Running Head: Influence of Storytelling on Literary Development

Interactive Parental Storytelling and Literary Development

Gabriella Page
Franciscan University

Influence of Storytelling on Literary Development

Introduction
Driving down the highway it would be impossible to know which exit to take if road
signs were absent from the streets. Where do I turn? When baking a cake problems would soon
arise if the wrong ingredients were thrown into the batter. What ingredients do I use?
Likewise, how would someone pick up a new hobby without glancing over the For Dummies
Series? What steps do I take to get good at this? Whether it be visible in the needs of
transportation, the production of food, or free-time leisure; being able to take meaning from a
print, or the act of reading, is an essential skill demanded from todays society. This skill is
acquired through the development and mastery of a compilation of other skills, like a grand
puzzle. All of the right skills are needed in order to see and take meaning from the big picture
while reading.
At a young age children begin developing their reading skills. Mothers and fathers sit
down with their children and place a relatively square object in their hands, usually with an
assortment of images, and tells them a story. In order to take full meaning and wonder from the
book, children must actively be doing two things: Children must understand the message and
structure of the story, and use their imagination to brainstorm ideas about the story. Taking
meaning from the text is known as story comprehension, while being able to formulate new ideas
and thoughts regarding a piece of information is known as creative thinking.
Storytelling which is when one person reads a book aloud to another person can be an
effective activity that strengthens these skills of story comprehension skills and creative thinking
when the listener of the story is actively engaged. Psycholinguists define reading as an active
process based upon this interaction that is creative and predictive. When an audience listens to a
storyteller, this type of thinking is demanded of them (Eckhoff & Urbach, 2008). Engagement

Influence of Storytelling on Literary Development

in storytelling is essential. When children are not engaged, their motivation to learn drops. This
can be seen in the bustle of a middle school classroom. In an effective learning environment,
children are engaged. Children may be reading independently, participating in directed small
group discussions, reviewing yesterday's lessons, or manipulating a hands-on science project. No
matter what type of learning is happening, it occurs when students are engaged.
An effective learning classroom differs greatly from a non-effective learning
environment. Spit balls are being chewed, jokes are being made, and students are leaning on their
chairs talking about the big upcoming football game. These students have better things on their
minds: they are disinterested in the class. The key to avoiding paper airplanes and successfully
helping students learn in any classroom is active engagement.
Relating engagement to storytelling, the storyteller must work to engage the listener.
Before opening a book, the storyteller could engage the listener by posing open-ended questions
that require the listener to make predictions and activate their prior knowledge and experiences.
What do you think this book is about? What makes you think that? Does the front cover remind
you of anything? The use of open-ended questions shouldnt stop once the storyteller opens the
book either. Pausing here and there in the story to discuss what is going on can help fill in the
blanks in a childs mind as the story unfolds.
It is also beneficial for the storyteller to model comprehension skills and creative thinking
skills when they pause to talk while reading a story. Before asking the child questions, the
storyteller could use the Think Aloud strategy, which is when the person reading pauses and
says what they are thinking that relates to the text. This strategy helps students to understand the
book and generate their own thoughts. Using intonation and facial expressions is another

Influence of Storytelling on Literary Development

powerful method in modeling creative thinking skills. Animation while storytelling gives the
book color: it assigns uniqueness to the characters and makes the setting come to life.
Actively engaging children in storytelling through open-ended questions helps children to
climb the levels of Blooms Taxonomy, which is a framework of student learning goals that
increases in complexity. They move beyond simply remembering and understanding events: they
begin to apply information to what they already know, draw connections between old and new
information, defend and support given ideas, and ultimately formulate and design their own
ideas. This active-storytelling processes gives children some of the essential puzzle pieces they
need to put together the puzzle of reading. Comprehension and creative thinking are only a
couple of the skills needed for proficient reading, however they are indispensable.
Purpose
When I attempt to recollect my oldest memories of when I first learned how to read I
think first about my parents and how they spent time telling me stories. Children at a very young
age are completely dependent on their parents. Everything they have comes from or is instilled in
them by their caregivers, including their early understanding of and desire to read, write, and
listen. My parents were able to make stories meaningful and come to life by actively engaging
me in their storytelling process. In my action research project, I asked and investigated the
question: How does student active participation in parental storytelling positively influence
children in motivating literary development as opposed to non-interactive storytelling?
My methods are align with two Ohio New Learning Standards. I focused on the two areas
of creative thinking and reading comprehension to show literary development. This focus took
place through a pre-assessment and a post-assessment. I surveyed parents and involved them in a

