Storytelling How Effective it is as a Tool to Foster Childrens Engagement in Literacy Essay Example

Storytelling: How Effective it is as a Tool to Foster Childrens Engagement in Literacy Essay Even as the idea that the advent of sophisticated toys and digital programs have scored over the age-old storytelling as means of fostering childrens engagement in literacy continues to influence new parents, storytelling is still considered as the best method by many. What makes it so different from its new challengers? How far can it be used and what are the ways to achieve best possible results out of it? How it has evolved with time and made itself more equipped with the help of modern technology? This paper probes all these and more towards determining the efficacy of storytelling, before concluding with an approbatory note.The JourneyIn way towards fostering the kids engagement in education, storytelling remains the first and foremost tool since the advent of language, where the senior members of the family would web the stories to the children. That would subtly form the bond between generations, let alone evoking the ideas of the little, virgin minds to the nuances of the sur roundings as well as the world beyond that.It is the keenness of the children to listen to the stories, their eagerness to learn and probe about life and events on earth and beyond gradually made the early storytellers to formulate certain line of action – such as, incorporating certain values and certain do-s and donts pertaining to better living within the folds of fantasy, adventure or human-interest stories. This way, the primary concept of keeping children engaged at home to safety gradually took turns towards preparing them for the greater world. This pattern got crystallized from the print era, and the print world continued to dominate freely till it faced competition from the audio and video versions of it.New BendThough at the early stages of storytelling, there was not much emphasis on literacy learning, i.e., stressing on fostering the ability to read and write among the children, with time, storytelling added this prime responsibility of citizen-building into its fold, which now has become an inseparable part of the society. It is now treated as an extremely important tool to equip children in reading and writing before they are inducted into school, besides preparing them to express their own ideas symbolically or exchange ideas with peers or the adults. Alongside, storytelling has to add another responsibility in its bag: that is, to imbibe the computer literacy in them.Current SituationSince the concept of joint family has been on the wane, in walked the preparatory schools for the children to do the job. Again, with the advent of digital media, the children started having the scope of a storyteller in the audio mediums, and later in the audio-visual mediums as well. Now the technology has come of the age to play the social role too, as there are many digital peers with their bag of stories are out in the market. These are animated creatures made according to the likes of the children.The Greenroom of StorytellingIt might look like a vast storeroom of various bridges to an imaginative eye – where each of the bridges is made up of one or the other essential knowledge for the young mind – Covering all possible branches of it. All the bridges are decorated beautifully – that is, done up with elements that are bound to catch and sustain the interest of children to walk along the bridge, albeit unknowingly. Divine bait, one can say, to see the future citizens up and ready to take up the cudgels of the future world!How the Greenroom EvolvedThe research on storytelling would be never-ending, all because of its proven power of reaching childrens mind and bringing in the desired feedback from them. A good many theories have also come into being, such as Emergent Theory (Teal ; Sulzby, 1986).This theory stresses on gradual learning process of the children from infancy. This concept goes for concurrent development of language through a wide range of variation applied at various ages of the children. It ext ends its classroom beyond the formalities and walls.Besides this, Whitehurst and Lonigan (1998) distinguished between the inside-out and outside-in skills of literacy. The former refers to the childrens ability to decode the information in a sentence, while the later points at the ability to comprehend the meaning of the sentence from a context. It is the development of the later that matters most in life, as it deals with comprehension and expression in all areas of life.While a group of researchers have dedicated themselves to find the relationship between storytelling and the taxonomic nuances of cognitive progression, some others have devoted themselves in devising instruments to empower storytelling to foster all levels of cognitive progression in the children.Thus the digital media with its array of avenues have come out with many forms of storytelling, which are packed with features that are capable to entice, educate and entertain the little ones in one go! In todays world, computer characters (the storyteller) and pedagogical applications prove to be a perfect match (Maldonado, 2007).ImpactAlthough the quest to find the facts behind the efficacy of storytelling in literacy will ever be on, current research findings already suggest that storytelling stimulates the imagination besides helping to increase vocabularies and introducing them to the elements of the stories. (National Education Goals Panel 1997; Moss and Fawcett 1995).Young minds tend to switch on their imagination tab with good sparks. Storytelling stimulates auditory or the visual parts at a time or together; in all situations, it is capable of not only grafting the information for future use, but also of sparking the initiative in the children for its improvised usage in the future. Another researcher, Snow (1983), coined the term decontextualized language to identify the language that is not limited to spatial or the historical context. And here the storytelling weaves its magic, as it us es a then-and-there language, which the children pick up from there (Ryokai, K. et al., 2003).Through this, the intangible ideas like values or societal behavioral process can easily get into their perception. It also enhances the scope of interpersonal communication, besides providing the scope of peer-discussion in case of collective participation in a storytelling session.Emotive characters enhance the learning process. Storytelling almost always banks on the various shades of emotion. This raises a question about the efficacy of the modern-day virtual peers or the animated storytellers of the digital media. Are they capable of rising to the rank of human storytellers?The research findings, say yes, under certain conditions, they are! Researchers Marita Jong and Adriana G. have come out with their findings, where they are convinced that even pre-readers can become acquainted with new stories (Jong, 2007).Recognition of StorytellingGoal One of the National Education Goals recogniz es the importance of family/child engagement in literacy activities to children’s learning and readiness for school. The goal suggests that for all children in America to start school ready to learn, parents need to devote time each day to teaching them (Nord et al, 1999). This in turn recognizes the storytelling as the prime tool towards fostering literacy among children.DiscussionStories are the fragmented reflections of the world and its subjects and their actions and or reactions in a package that educates, informs and entertains the children. Such a package, if formulated rightly, is bound to evoke interest among the children. Such a package makes things easier towards fostering literacy among the children, as here they get close to it rather involuntarily. In its fold, storytelling can cover the entire gamut of knowledge a child requires to know and pass it on without any routine curriculum. Thus, storytelling can easily be termed as the most carefree means of fostering literacy in children.   And for the present times, storytelling has consolidated its position further through its digital avatar. Researches tell about their high degree of acceptance in the children, and thus its pedagogical application is on the rise. Even in the distant learning system, or online literacy programs, these story-packed CD-ROMs or the DVD-ROMs form an integral part of the process (Hodgson, 2005).The growing numbers of unit family has heightened storytellings significance. Gone are the days of a joint family, when the grandpa or the grandma would satiate the craving for listening to stories for their grandchildren. It is now mostly the case of Home Alone for the children worldwide. This big and dangerous void is somewhat filled up by these digital storytelling systems or attractively printed books.CONCLUSIONJudging from all aspects, it is clear that storytelling does all what it is needed to foster literacy in the children, and under the present situation, it is e ven doing more than expected, thanks to the advent of the new technology.Ranging from supplying the creative juices to providing company to the children, storytelling has now become an integral part of the life of children, let alone harnessing the literacy acumen. Thus this ancient, sublime learning system for the little ones should always be treated with care. Because, it would always remain a truth that children have to know about the past, apply that knowledge to the present and be equipped to meet the challenges of life – not to mention about contributing to the future of the world. This legacy would go on, and storytelling would ever remain a potent catalyst in the chemistry of communication among the past, present and future course of civilization! This idea again brings back the imagined picture of those tiny knowledge bridges, but in a new avatar – In the final round of imagination, all those bridges from the storytelling greenroom magically merge into one big bridge between the future citizens and the earth!