Story telling as a part of the teacher’s repertoire should not be allowed to die. If it is fading, consider the need for its resurrection.

Story telling has become a lost skill for many teachers. The emphasis on its importance has diminished because these days the use of technology is substituted for old fashioned story telling by voice. It is now more fashionable to sit children in front of computer screens or smart boards, with DVD’s doing the story telling.

I’d encourage teachers not to allow story telling to become a lost art. Children of all ages love story telling.

There is the ordinary and more usual form of ‘once upon a time’ story telling. This narration approach is embellished if the narrator adopts a characterisation role, with different vocal impressions representing characters within the story.

There are other variations.

Rather than being a narrator, the storyteller can get inside the story by assuming character ownership. Telling a story for instance “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” from the viewpoint of being one of the characters and embellishing the story from that particular character’s viewpoint, adds a quite exciting variation.

The “character” chosen need not be animate! Using the same story, the storyteller might choose to be the plate of porridge, the broken chair, the disappointed “too hard” bed, or any of the other artefacts in the story.

These variations can appeal to the imagination of children and to get them really fired up. Storytelling lends itself to extension in drama, art, and elements of science, maths and written expression.

I believe it quite possible to link storytelling and extensions to elements of the curriculum. But it takes engagement and getting outside the purist form of written documentation (The way in which curriculum documents often dictate resources and approaches) in order to achieve these ends.