Influence of Storytelling on Literary Development

two-week storytelling interactive activity. It will include constant parental involvement in

storytelling and direct questions that engaged active learning.
The two Ohio New Learning Standards that I focused my research on are for 2nd grade,
involving Craft and Structure and Key Ideas and Details.
Firstly, Craft and Structure: 6. Acknowledge differences in the points of view of
characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue
aloud. Being able to recognize the differences between characters requires students to use
creative thinking. This skill demands for students to identify what makes characters unique.
Using different voices for characters also requires students to compare and contrast the
personalities and characteristics of individuals in a story.
Secondly, Key Ideas and Details: 1. Ask and answer such questions as who, what,
where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. In order to
strengthen student reading comprehension, the storyteller should ask who, what, when, where,
and why questions. These questions target the key ideas and details within a story and require the
listener to analyze those details and explain what they understand. These questions serve to
verify student comprehension. When a student is able to explain what they understand using their
own words they demonstrate a higher level of understanding. As students gain an understanding
of the story, challenging them to predict, describe, infer, connect, visualize, question, and
summarize the story are essential strategies to develop reading comprehension.
I believe that my research supports the belief that when students are actively involved in
the storytelling process through parent-directed creative thinking and comprehension
instructional strategies, they will be more motivated to engage and display development in those

Influence of Storytelling on Literary Development

literary skills. As parents model aspects of creative thinking and how to formulate meaning in a
story, their children will foster these skills and apply them.
Review of Literature
Involvement between parents and their children at home directly influences the
development of childrens early literacy. In their (2007) research article, Huang and Dolejs
highlight the importance of parent-child involvement by conducting a Readers Theater
workshop for parents to equip parents with effective and engaging storytelling learning strategies
to participate in at home. These strategies were based off of McClellands motivational theory.
The adults were invited to a light dinner where they discussed storytelling strategies. The adults
took part in a Readers Theater activity. Readers Theater is an activity in which a group of
students are assigned to different characters in a script, read over a script together in a group, and
then perform reading their script in front of an audience. This activity focuses on strengthening
reading fluency and expression. Unlike how the activity is typically orchestrated, where the
children do the acting and the adults are the audience, during this interactive workshop the
parents were each assigned a role and then performed their script as a group while their children
made up the audience.
Through the interactive workshop, Huang and Dolej concluded that through social
interactions, student learning takes place. When students are moving around talking to one
another, looking other people in the eyes, and simply making their presence in a classroom, they
are more engaged and equipped to learn. Social interactions serve to engage and motivate
students toward lasting learning, highlighting the importance of interactive parent-child
storytelling. Additionally, they determined that when activities stir up prior knowledge, children
expand and build upon their individual schema by linking new information to their

Influence of Storytelling on Literary Development

previous knowledge. Prior to storytelling, in order to strengthen a students reading

skills and in turn build upon a childs schema of knowledge, storytellers should ask
their students text-relatable questions that surface their prior knowledge. Asking
brainstorming questions encourages students to stir up thoughts that anticipate what is
to be read, similar to a asking a child what they hope to dream about as they are being
tucked in.
Storytelling activities are more beneficial than reading to solely relax children before bed,
but can be used to support a variety of early literacy skills. Speaker, Taylor, and Kamens (2004)
pilot study aimed to shed light and evidence on how preschool students develop better linguistic
skills when they are exposed to storytelling. The participants included five preschool children
from the College of New Jersey. These children participated in a demanding four-week
storytelling program, which exposed them to ten storybooks. Following the four-week program
the children were then asked open-ended questions. These questions assessed the childrens
development of linguistic capabilities.
The study concluded that a substantial connection exists between storytelling and higher
levels of language development in children. Children who listen to and read stories strengthen
their language skills while developing a respect and familiarity for books. During the storytelling
process, they determined that asking open-ended questions that inspire creative thinking supports
language development. Questions are to be asked before, during, and after reading. Beforereading questions encourage students to make predictions, visualize the setting, and make
connections to prior knowledge. Encouraging students to making predictions in particular before
reading or even during reading, Speaker, Taylor, and Kamens (2004) pilot noted, plays a large
role in aiding a students language development. During-reading questions monitor

