How to Let the Children Listen to You When You are Telling a Story

Children love stories. They love listening to stories told in the most interesting way. If the storyteller is good, chances are the children will sit down and get engrossed in the story.

It is sometimes hard to keep very young children in their seats and listen as you relate a story but there are ways to keep those little ones with you while you read them a story.

When I was in my first years of teaching, the hardest part of teaching for me was keeping the very young children in their seats as I talked about their lessons.

As years passed and my teaching experiences were enhanced, I learned that teaching little kids was like playing. You just have to catch their attention and they will be interested in what you are saying and doing.  So, with this helpful tool that I have learned, teaching became easier and more manageable for me.

Back to the lesson about stories; I find story-time an important part of the learning process, especially among the young children.

I tell stories to the children to break the monotony of the activity-filled week. I always make Friday a story-telling day. It is this day when I find the children already bored doing paper works so I give them a break in order to just sit down, relax and enjoy an interesting story.

In pre-school, the young children enjoy story-telling better with colorful pictures and a lot of voice switches. If you are telling a story about a bear, you have to act like a bear and even change the tone and sound of your voice. Likewise, if you are telling a story about a princess, you should, at least, portray the part of a princess.

The story-tellers main role in the storytime is to give life to the characters in the story. If the story-teller is boring, the children will not be interested in listening to the story. Switch voices if possible and use actions to awaken the interest of the children.

Using colorful pictures will enhance the story further. This is because young children love colorful pictures and they love identifying them and connecting them to the story being told. If you can use big pictures, then that is better.

The storytime becomes more interesting and more effective with the children participating in storytime activities. To make the children participate encourage them to answer questions. Some really good children can even continue what you are saying because there are stories that they already heard at home or they have watched on TV or on computers. Don’t underestimate young children because they are sometimes smarter than adults.

Asking many questions keep the children attentive to the story. If you ask questions, each child will be busy thinking of the answer because each one of them wants to give the correct answer. If you use praises as an incentive to further inspire the children to participate in class discussion, then the more the children will be motivated to answer questions.

It is always fair to give each child a chance to recite. Children will say you are playing favorites if you allow only a very few children to do the reciting. As much as possible every child should take part in classroom activities.

Storytime is fun if you listen to the children and let them express how they feel. Don’t dominate the time talking alone while the children sit. The story-telling becomes boring if you don’t call for children’s participation. If they are bored, they will find other things to do and that’s the end of your story-telling.

No matter what answer the child gives, it is important to give it due consideration. Don’t let the child feel that his answer is wrong. There is no wrong answer for as long as the children are just voicing out their opinion or they are talking about the story. Views, opinions, thoughts are never wrong.

Story time is always fun for children. It is important to always integrate this to the other teaching areas to make learning more fun.