ask questions, to wonder, consider, debate, disagree – to unravel and decipher plot and character, intention and consequence together. Rich text-talk is the most effective way to develop higher-order thinking skills, skills which need developing discreetly all the way up to GCSE. So while it can – and ideally should – start with the Early Years, it doesn’t have to stop there.

There are an abundance of wonderful books – from stunning picture books to provocative teen literature, offering a varied and diverse body of material. So, as we explore this content with our children, let’s make sure we’re asking the questions…What do you think will happen next? Why did she react like that? How do you think he’s feeling? Can you imagine what that feels like? What must be going through her head? Have you ever felt like that?

Ultimately, we want our children to grow into curious, kind, empathetic people, what better place to start understanding others – and ourselves – than in the pages of a book?

With that in mind, it’s interesting to consider why we stop reading to children when we deem their independent reading sufficient enough for them to read to themselves. What a missed opportunity. Particularly if we consider the possible reduction in conversations, commonality and connection that so many parents feel as their children drift into adolescence.

Reading aloud together still offers exposure to more complex vocabulary, grammatical and sentence structures, but more importantly, it provides a great, safe space to talk about what we’re reading, and to perhaps broach tricky topics that might feel impenetrable in any other context. It’s a space to share and explore together, to feel comfort and connection, surely that’s something we all need, long after we leave the early years?