There are numerous writings of really reputable people talking around the many benefits of storytelling, not just in children teaching, but in family spirit. In this article, I will introduce my personal view on this topic, but mentioning specifically those points often overlooked.
The greatest benefit of education, no doubt, is the abilitythat has every tale to convey values . Perhaps we have not consciously made good on it, but if you think, most values more firmly rooted in our own personality came to us from the hand of a story: in “The three little pigs”, for instance, we instilled the importance of working well; “The tortoise and the hare” were showing us that constancy and modesty had borne fruit, and “The cicada and the ant” made us see that it was more profitable to be working than being a laggard. To exemplify what I am talking about, I invite you to have a look at theseshort stories for children atBedtime Storiesan original site that takes full advantage of this aspect of stories to help parents and teachers to teach values.
This is no surprise when you think about how our brain works. Every story, including tales, has a logical argument that unites the different parts, making them much easier to remember. Regarding this point, our memory can store because this script acts as the linking component of all elements in the story, facilitating to access them. As the moral of the story acts as a summary of it, it is what is better remembered. For instance, one can forget the actual names of the Three Little Pigs, but no one forget that one of them worked hard to build the safest house, while the other preferred to waste his time playing around.
Second, and closely related to the above, is theability of stories to introduce new things to learn . Precisely because it is easier to recall the main story, and its importance as a link, the story allows easy access to other details. Morover, consider this: most relevant people in history used stories to teach their messages, Jesus being the most noticiable case; his stories were excellent to teach to every kind of people. I can still remember the case of a classmate at school who always got bad marks, which surprised everyone with an excellent note on a review of the history of the First World War precisely because he had been seeing a couple of films on the subject …
But in addition to being powerful tools of education and teaching,stories customized just before Sleeping allow to establish a strong link with the kids . Children will show happy when they feel their parents are devoting them their full attention. The positive impact of this emotional link between parents and children is another factor that boost memory performance. That emotional link is so strong that it is another important factor that facilitates memorization and assimilation as taught in these stories. I myself have discovered many times how my children were surprisingly recalling many low level details of stories I had told them long time ago, and never ever talking again about them.
is a great way to prevent the lack of attention many children suffer, originated by an overstimulating visual world Using outside of the bedroom lights, along with the presence of their parents, children will be learning not only to focus their attention, but to use heard as their primary source of information, instead of. Using an out of the room light, and with the reassuring presence of their parents, children are prepared to open their ears to the world carried by the story, and without even realizing it, they are learning to focus their attention; but not only that, they do also use heard as a primary sense, quite the opposite of what will happen during daylight. So I frequently use coloured items and characters, to make them availabe to their imagination power. So I flood stories and characters of bright colors, forcing them to imagine each part of the story.
custom stories are great to teach virtues and to check what did the children did during that day. AAs everything will be related to the present day, they still have their acts inside their minds, so we can praise their good actions and correct the wrong ones, just through the story . Taking advantage of the proximity in time and the freshness of their memories about what happened, through the story, we can praise what they have done well, or censor and try to change what they did not do so well. In this very emotional moment, children are so accessible, that a story that exemplifies clearly the attitude we like is much more effective than several hours of sermons and good words.
