A story is a description of
how something happens which may be true or imaginary. Then, storytelling is an
activity of reading a story whose purpose is to amuse a person or a group, especially
children. Parents usually do it for their children before their children go to
sleep. For some families the activity has become a habit. Now, most people do
not consider storytelling a fun and beneficial activity. In general, most people, especially parents,
think that telling a story to their children is unimportant because it is a
simple activity which only waste time. Because of development of technology, they
prefer giving games in the gadget or cartoons on the television for their
children. As Kylene
Beers
writes that external reasons-too much television, too little parental modeling,
too much emphasis on a skills approach to reading-offer some insights as to why
students dislike reading. In Mosaic of Thought, Keene and Zimmermann also talk of how so many
students read passively, just the way they watch television (1997,36). As
a result, parents can do anything else because they should not accompany their children.
On the other hand, there are three effects of storytelling to children's
development in terms of behaviours, knowledge and habit of reading.
First,
children will have good behaviours. Parents are responsible for their children
including teaching attitude and behaviour. Most people think that it is
teacher’s responsibility to educate their children about anything. In fact,
parents can teach their children through storytelling. It is not common anymore
directly lecturing children with a loud voice. Children mostly will ignore it. Good
stories which has a moral value will be a perfect model for children, such as stories
of the Prophets and stories of Walisongo.
Educating kids about the attitude
through a story that contains a moral value is more understandable and more
acceptable for children. The children learn from examples of conditions and situations
in the story; therefore, children will apprehend easily. As
Gordon Wells notes that young children find it easier to assimilate new ideas
when they are presented in the form of a story and that even older students
look to anecdotes to help them understand new concepts and link them to their
lives. (1986,206). Good parents will give the best for their children. So
parents must be selective to choose good and educative stories. As Kaufman describes
that children’s
use of story is an effective instrument for teachers/adults to learn more about
the child. What story they choose and how they choose to tell the story are
indicative of what a child thinks and feels, expressed uniquely during a
particular time period. The process of selecting, practicing and telling
stories is a way for children to explore themselves and relationships between
people (1997). The
opposite will happen if parents choose stories which contain lots of bad
behaviour such as stealing, lying, cheating even murdering. Furthermore, kids can
learn good manner from good characters in the story because they are good
examples for children. Jalongo
explains
that stories and storytelling help to
develop positive character traits in children by promoting a sense of shared
experiences and emotions related to the characters and challenges dealt with in
the stories (2004). Children
prefer to choose the protagonists to the antagonists. Kids love characters who
have nice attitude. Naturally, they do not like people who have bad attitude because
the characters are usually annoying, cruel, criminal, bad, and causing
difficulties or harm. However, protagonist characters have many good characterizations
such as kind, honest, diligent, tidy, and obey. Those are appropriate if
children can imitate it. Besides, children already know the bad behaviour and
they try to avoid, and do not act like the bad characters in stories.
Second,
children’s knowledge will rise. They will know various places, people, and
cultures. Substantively, children can learn anything from stories as Barbara Hardy wrote "We dream in narrative,
daydream in narrative, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt,
plan, revise, criticize, construct, gossip, learn, hate, and love by
narrative" (1978,13). Contents
of story which has plot, characterization, and setting are knowledge for
children. Setting in stories helps children to know many places even though
they have never visited the places. For example, children will know other
countries and its cultures. Children can differentiate many different people
from characterization in stories. Besides, they also learn the cultures from
the plot which the stories come from. Those are some reasons that acquaintance
of children will improve because of storytelling. As Zipes writes “they are likely to improve knowledge
in both broad and specific topics” (1995). In addition, children learn new
vocabularies from stories. A story is a composite from lot of words. Because of
children’s vocabularies are still limited, storytelling assists children to
increase their vocabularies as Trostle and Hicks point out, their vocabulary and word comprehension is enhanced (1998).
Third,
children will like reading. Actually the key of children’s tendency to like
reading is the parents. If the parents addict to reading, children will also
like reading. The
Common Sense Media report agrees that “Parents can encourage reading,” they
explain, “by keeping print books in the home, reading themselves, and setting
aside time daily for their children to read.” Besides that, introducing activity
of reading to children is not easy. Parents or the storytellers must be creative and interactive while they are
telling stories. According to Sima and Cordi write that the storyteller learns to work not
only with the language of the story but also with its structure and how to
adapt their work based on the response of their audience (2003). The
storytellers must consider several things such as intonation, gestures,
expression of face, and different voices for different characters because the
way storytellers deriver stories will effect to children. If the storytellers
are flat while reading the stories, children will feel bored and are not interested
to read a story even a book because they think that reading is boring. As
Kaufman notes that Storytelling
is an excellent vehicle for relaying information and making it more memorable
for both the teller and the audience. It can increase the confidence of the
child who has difficulty in reading and make them more likely to try to read or
write or even to read aloud (1997). Nonetheless, if the storytellers are interactive with
the children during storytelling, children will enjoy the activity. Children who
involve into stories can feel the stories and get the idea of the stories. No
longer, they will like to read. Then, interesting stories that have good plot will
attract children. They will more enjoy the stories that have pre-climax,
climax, and anti-climax. It is because the story is systematic, understandable,
and clear. Moreover, pictures as a media to deliver story will be adored by children.
Something which is colourful is always loved by children. As a result, most of
books for children are full of colour. The pictures in stories also help
children to understand more the stories. According to Judy and Judy (1979) explain that some readers need materials with
illustrations to help them bridge the gap between printing and meaning. Pictures in stories or book will help children to
imagine and to visualize the situation and condition in the stories. Keene
and Zimmermann write that images from a reader’s personal experience frequantly
become part of his or her comprehension (1997,141). Children
also can match between the story and the pictures. Harvey
and Goudvis say that students
who are conditioned to pay attention only to the literal interpretation of text
and the susface of structure aspects of language, such as sounding out words,
will remain disengaged. But when students create pictures in their minds while
reading, their level of engagement increases because of the book becomes more
personalized (2000).
In
summary, impacts of storytelling to children’s advancement, including three
aspects such as politeness, improving knowledge, and reading tendency. Teaching
attitude through storytelling is more pleasant for parents and children because
the activity itself is fun. Most of the people, especially children, are fond
of storytelling. So, it is the best method to tutor children’s behaviour
through storytelling. As a result, it is essential for parents to do
storytelling for their children because it also helps to raise children’s
development.
References:
- Hamilton, M. and Weiss, M. 2005. The Power of
Storytelling in the Classroom.
- Beers, K. Choosing Not to Read: Understanding Why
Some Middle Schoolers Just Say No.
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/05/13/kids-dont-read-books-because-parents-dont-read-books/
- http://ccb.lis.illinois.edu/Projects/storytelling/lis506a_lbp/litreview.html
By : Raadhiyah Mardiyyah
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