How to engage your child in playful Storytelling

Importance of storytelling to young children¹

Telling stories or reading books to young children is strongly associated with how well they read and how much they enjoy reading later on.

Storytelling is associated with multiple benefits as follows¹:

• It improves listening skills and increases attention span.
• It improves the use of oral language and subsequently written language.
• It helps develop visualisation and creativity.
• It establishes a special bond between you and your child.
• It strengthens comprehension.
• It helps in improving vocabulary, imagination and logical thinking.
• It improves empathy towards others and others’ cultures that helps children to resist peer pressure and make independent decisions.

How to engage children in playful storytelling²

• Children love listening to stories, whether it’s a reading from a book, an oral re-telling or listening to a real incidence in a story form.
• You can tell children humour stories as they love it but they also love scary stories.
• Use your judgement to select a story.
• Read and tell stories to children regularly.
• Make use of props such as puppets while storytelling.
• Use a story with a simple narrative structure in the beginning.