Tell a Story, to Get a Story…

Having just completed a fun, productive and interactive presentation on storytelling at a RCSLT Clinical Excellence Network workshop for children with language impairments, I asked the audience to reflect on all the information they had received at the workshop, and identify 3 changes or actions that they would put in place at work the next day.

One speech and language therapist said that she would tell her client a story. I was intrigued by that and asked her to say a little more about that. She continued, that she was often asking the children with whom she works to tell her stories, and whilst she would read stories from a book, she never simply told them a story during her storytelling sessions.

What an interesting observation and a great change to commit to making - and one that can so easily be put into practice. At the workshop, I had shared strategies to facilitate the elicitation of storytelling in children and young people with language and communication difficulties, and one strategy that I have found really effective is simply to take my turn first and share a story with the group, whether it be a personal story about something I have done over the weekend, or a wonderfully wacky and obviously fictional story about a princess, dragon or fire-eater! This gives the students the time to get comfortable, to settle down in the session and enjoy the delights of storytelling, whilst at the same time, also, getting to know a little more about me, their therapist.

It provides the children with practice in a range of essential skills related to storytelling, including listening, using appropriate body language and facial expression to show interest, or, when needed, even confusion, as well as asking focused and appropriate questions. It also, of course, gives me the valuable opportunity to model storytelling and provide them with a helpful template on which to base their stories, if required. Of course my story will have a definite beginning, middle and end, on which the children can map their stories.

Have a go and see for yourself, if you have a group of children reticent at telling stories, try and start by telling stories yourself. Involve the children in different ways, perhaps they can clap loudly or roar every time they hear you mention the monster; or they can count the number of characters in your story. Make your story exciting, fun and interesting, use props like swords and other attention-grabbing objects, and dress up like the characters in your story. Be the wizard, the witch or the dragon. And by the time you are at the end of the story, you may very well found that you are no longer the sole storyteller, but one part of a very satisfied collaborative enterprise.

Go on, try it, tell a story, or even two, to get a story… 

Victoria Joffe, Professor, Enhancement of Child and Adolescent Language and Learning

School of Health Sciences, City University London

Speechmark author of: Vocabulary Enrichment Programme, Narrative Intervention Programme, Favourite Idioms and More Favourite Idioms