Children are natural storytellers. They tell us about their day, their imaginary friends. They explore what-ifs. They love the art of the story.
I remember when I was little, I had these cards that had sentence bits on them. Some of the cards contained nouns, some verbs. I used to love shuffling them and reading a new story. Sometimes, I’d even string together my own story. By the time I’d left elementary school, I was writing down my own stories, and to this day I still have a notebook in my bag dedicated to writing whenever I feel inspiration strike.
It’s important to encourage the development of storytelling in children because the basic building blocks of just about any story are the foundation of writing in general. It grounds the student in the beginning-middle-end formula that can elude people. They learn to weave a point in to their stories. They develop characters. They create and resolve problems.
Erika Dreifus has a great method for developing storytelling with her niece that I think is just wonderful! Her niece tells her a story, and Erika writes it into a special notebook. I’m sure as time goes on, this toddler will fill many such notebooks, and will be able to watch her storytelling develop as she learns and grows.
Perhaps more children should be encouraged to keep stories in a special notebook, too.






