Storytelling without the book, Pembrokeshire

Aim: to address concern over low levels of oracy by improving pupils' speaking and listening skills and developing teacher confidence through the medium of storytelling and related activities.

The original idea for this course came from hearing about Pie Corbett’s project where he teaches children a repertoire of at least ten traditional tales so that they absorb and are able to use story language with ease.

• Number of targeted schools: 18
• Course delegates: 20 Key Stage 1 teachers working in four groups of five
• Course duration: one term of five half day sessions at fortnightly intervals + one term embedding practice at school
• Venue: 2 participating Communities First schools
• Course leader: storyteller, Mary Medlicott, supported by the Advisory Teacher for Literacy
• Resources: supply cover, finger puppets, ‘Cooking Up A Story,’ and ‘The Little Book of Storytelling’ by Mary Medlicott.

We began with a short twilight meeting to explain the course rationale and the method of assessment. Although storytelling would be undertaken by each teacher with their class as a whole, it was decided that a target group of up to 6 Basic Skills pupils would be identified by each practitioner in their own class for the purposes of assessment, using the First Steps Oracy Developmental Continuum, or the Jackson McCormack website.

There were intervening support visits by myself to each of the targeted schools. At the end of the summer term all of the data was collected in order to measure the impact of the course.

The structure of each half day session was as follows:

• introduction of a new story to the teachers by Mary Medlicott, with discussion of the structure and language and the different ways in which it could be introduced;
• Mary's storytelling session with the children in the classroom setting;
• each adult working with a small group of children in the classroom, re-telling the story and doing a variety of follow-up activities, such as story-mapping, role-play, illustration, book-making, prop-making, innovations on the original telling;
• discussion of the session, regarding response to the story, the follow-up activities, and how each participant hoped to develop it in their own classroom.

Each subsequent session began with all teachers recapping on what they had done with their class and sharing the ideas that they had had.

The most useful were:

• story maps which children used with confidence; some created on a large scale and laminated for use in outside play, along with a bag of props to aid re-telling;
• storyboards;
• role-play;
• concertina books;
• audio recordings of children telling stories (Audacity, a free downloadable programme from the Internet was very useful);
• creating props, such as puppets
• 2Simple Create A Story software - to create simple animated re-tellings by the whole class, with little books printed off for the children to keep;
• the use of an opening and closing story chant focused the children and they adopted these with great enthusiasm.

The benefits the teachers reported were varied:

• increased teacher confidence in storytelling and the adaptation of cross-curricula material in storytelling sessions;
• improved, explicit models in communication for children – syntax, intonation and body language
• direct eye-contact and total engagement with the children;
• increased confidence of all children, particularly those with low self-esteem, emotional problems, EAL and SEN;
• increased concentration span with regard to listening to both the teacher and their peers, particularly noticeable with regard to boys;
• desire to be the storyteller;
• the communal process of storytelling and common ownership of the story – e.g. joining in with choral elements and very shy children acting as prompts for other children when telling the story;
• use of physical prompts as memory joggers;
• increased understanding and manipulation of story structure by the children;
• improvement in prediction skills;
• increased ability to visualise.
• independent thinking - developing the ability to form and support an opinion;
• clearer delineation of story structure through pictures/writing;
• collaborative approach to work;
• LSAs learning and incorporating the same techniques when working with children;
• spontaneous sharing of ideas both within the classroom and at home – e.g. in role-play area and taking puppets/story prompts home and re-telling to siblings and parents;
• fewer directions needed from the teacher as time progressed;
• a more open-ended approach on the part of the teacher with regard to expected outcomes;
• nobody fails – children were eager to innovate on stories and make them their own and their suggestions were validated.

The results of the assessments have been very encouraging, showing that targeted children have progressed across two, and in some cases, three developmental phases with marked improvements in their general speech development and language of social interaction, as well as their literacy language.

It was particularly interesting to see the developments in the four classes that Mary worked with throughout the term. Enthusiasm for stories was unbounded. A child who was an elective mute and very clingy was totally silent in the first session, joined in with sound effects on the second session (much to her own surprise) and by the end of term was innovating on stories using her story maps. A particularly boisterous and immature boy was very keen to become the storyteller and showed an unexpectedly clear understanding of structure and characterisation. He set a trend which even the most timid were keen to follow, often with surprisingly effective results. Children who were not keen to record work other than in picture format, began to enjoy using speech bubbles, thought bubbles and captions in their pictures. Those capable of more extended pieces of writing developed clearer structure incorporating story language naturally.

The children obviously revelled in the extra adult attention during the follow-up sessions of the course. These small group situations allowed those lacking in confidence – both teachers and children – to practise in a less public arena. Many children chose storytelling as an activity during their planning time in active learning classrooms.

What has been even more enlightening is the anecdotal evidence of the impact of the course for both teachers and children. One teacher, who was very reserved at the beginning of the course offered to be videoed telling stories to her class which covered an age range of four to eight year olds. She held them all spellbound incorporating the use of bongos and song to great effect.

Another teacher, worried about health and safety issues when stranded with parents and children at a railway station, used storytelling as a means of keeping them all entertained and together.

On another occasion, there was a particularly violent thunderstorm which scared the children, so the teacher turned off the lights, told them to sit on the floor and pretend they were back in their coracles in Dan yr Ogof, which they had recently visited. They made up a story as they rowed, so dispelling their fears. She felt that they wouldn’t have been able to make this imaginative leap without their experience of storytelling.

In the same class a very angry little boy, with emotional problems stemming from a break-up at home, volunteered to tell a story when I visited. With the aid of two ladybird mittens, he told a tale which he had created with great confidence and delight. Immediately afterwards, when he returned to his ‘work’ his body language was all spikes and angles; he had retreated within himself once more. In one class, an accident occurred in the playground when no LSA was available so the teacher asked a child to tell a story to the others in the classroom whilst she administered first aid. The children all joined in with the chant and listened attentively. They were allowed back out to play before the end of the story and they all chose to sit around the storyteller on the grass so that she could finish. Later in the afternoon a group of children was observed in the reading corner re-telling the story.

I recently attended the NATE Conference at Llandrindod Wells where Pie Corbett delivered an inspirational talk and a Denbigh school showed the results of a whole-school Storymaking project. I can now identify further areas which I would like to go on to develop and this would include extending the project throughout the target schools and incorporating signing for the abstract words which are so important in the development of story structure.

This article was written by Eva John, Advisory Teacher for Literacy, Pembrokeshire

The Jackson McCormack website:
http://www.jacksonmccormack.com/

A summary of Pie Corbett’s storymaking project.