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Storytelling-The Seeds of Children's Creativity

Article in Australasian Journal of Early Childhood · September 2000

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Louise Gwenneth Phillips

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Storytelling is an effective educational tool that features strongly across all cultures since
human language evolved. Today, it is rarely heard in conventional learning environments.
This paper describes an educational program based on storytelling. Research shows that
storytelling has the ability to build a greater sense of community, enhance knowledge and
memory recall, support early literacy development, and expand creative potential in young
children. This program explores storytelling's potential for this through a broad range of
extension activities. Conclusively, it is argued that storytelling has a highly effective role to
play in the education of young children.

Introduction
Young children have a natural tendency to be drawn to narrative (Cooper, Collins & Saxby, 1992, p.i). As a
storyteller I have found young children to be consistently interested and enthusiastic towards told stories. This
interest supports children in gaining and extending many skills and pieces of knowledge, especially when
stories are well told.

There is ample research that has found valuable learning potential in storytelling experiences for children.
This research demonstrates that storytelling:

• enhances children's imagination (Raines & Isbell, 1994, p.264-265);

• supports and extends children's social lives (Britsch, 1992, p.80);

• further develops their cognitive skills (such as 'deferred imitation', speculation and knowledge) (Britsch,
1992, p.23; Nicolopoulou, Scales & Weintramb, 1994, p.103; Malian, 1991, p.12);

• contributes significantly to all aspects of language development (Cooper, Collins & Saxby, 1992; Malian,
1991); and

• is an effective bridge to early literacy (Bruner, 1986; Rosen, 1988 cited by Miller & Mehler, 1994).

The program

Inspired by this research, I designed a four-week storytelling-based program for preschoolers (3-5-year-
olds) to explore the value of storytelling in early childhood education. This occurred through the sharing
of a different story each week, and exploring the story through a variety of 'extension activities'. Malian
(1991, p.12) argues that: 'In order to "process" what the story tells them, children need to be provided with
a number of different extension activities'. The 'extension activities' in this program included opportunities
for children to tell their own stories, draw stories, and act out stories, which were designed to match
different interests and styles of expression. This was an auxiliary component to the children's educational
program, as I was not the children's class teacher. My role was facilitator of the storytelling sessions
(including 'extension activity' time) that occurred for one-and-a-half hours on a weekly basis. Effectively, I
was a teacher-researcher, under the guise of visiting storyteller.

The purpose of the program was to further develop the children's listening, comprehension, and storytelling
skills, enhance their imagination, and foster a sense of community, through creative exploration of stories.

This four-week storytelling program was based on four core stories that were chosen by drawing up maps of a
number of stories I was interested in sharing with young children. Links were identified between four stories,
as similar messages, plots, themes, and/or motifs were revealed. These four stories highlighted the power of
courage and wisdom to resolve conflicts.

Each week a different story was told, there was a sharing/talking time to discuss the story, and then the
children moved onto related follow-up activities (avenues for the children to express their ideas inspired by the
story). Generally, the follow-up areas included a drawing and writing area; a block play area, a dramatic play
area, and a talking/discussion area (looking at pictures, books, props). These activity areas were chosen with
reference to Britsch's (1992) year-long study of preschoolers' exploration of story, as she provided similar areas
for children to play with story.

Each week's written program dearly outlined the story, the concepts it explored, other related stories (both told
and written), and the carefully chosen related extension activities. There were usually four or five activities that
immediately followed the story, then a list of further related activities was supplied to room teachers, to
explore as ideas and comments arose during the subsequent weeks. All the ideas were inspired by the concepts
and topics that each story explored, through a process of mapping and webbing. This framework for
developing ideas supported my belief that stories are an excellent source of worldly knowledge.

The program's intention was to provide enough scope to match each child's individual needs and interests, and
to encourage children to choose and explore according to their interests. The participating adults followed the
children's leads, offering them support to build on their knowledge and skills.