Influence of Storytelling on Literary Development

comprehension by offering students the opportunity to describe what is happening as well as

allows student to make an inference. Once the story has been read, after-reading questions
solidify and apply what students have read.
Methodology
In order to investigate my hypothesis through student active participation in parental
storytelling, children are positively influenced and motivated to better develop creative thinking
and comprehension literacy skills as opposed to non-interactive storytelling I developed a twoweek active story-telling program. The participants of the study included three Caucasian middle
class parent-child dyads from the East coast. I chose to use these participants due to sampling
convenience. Two dyads were from Pennsylvania and one dyad was from North Carolina. The
children selected belonged to a variety of school systems and were close in age. When referring
to each of the children tested from the three samples I refer to them as Child 1, Child 2, and
Child 3 to protect identities. Child 1 is eight years old and attends a Christian elementary school.
Child 2 is seven years old and attends a conventional public elementary school. Lastly, Child 3 is
seven years old and is educated at home.
The substance of the two-week program was six story-telling sessions, occurring between
a parent and their child, three days a week and lasting for about fifteen minutes. During these
sessions, the adult read a story of their choice to their child and engaged them in open-ended
questions before, during, and after reading to stimulate creative thinking and aid them in
pulling meaning from the story. The questions focused on strengthening predicting, describing,
inferring, connecting, visualizing, questioning, and summarizing comprehension strategies.
Prior to beginning the program, the parents completed a reflection sheet so as to provide
additional background information on the role of storytelling in the tested households. In

Influence of Storytelling on Literary Development

addition to the reflection sheet, I constructed a pre-assessment and a post-assessment for the
parents to administer that measured the childrens creative thinking and comprehension skills
prior to and following their storytelling sessions. The pre-assessment and post assessment, which
contain the same activities with differing stories, includes three sections: Section A. testing
creative thinking, Section B. testing story comprehension, and Section C. testing both creative
thinking and story comprehension.
Section A. of the pre-assessment includes the classic fable The Ant and The Grasshopper,
about an ant who prepared for winter while a grasshopper played which the parent was
instructed to read aloud to their child. Section A. of the post-assessment includes another classic
fable, The Miser and His Gold, about a man who hoards his wealth. Following the story, the
parent asked their child open-ended questions that required the child to describe, compare, and
contrast the characters and their identities. The questions also required the children to use their
voices to mimic what they imagined the characters sounded like.
Section B. of the pre-assessment and post-assessment measured story comprehension as
the parents reread the fable while requiring their child to fill in missing words. After skipping a
word, the parents read four different word options to fit in the blank aloud. The children had to
pick the correct word that they thought fit best in the blank that corresponded to the meaning of
the story.
In order to measure both creative thinking and story comprehension through a visual
representation, Section C. had the children illustrate what they pictured in their heads after
reading the story. The childs drawing represented what important parts they took away from the
meaning of the story. This section also offered the children the opportunity to visually
demonstrate their creativity and the range of their imagination while listening to the story.

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Findings
Prior to beginning the storytelling program, all three parents recorded in the parent
reflection survey that storytelling is an uncommon activity within their household. Upon
reflecting on when storytelling does occur, the parents acknowledged that they usually do not ask
questions before they begin reading to their child. Aside from storytelling with a book, all
parents agreed that their child tells stories about their daily lives. All parents listed that their child
describes events that happen to them. When the children tell stories to their parents, all children
use intonation in their voice, however 1 out of 3 parents said that their child used this same
intonation when reading a book out loud.
After the two-week storytelling program, parents admitted to wanting to continue
storytelling in their households. The children enjoyed the time spent listening, thinking, and
responding. All three children participating in the active storytelling sessions demonstrated some
subtle improvements in their comprehension skills and creative thinking skills. Yet, some skill
areas stayed the same and did not show improvement. In Section A., testing creative thinking,
Child 1s pre-assessment demonstrated little creative thinking usage. They briefly compared the
characters by listing what they did in the story. They did not identify which character was which.
In the post-assessment Child 1 again briefly compared the characters, however this time by
listing their motives and not merely listing their actions. Child 1 also related the dispositions of
the characters to personal beliefs and values. The neighbor in The Miser and His Gold used the
word pray as a preface to offering the miser advice.
Recognizing the intention of his advice in supplement to believing the neighbor was a
nice person, brainstormed that the neighbor might pray in their free-time, associating kind

