“Education is imparted through books, Knowledge is imparted through stories”. This is the motto of Tell-A-Tale. One of the many questions we come across as storytellers is, “what is the right age to start telling stories to my kid?”
Storytelling is not bound by age. In fact, it is one of the very few things in this world that is not bound by age, gender, religion or caste. You cannot tell a Hindu parent not to tell a story from Christian mythology, or a grown up to not read a fairy tale.
So here are our answers in stages, if you may:
1. You can start telling stories to your child when it (yes, it) is still in the womb. Research shows that babies who have been spoken to while in the womb develop speaking skills better and learn to respond to voices faster than other babies. So, the story of Abhimanyu in Mahabharata might not have been exaggerated at all!
2. Read/narrate/tell stories to your infant. If you can throw in a bit of dramatics and expressions, nothing like it. You will be surprised to see how well babies respond to your stories. Your stories and the tone of your story has the power to quieten a hollering infant, put him/her to sleep, and even bring out those giggles, smiles and baby noises you adore.
3. Toddlers, kids between 1-5 years of age respond the best to stories. Storytelling can now be used as a tool to teach them basics like concepts of big and small, tall and short, colors, emotions and even alphabets and numbers. Toddlers who have been exposed to storytelling have been found to be more expressive, social and have a higher IQ level. You could even encourage them to build up their own stories, molding their creativity.
4. Kids above 5-6 years of age normally develop their own reading habits. While you may not be able to sit them down to tell them a story, you should encourage them to engage in storytelling activities with you (a parent) or their peers. Help them enact stories along with their friends, put up small skits and plays which all parents attend, encourage them to build upon stories they have read, enact the stories with them. Remember, your kid is now making a transition to a storyteller herself/himself, and you can be partners in storytelling.
Coming back to the question we started with, “what is the right age to expose my kid to storytelling?”. The answer is NOW. Whether your kid is still an infant or a teenager, take 10 minutes to tell a story or talk about a story every day and see the magic.
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This post was first published at MyCity4Kids.
