How to read a book: little steps to improve storytelling

Storyteller and early years educator Olivia Corbin-Phillip shares some top tips about reading and storytelling with young children.

Stories live in every nook and cranny of our nurseries and schools and yet many educators seem to have convinced themselves they’re not storytellers. But stories are everywhere!

As children filter through the doors on a Monday morning they are filled with chatter and babbles from their weekend. Parents hand them over with tales of sleepless nights and chesty coughs. Beyond the front door children are story builders from an early age. We can see signs of these stories as we observe: holding a tube to their eye and looking around the room or stacking bricks before pushing it to a crash with dinosaur in hand. They sit at a table and scrawl images inspired by their favourite programme. Children sit elbow to elbow as they dig into their lunchboxes and talk with mouths full. Even your staff room is filled with laughter as you catch up with colleagues over a cuppa. Stories are everywhere.

So firstly, lets start by recognising the knowledge and skills we already have. You are a storyteller. But here’s the crux of it – the more passionate and skilled storytellers we come into contact with, the better at it we become. Storytelling is about watching, listening, copying, trialling and learning. Therefore, the more time children spend telling and sharing stories, the better conversationalists they could become.

We want the children in our care to grow up with the skills and confidence to communicate with people from all walks of life, don’t we?

And yet, to many of us the thought of sitting in front of a group of children, book in hand, doesn’t fill us with excitement, but rather – dread.

Start small

Firstly, don’t expect to follow a step-by-step guide of how to be a better storyteller and suddenly feel like a thespian child whisperer. There isn’t a one size fits all and each group of children, setting, facilitator and of course story, needs different things from you. It’s about building up skills and confidence over time.

• Be selective about the books you choose to read to a group. Not all books work well for group reading and taking the time to choose books that offer lots of characters, locations and drama to work with makes your job way easier! Reflect on how inclusive your book choices are. Do the children at your setting feel represented and do your books create a sense of belonging for every child?
• Start by slowing down your reading. The biggest mistake I see is practitioners whizzing through fabulous books and forcing themselves to read another 2 not-so-good books simply to fill the time. Children need time to digest what they are seeing through illustrations and hearing from you. Give them the chance to do that. Add a 1-2 second pause between sentences and before you turn each page to allow time for children to take it in.
• Play with sounds to bring your story to life. When reading a farm book to babies we are, almost automatically, already making the sounds of farm animals. Take it one step further, make the sound of the creaking barn door or challenge the children to make a clip-clop sound as the horse canters down the path.

Go beyond the book

The biggest barrier to children accessing great storytellers within settings is staff confidence. Let’s rethink reading to children. It isn’t the same as public speaking, which is where the fear lies for most. The children aren’t picking apart your speaking ability or judging your outfit. They are waiting for you to unlock something. Because you have the key! You are the translator, who holds the key to them understanding and experiencing a book. They cannot do that without you. Without you they can look at pictures, and they might be able to make some connections from their own experiences. But with you they can hear detailed descriptions of spooky forests and create images of fluffy bunnies running through flowered meadows. They hear new words and experience a storybook rather than just seeing one.

• Why not start storytelling in pairs, working together to read a story with the children. There are many reasons someone may not feel comfortable reading aloud and this is a great way to build the confidence of members of staff who may find reading difficult themselves. Maybe you take it in turns with different parts of the story, or one of you sits with children adding to the dramatic parts of the story using noises or instruments. Storytelling can be a brilliant collaborative activity!
• Make sure you’re sharing the load and taking it in turns when it comes to reading stories. This goes for impromptu story time when children approach you with books and reading that is more routine. It’s important for everyone to share stories so the responsibility doesn’t fall on the same person each time. Everyone brings something different to a book and rotating allows both children and adults to hear a varying style.
• Don’t be afraid to magpie ideas from storytellers you see across your setting but also on TV too! Watch story times on kids channels and catch up with the latest Julia Donaldson animation to get ideas on the different rhythms and patterns of speech sound when read aloud. Stories are much easier to understand once they’ve been read in the way they were written!

Have fun with storytelling

First and foremost, stories should be fun. We have the power to bring them to life or suck the life out of it. Which will it be? Remembering there are no rules is an important part of this. Storytelling doesn’t look one way and you know the children in your care, so trust your instincts.

• Don’t feel like you’re stuck in the ‘reading area’, get up and move about the space! Children love the freedom of this. Creep around the room looking for gold… then run back to the carpet quickly before the Giant wakes up! One of the most common reasons why reading stories feels like an impossible task is because children need to move – so offer them the chance to do that whilst still participating with the story.
• Make stories an outdoor activity Hide the fallen objects from the witch’s broom around your garden and move around the space like the animals from the story.
• Eat imaginary food. If a character in the book is eating, then you can too. The children will be amazed, confused and amused all at once! Describe what you’re doing as you mime it, “I’m going to take a big spoonful.” And encourage them to use their imagination by mentioning their senses, “it smells sweet, what does your porridge smell like?” Eating non-existent food is a sure-fire way to build intrigue and keep them interested. Dip back into the story just as quickly as you dip out.
• If you feel tied to a book, go without. Tell the stories you know or make one up instead. Sometimes when moving around a space or using props, holding a book can feel like more of a hindrance. Whilst books are a brilliant visual tool, oral storytelling offers children the opportunity to build their own imagery of the story. Revisit the book later for added value.

Statistics tell us that a love of reading makes children more likely to go on to become lifelong learners. Alongside all the benefits of expanding vocabulary, communicating with confidence and providing them with the building blocks for their imagination, I think we can agree that reading should be on our list of priorities. It only takes a few small tweaks to hugely improve the storytelling experiences we are providing children and build excitement about books. What a gift to give the children we care for!