Children's responses
Storytelling is characteristically interactive: the audience interacts with the teller, the story, and one another.
Through this interaction during the storytelling program, it was clearly demonstrated that the children readily
absorbed the storylines.
The children's recall abilities were frequently displayed through discussions and their drawings. One child
drew five different scenes on five separate pages, after hearing the Chinese folktale The Grateful Snake.
This display of recall was especially exciting when it appeared across other media. After hearing the North
American folktale, The Gunny Wolf, one four­ year-old played with the story while using Lego™ to create the
scene:
This is the forest. And this is the wolf And this is
the wolf's microwave.
The 'microwave' was the child's own creative addition to the tale. Another child created two clearly
representational bluebirds in (green block) trees and one wolf, all made out of Lego™.
The storytelling sessions clearly acted as an inspiration for children's exploration of knowledge. Some concepts
about wolves that were introduced during The Gunny Wolf fascinated and intrigued many children as they
spent close to an hour exploring non-fiction books on wolves. The stories acted as a reference point for the
children to interpret what living in this world is about. Vandergrift (1980, cited in Raines & Isbell, 1994)
explained this value of story with the notion that each experience a child has with a story builds on previous
interactions and provides a structure for stories that will follow.
Another example of the children expanding their knowledge was through their exploration and creation of
possum nests after hearing Possum in My Bed! (personal story). The children created them with shredded
paper and self-chosen items from the collage trolley. One child made a nest with the collage materials, then
placed an egg carton lid on top, 'for the possum to hide when a wolf comes'. This displayed a creative
combination of two different stories (Possum in My Bed! and The Gunny Wolf).
The quintessential value of story is its far-reaching ability to open and inspire imagination.
The ability to visualise, to create images in the mind, is at the very heart of
storytelling, not just for the listener, but also for the teller.
(Cooper, Collins & Saxby, 1992, p.9)
Storytelling does not spoonfeed its audience with imagery. Instead, a sketchy outline is drawn for the audience
to give colour, texture, and shape in a way that is relevant to them, and the experience of the story then
becomes personal. One preschooler explained her experience of The Gunny Wolf:
I liked the way that.. I liked the way that you telled it with the flowers... with the
grass...
I imagined that I was in the forest.
This is certainly what I wanted to achieve: to transport the children into the story, so they can live, breathe, and
feel it.
To further inspire children's imagination it proved highly effective to ask the children what they think might
have happened next, after the end of a story. For example, in my personal story about a lost letter, I asked:
'What do you think happened to the letter?' The children readily responded with answers:
A dog might have buried it.
It might have got runned over.
Someone picked it up and put it in a letter box.
When given the opportunity, most children are very keen to tell stories, and in this incident almost every child
was bursting to share stories about letters and being lost.
After telling the story The Grateful Snake, l asked the children what they imagined the horse and the rooster
looked like. This inspired many children to share the different colours and patterns of their horse and rooster.
Later, one child drew the magic horse with each part of its body a different colour (e.g. head blue, legs red)
and it was about to step on some flowers (perhaps a reminder from the previous week's tale The Gunny
Wolf). In the background at the top of the page were 'magic mountains' because you could turn the page
upside down and they were still mountains. The child created these reversible mountains by drawing a zigzag
line across the page, with a horizontal line through the middle. It was dearly an exceptional example of creative
imagery, inspired by tales being told.
Even though this was a short-term program, inspired creativity was evident. Staff at both settings recalled a
number of anecdotes where children incorporated scenes or characters from the stories spontaneously into their
play. For example, the outdoor hobby horses were transformed into 'magic horses', as inspired by the 'magic
horse' in The Grateful Snake story. And one child made all the different-coloured flowers in The Gunny
Wolf with Duplo™, and then used their fingers to be the wolf, replaying the story some two to three weeks
after hearing me tell it. One teacher participating in the program referred to this process of sharing stories with
children as 'planting the seeds', and that it is unpredictable how the seeds will sprout. The children also created
many dearly representational artworks (see Figure 1- even the differences of the three flower props I used have
been represented). Perhaps this was a result of providing many creative activities for children to explore
features of the story. The adults who participated in the program actively encouraged discussion with their
children about their creations, thus inspiring more labelling of their work, and more attention to
representational creative expression.
 One child's spontaneous creativity was displayed when he was drawing after hearing The Grateful Snake, and
he suddenly remembered that he had some photocopied money in his bag. He then spent the activity time
diligently cutting out the money, intending to use it in our puppet show of the story. He had recalled that the
magic horse and rooster produced money. His own creative mind solved the problem of what to use for money
in our group reenactment of the tale.
Group retelling of the stories provided opportunity for everyone to be involved and share ideas. It also enabled
the story to be reinforced and a greater sense of community to be built. The group re-enactment of the story
The Grateful Snake was an effective cooperative exercise, where the children shared the space behind the
puppet screen without any struggles, and some employed leadership skills to direct performers on and off
'stage'.
Many storytelling researchers (Britsch, 1992; Malian, 1997; Dyson & Geneshi, 1994) have found that the
experience of storytelling gives the group of children a greater sense of community, both with themselves and
with participating adults. For example, Nicolopoulou et al. (1994, p.106) identified that storytelling seems to
‘generate greater cohesion and solidarity among children'.
Further benefits for young children participating in retelling a story (after listening to it) have been highlighted
by Glazer and Burke (1994, p.144).
They argue that storytelling enhances children's awareness of story structure and that they can recall and
comprehend more effectively. This in turn guides children in creating their own stories.
Storytelling provides an excellent forum for children to develop more sophisticated listening and speaking
skills. Children are exposed to the 'beauty and rhythm of language' through a wealth of literature, cultivating a
diverse understanding of story conventions, genres, plots, characters, styles and motifs (Cooper, Collins &
Saxby, 1992, pp.10-13).

