Research over the years shows consistently that children whose parents read stories to them from a young age show better language skills than those who don’t have a ‘story time’.   

Listening to stories is obviously a fun way for children to spend quality time with parents but those stories lay the foundation for language and literacy development.  It also has social and emotional benefits.

Recently, Fufy Damissie, writing for The Conversation, said that full benefits of story time can be gained by having children involved in what’s known as ‘dialogic reading’.  This is where adults (parents and teachers) engage in conversations with the child about the story. Rather than being passive listeners, having the children think about the characters and the storyline deepens their knowledge and understanding and can teach them critical and creative thinking skills from an early age. 

Questions can include what the child remembers about the story (memory skills), asking why a character acted in a certain way, how the character might feel in a certain situation and what other behaviours could a character have chosen to alter the outcome of a story.

A wealth of evidence has highlighted the significance of these kinds of conversations during story time. It has benefits for reading enjoyment, reading motivation, parent-child attachment and parental confidence.

Dialogic reading affects children’s vocabulary as well as their literacy outcomes. One particular study divided 36 children with vocabulary delays into groups taking part in shared reading or shared dialogic reading. While both groups showed improvements, the dialogic reading group had significantly larger gains in vocabulary. In addition, it helps to develop young children’s ‘oracy’, which is the ability to articulate ideas when speaking, listen carefully and communicate effectively.

Fufy Damissie conducted a research project, entitled Talk with Tales for Children  to help improve early years teachers’ skills in using dialogic reading techniques with three- and four-year-olds. The program uses traditional tales, such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In addition to questions such as “what can you see on this page?” and “what happened next?”, practitioners are also encouraged to ask questions that provoke children’s thinking. These include “would it be good or bad to eat someone else’s porridge?” and “was Goldilocks brave?”

The early findings suggest that high-quality training through this program has improved early years teachers and practitioners’ interactions during shared reading and enhanced children’s listening and attention, thinking skills and enjoyment of and engagement with stories.

The language, social, and emotional benefits of story time mean it should be seen as a fundamental part of the early years curriculum and a practice at home that is a regular part of the daily routine. 

Provided by The Conversation 

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