Influence of Storytelling on Literary Development

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behavior with religious affiliations. Applying personal beliefs to make predictions from the
information given in the story demonstrated Child 1s utilization of creative thinking skills.
Concluding Section A., Child 1 altered their voice to identify the differences between the
characters in both the pre-assessment and the post-assessment.
In Section B., testing story comprehension, Child 1 answered all of the story
comprehensions correctly in both the pre-assessment and the post-assessment. Following the
questions in each of the assessments Child 1 was able to describe the main message they took
away from the story to their parents. Child 1 believed that the authors message to the reader was
that one should not sell all of his belongings to buy gold because ultimately gold is not
important.
In Section C., testing both creative thinking and story comprehension, Child 1 illustrated
a scene using only what had been described from the story in the pre-assessment. They drew an
ant carrying a kernel of corn and a grasshopper close by among some plants. In the postassessment Child 1 illustrated a scene that incorporated visible emotions in addition to the
overall plot of the story. The Miser had tears dripping down his face as he peered over the goldless hole in his backyard. By incorporating emotion into their illustration, Child 1 demonstrated
the usage of creative thinking.
In Section A. of Child 2s pre-assessment they briefly explained that the characters were
different because they werent the same type of bug. Child 2 did not describe any key differences
that make the characters unique. In Child 2s post-assessment they briefly described the actions
of the characters that differentiate them in the story, showing a slight improvement in Child 2s

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ability to contrast the characters using creative thinking skills. Similar to Child 1, Child 2 used
intonation to compare the characters in the pre-assessment and post-assessment.
Child 2 demonstrated an improvement in their ability to comprehend the setting of the
story. In Section B. of their pre-assessment, Child 2 initially answered one of the fill in the blank
questions regarding the storys setting incorrectly. However, when asked the overall message of
the story Child 2 corrected their incorrect answer. In their post-assessment however, Child 2
answered all of the questions correctly immediately and demonstrated an accurate understanding
of the setting through their illustration in Section C. Child 2 labeled the characters and drew a
scene before the conflict of the story showing the gold buried beneath the ground and the Miser
proud of his treasure.
In Section A. of Child 3s pre-assessment they described the characters briefly by their
actions and described them off of what was mainly presented in the story. They offered a little
insight of the characters actions about what they would do in their free time that was not
presented in the story. Child 3 identified the characters by genders when asked for what they
would sound like if they could hear them speak. In their post-assessment, Child 3 again
described the characters based off of their actions. However, when asked what the characters
sounded like Child 3 spoke from the characters point of view, using a dramatic and even a
triumphant voice recorded Child 3s mother. Child 3s use of intonation showed an improvement
in their use of creative thinking, moving from a simple description to acting out what the
characters might say and how they would say it.
In Section B. Child 3s pre-assessment they answered all of the fill in the blank
comprehension questions correctly. In their post-assessment they also offered their own word to

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fill in one of the blanks, using prior knowledge to make connections to the new material. Child 3
had been able to take away the main message of both stories in their pre-assessment and postassessment. In Section C. of Child 3s pre-assessment they drew a colorful illustration of the
scenery from the story, but the characters were absent. The absence of the characters fails to
show that Child 3 was able to visualize what happened in the story. In their post- assessment,
Child 3 used less colors but did include the characters. The facial expression of the main
character showed his emotion from the storyline. By including the characters and some emotion
Child 3 showed a better understanding of the story in their post-assessment than in their preassessment.
All three of the Children made subtle improvements in creative thinking and story
comprehension skills after the two week program. Child 1 demonstrated a slight improvement in
making predictions and relating information to personal experiences. Child 1 also demonstrated a
clearer understanding of the story by incorporating emotions in their post-assessment illustration.
Child 2 demonstrated a slight ease in understanding the story in the post-assessment than the preassessment by answering all of the questions from Section B. correctly the first time through.
However overall there was not a significant improvement in Section B. measuring story
comprehension. All children answered most all of the questions correct in both the preassessments and the post-assessments. Child 2 also demonstrated an improvement in their ability
to contrast the traits of the characters and visualize the setting of the story. Child 3 showed
improvements as well, particularly in the area of intonation, or verbalizing the differences
between characters.
Recommendations

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To further develop this study, more research could be done on a larger scale. Instead of
focusing on taking samples from a small town area, samples could extend across the United
States. In addition to taking samples from different locations, samples could be taken from low to
high income families covering a range of different socioeconomic statuses. Having a wider
range of diversity would help expand and apply the results to more children across the United
States. In addition to taking samples from families from different locations and income, samples
could also be taken from children differing in age. Testing different aged children could provide
insight as to whether age serves as a large or small factor affecting the growth of story
comprehension and creative thinking literacy skills through storytelling. Factoring age into the
research could aid in directing parents as to when it is most beneficial to incorporate activestorytelling in a childs literacy development.
In addition to extending the samples of the study, extending the length of the study would
also aid to provide more visible results. Two weeks is a limited amount of time for a significant
measureable improvement in comprehension and creative thinking skills. Two to three months
would provide enough time for parents to work and develop a storytelling routine with their
child.

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