Lewisburg Elementary Storytelling

What a day! Three groups of classes, three great sessions.

I drove over to Lewisburg in the evening, enjoying the greening mountains and soft air along the way. Lewisburg is a beautiful community with historic buildings and a bulging economy. There is a lot of growth in the area, but so far the feeling of a place old and well-cared-for remains.

The motel was quiet, and I was entranced by the motel-keeper's little son who had his own samovar of tea he carried around. His glasses gave him a very studious look, but his smile was pure boy.

The school was celebrating a week of Appalachian culture, and I presented the oral tradition in our state through storytelling and ballads. There can be nothing in this world as amazing as 100 or so kids sitting on the floor and listening, their faces wrapped in the story and living it with me. We sang together, talked about getting in trouble, learned about Jack (now there's someone who knows trouble!) and shared the pure joy that is always there when people listen to a story together.

The most magical thing to me is that each one of them was creating their own uniqie story in their imagination as they listened. No two children were seeing the characters, places and events in the same way. Each put faces to the people, saw palaces or huts or simple homes, each envisioned the details of the stories differently. How amazing is that! Video games and movies show children exactly how things are supposed to look, but with storytelling they get to create all the props and characters themselves.

That's important because when they read, they need to be able to do that with the printed word. Storytelling helps them develop the mental imaging skill that puts pictures and meaning to words. Listening well teaches a child that words can create pictures, and that is what makes reading fun.

So it was a great day, and I left as high on adrenaline and kid energy as it's possible to be and not get pulled over by the police. I hope the kids remember the stories we shared and try to tell them themselves, and I hope the teachers follow up by telling stories in the classroom from time to time.

As for me, I will look forward to the next storytelling event--Migration Celebration at Little Beaver State Park on May 12th.

I've been reading about the new thing in education--21st Century Learning Skills. It's a new approach to learning with a goal of better preparing kids to deal with tomorrow's world. North Carolina and West Virginia are the first two states to implement it.

I read through the CSOs for WV, and guess what? Narrative skills and writing are all though them, in every grade level. Suddenly storytelling is gaining strong attention by educators, it seems, because kids need to be able to speak and write well, and current methods aren't achieving that goal.

Last week I did a presentation for a Title 1 program. The organizer had packets of information for all the parents, teachers and principals who attended. In the packet were articles by Heather Forest, Marni Gillard, and one on digital storytelling, along with the handouts I'd sent her. Apparently Title 1 is also recognizing the value of storytelling to learning to read? or was this lady unique?

The same day I spent the entire school day at a middle school telling stories. The gig was the result of a presentation I did for the state teachers union. I have another scheduled from that same event.

So I am feeling encouraged by what I experienced at the conference. At the middle school, the teachers told me what I was doing fit perfectly with what they were teaching about writing. The kids, of course, were great! One of the 7th graders told me I was the "ultimate storyteller." It was actually the other way around--they were the ultimate audience.

I feel encouraged that perhaps teachers are beginning to understand what storytelling can do in the classroom, and what it can do for their students' achievement level. I'd be willing to bet there are some teachers out there who have known it all along.

Storytelling and Literacy

A friend on the Storytell listserve asked for information to share with new librarians on the value of storytelling. The list I sent her (below) is applicable not only to librarians but to teachers, child care workers, parents and grandparents--all can impact the early development of literacy through storytelling:

1. Storytelling in America was preserved by librarians during a time when storytelling was not recognized as important in this country. An aricle I wrote a few years ago on the topic will be posted here soon.

2. Storytelling provides important connections to literacy. The PLA's Early Literacy Iniative includes narrative skills as one of the six important pre-literacy skills. These six skills can be addressed in storytimes and storytelling.
See http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/ECRR/ECRRHomePage.htm for more information about that initiative.

3. Storytelling can involve diverse age groups in a story. Stories offer something for all ages, and each listener will take something different from the story. It's a great tool for intergenerational programming.

4. Storytelling encourages children to create mental images of the spoken words in the story. This is one way children learn to attach images to words, a needed skill for reading comprehension.

5. Each listener will create their own "mental movie" of the story, complete with people, places and things created by their own imagination. Each listener imagines the story uniquely, using images familiar to him-or-herself. Each listener will see the characters through the filter of their own experience, making each told story a deeply personal experience.

6. Storytelling improves listening comprehension in an enjoyable way. Children who can listen well will do better in school. Here's one research article on that topic :
Enhancing Student Achievement through the Improvement of Listening_Skills

7. Storytelling will encourage children to find the stories they hear in books, and that can lead to a lifelong interest in reading.

8. Partic