Literacy link
At the drawing area the children were actively encouraged to tell 'their stories'. These were documented in
print, when the child was ready, by a scribing adult. One teacher explained the children’s enthusiasm for this
process:
All children wanted to do it because they wanted to do their story ... and they were
proud, they would show their parents their story as soon as they arrived.
By articulating the story that matched their drawing, the children were extending their verbal expression,
along with making links between written words and spoken words. Vygotsky (cited by Dyson, 1993, p.24)
referred co this as 'graphic speech' and argued that it paved the way for writing. And as Britsch (1992, p.182)
found in her storytelling research with preschoolers, children realise chat stories come from within themselves
and that written language is an accessible tool. The purpose, production, and form of the story lies within the
child in this approach, which is dearly a 'cultivated' approach to writing, rather than an imposed one
(Vygotsky, 1978, cited by Britsch, 1992, p.22).

The text in Figures 2, 3, and 4 display the children's ability to tell mini-stories, to use different tenses, to
define characters, and to describe actions. Storytelling can demonstrate varied and appropriate use of tense
and linking devices (Malian, 1991) along with indicators of who is speaking or scripted dialogue and detailed
descriptions. These are all grammatical features parallel with written language. Malian (1991) declares that
children gain an understanding of syntactic structure and organisation when they listen to stories. These can
then act as a framework when they create their own stories. Storytelling can be employed to effectively bridge
oracy and literacy by employing many written conventions in the oral form.
Figure 1 Figure 2
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Figure 3 Figure 4

Conclusion
This paper provides an illustration of utilising storytelling as the cornerstone of an early childhood program.
For many years storytelling has been forgotten in many educational environments, as our world of visual-
imagery has rapidly flourished. By granting storytelling an essential role in the education of young children,
their imagination will be inspired as they create their own visual images and ideas; their minds will be
challenged; and their language skills will be further cultivated, as they are inspired to experience and explore
all language forms (speaking, listening, reading, and writing).
Young children will also develop closer relationships and a sense of community, through the intrinsically
social experience of storytelling.
These benefits can be achieved as long as the children's interests are closely observed; their experiences and
stories welcomed; appropriate support offered; a listening ear is present; and a story-laden tongue forthcoming
(Glazer & Burke, 1994, p.163).

References
Britsch, S. (1992) The Development of 'Story' Within the Culture of Preschool. Berkley, USA: University of
California.
Bruner, J. (1986) Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Cooper, P.J., Collins, R. & Saxby, M. (1992) The Power
of Story. Melbourne: MacMillan.
Dyson, A. (1993) From prop to mediator: The changing role of written language in children's symbolic
repertoires. In B. Spodek & O.N. Saracho (eds) Yearbook in Early Childhood Education: Language and
literacy in Early Childhood Education, (4), NY: Teachers' College Press, p.24.
Glazer, S.M. & Burke, E.M. (1994) An Integrated Approach To Early Literacy. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Malian, K. (1991) Children as Storytellers. Newtown, Sydney: PETA.
Malian, K. (1997) Storytelling in the school curriculum, Educational Practice and Theory, 19 (1), 75-82.
Miller, P.J. & Mehler, R. A. (1994) The power of personal storytelling in families and kindergartens. In Dyson
& C. Genishi (eds) The Need far Story: Cultural Diversity in Classroom and Community. Illinois: National
Council of Teachers of English.
 Nicolopoulou, A., Scales, B. & Weintramb, J. (1994) Gender differences and symbolic imagination in the stories
of four-year-olds. In A. Dyson & C. Genishi (eds) The Need for Story: Cultural Diversity in Classroom and
Community. Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English.
Raines, S. & Isbell, R. (1994) Stories: Children's Literature in Early Education. NY: Delmar Publishers.

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