Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Does your child find it difficult to tell you what happened at school, describe an experience or share a story with someone else?
They might respond with “I don’t know,” “I can’t remember,” or provide information that is difficult for the listener to follow.
Storytelling skills, also known as narrative skills, help children organise their thoughts, sequence events and communicate experiences clearly to other people.
Why Are Storytelling Skills Important?
Storytelling skills are important for:
Social relationships and our ability to connect with others. Sharing personal stories is a big part of our everyday social interactions and helps us to develop and maintain friendships.
- Self-esteem and self-awareness. Personal stories add meaning to our lives and help create our identities.
Storytelling can involve several language and thinking skills at the same time. Children need to recall information, organise events in sequence, select relevant details and formulate sentences using appropriate vocabulary and grammar.
They may also need to understand cause and effect and consider what information the listener needs in order to follow the story.
What Can Difficulty With Narrative Skills Look Like?
- tell events out of order
- leave out important details
- move away from the main topic
- include more information than the listener needs
- have difficulty knowing where to begin
- start a story without providing enough background information.
How Can Parents Support Storytelling Skills?
1. Use visuals. Visuals can include:
- Objects you collect during your activity (e.g. shells from the beach).
- Photos or videos that you take during the activity.
- Hand-drawn pictures of the activity.
2. Use scaffolds. A scaffold can look something like this image.
You can write your child’s story down for them and ask them to draw pictures to go with it or have them stick photos next to the text.
Encourage your child to use sequencing words such as first, then, next, last, before and after to show the sequence in which things happened.
Practising Storytelling at Home
Lastly, don’t forget to provide opportunities for your child to practice their storytelling skills. This is a great way to preserve meaningful memories while giving your child opportunities to practise sharing their stories with others. They can tell their story to a family member or friend in person or via FaceTime.
Their stories can be about:
- Family outings (e.g. trip to the zoo).
- Activities (e.g. baking cookies).
- Special events (e.g. birthday party).
- What happened on the weekend.
You can help your child create a “My Stories” book, where you compile all the stories that are meaningful to them in a scrapbook. This is a great way to seal those memories for them and allows them to easily share their stories with others.
How can a Speech Pathologist Help
A Speech Pathologist can assess your child’s language and narrative skills and identify areas where additional support may be helpful.
Therapy may support skills such as organising ideas, sequencing events, developing vocabulary and grammar, including important information and telling stories that are easier for other people to follow.
If you have concerns about your child’s language or communication development, learn more about our Speech Pathology services or Speech & Language Assessments at Innerlink Therapy.