By Laura Payne
Once children are able to read and write at a basic level, they take more interest in creating and telling stories, both verbally and through writing. When children tell stories, they learn new language skills that benefit their writing. They learn how to organize events in a story, and they learn about point of view. Even if a child is simply telling a story out loud, he or she is still honing organizational and point of view skills that are crucial to the type of writing high school and college instructors expect.
Story Organization
Children organize stories with a beginning, middle and end, which is exactly how they should. Once they have developed their skills and begin to learn more technical terms for story organization, their beginning, middle and end will be more detailed and can be diagrammed as follows:
Point of View
While children may not initially think of point of view in reference to first, second and third person, they will still be learning that they can tell a story from their own viewpoint or that of another person’s viewpoint. It won’t be long until they understand first, second and third person personal and possessive pronouns.
How to Encourage Storytelling
You can help your children learn these language skills by encouraging them to tell stories. Here are some ideas to get you started.
1. Ask your child to tell you a story about something that happened to him or her that day. (1st person)
2. Ask your child to tell you a story about something that happened to a friend that day. (3rd person)
3. Give your child a main character and a setting and have him or her create a story with a beginning, middle and end.
4. Read your child a story and have him or her tell the story from the point of view of another character, for example, read The Three Little Pigs and have your child pretend he or she is the wolf and tell the story from the wolf’s point of view. (1st person)
5. Have your child create a new version of The Three Little Pigs with a different beginning, middle and end.
Story time is fun time. Make it even more fun by popping some popcorn to munch on while every family member takes a turn telling a story.
About Laura Payne
A self-confessed language nerd, Laura Payne is the mother of two boys, and she is a part-time English teacher. She has also done freelance writing about several topics including the structure and grammar of English.
