Once upon a time..." Just the sound of these words is enough for children and adults to get a special twinkle in their eyes. Suddenly we are heading into a fantasy world where anything can happen. The children’s' eyes are shining and their mouths are wide open. The magic has occurred. You are together in an entirely different world where time and place does not exist. You can let your mind wander and let your imagination run riot. Science shows that stories have a big influence on children's views on gender and cultural roles. The adventure and characters that children experience through stories are almost certain to have lifelong impact. Stories will convey values, beliefs, attitudes and social norms. It will affect children's perception of reality. Children will relate to the different characters, and learn how to behave, think and act, just by being inspired by the characters they meet in the stories. They learn determination and empathy from the character of the story. They dream to put themselves in that position and act as the character of the story. They have seen some character of the story struggling a lot and failing in getting succeeded many times. That scene of the story will help them to build a confidence to try and the resilience to fail and try again till they get succeeded. Children’s imagination is a combination of what they see, think, observe, understand and perceive the things around their world. Children will also develop what is known as thought of mind. Essentially this is related to their ability and putting themselves in others shoes. It is essential that creativity and imagination that allows the children to thrive bring creativity choice and changeability into every story they read and as an observer the imagination of the children take in wide.
I would like to share an amazing story that my son read. He was in grade four, he suddenly got inspired by Tom Sawyer the character in Mark Twain's novel "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". He was dressing up and acting how he imagines Tom Sawyer to be and look like him from the description of him in the novel. This story tells how the story helps children develop empathy and creative thoughts. In fact his action is helping me realized the importance of providing verities of books for children. After each storytelling I ask the children to draw their favorite character from the story. That way the children will use their imagination to create the character they have been imagining during the storytelling lesson. Stories belongs to different countries, contemporary and with fairytales which will give the children an idea of different countries their culture and gender roles. It is so important to make children read and listen to global stories. So that they can expand their knowledge of different cultures and values that enhances their personalities to be a global citizen.
Children are living at home since long time due to the pandemic. They are learning from home and parents are the teachers. Taking this pandemic as an opportunity parents can teach them one of the most important life skills (Social skills) through different stories. The research of “The Moral Library” also highlights the value of both storytelling and reading outline the result of almost two dozen experiments that linked reading to better social skills. As a social being, cooperation is vital to everything in human culture. Storytelling and reading stories help them make sense of the world around them. Sharing stories is a fundamental approach to solving problems in all counseling and caring situation and is particularly important in the area of mother support. Reading stories may help them become a human, compassionate and able better to understand from the inside those seek to help, as if they are seeking things through their eyes. And that has to be good for every individual’s health. If we see the storytelling and reading from the psychological perspective, there are three principals that are emotion and empathy, character and identification, and suggestion and indirect communication.
“Fiction can be thought of as a form of consciousness of selves and others that can be passed from an author to a reader or spectator, and can be internalized to augment every day cognition.”
Stories matter for children's learning
By Psychologist Raymond Mar.
Children will learn one of the most important life skills through the characters on the bases of story they compose and perform the role play, melodrama, dialogue and present their own creative art of works. So that story teller has to be conscious while delivering the story for the children. Using literary devices are importance for the storytelling such as use of images, metaphors, similes, elaboration etc. Apart from them we can use those verbal and body languages such as make the sound soft, loud, give stress, take challenge, paraphrasing and some time tell in rhyming pattern with action that make the story more interesting and addictive. Furthermore, sometimes what we can do together being family members or possible friends to follow four reading techniques such as loud reading, share reading, pair reading and independent reading. All these are important to keep the children’s brain engaged. Stories can be one of the effective tools for generating innovative ideas and critical thinking of the children who are living at home with beloved parents that they always desire to be with. Dear Parents wish you good luck and make the home school as one of the best memory for the children.
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