The Magic of Storytelling- by Dipnarayan Chakraborty, Research Head at Zee Learn Limited

Philip Pullman, the famous British writer once said “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
We hear stories everyday –our colleagues tell us about what they did over the weekend, our grandparents share about their experience during the early days of their youth, our children tell us about their picnic experience and many more. What is it that is so captivating about stories,that they draw our attention irrespective of our age? Research states that stories not only activate the language processing area in our brain, but they activate all the areas of the brain that would have been active had we been actually experiencing the story! So, for example, if somebody is sharing their experience of having eaten an amazing dish, while we listen to it, our brain activates the area that would have helped us taste the food had we been actually eating it.
Such vicarious experiences play an important part in a child’s development as well. Children love to hear stories, tell stories and love everything with stories. It can be a bit taxing for parents to be able to come up with new stories or tell the favourite story over and over again, but don’t skip that part! And, if you are concerned that your child is ‘telling stories’ as well, let’s see why we should engage our children in storytelling more often.
• Language Development: Listening to stories help children gain an exposure to a world of new words. Storytelling introduces them to intonation, expressiveness and basic conversation skills. Research has shown that children whose parents speak to them frequently (i.e. narrate things/incidents to them) learn to speak much earlier as compared to children who are less spoken to. This is because of the exposure they get to the language nuances through their parents. On the other hand, narrating stories help children develop their language skill as it gives them an opportunity to practise speaking a given language. Hence, they will construct sentences, create characters, build a plot and think of a climax; all of this will help them build their conversation skills and make their hold on language much stronger.
• Cognitive Development: Children love to listen to, as well as narrate stories. Therefore, stories help children build on their ability to memorise. Stories givechildren an opportunity to memorise a sequence of events, characters, plots, etc. Some children also have a tendency to tweak a story everytime they retell it. This helps them develop the creative and manipulative skills required to be able to tweak a given story. The ability to tweak a story will also help pave way for eventually being able to create a new story. Hence, it indirectly encourages children to be more imaginative and creative.
• Social Development: Listening to stories gives children the exposure to basic social norms that they are expected to follow as a part of a given society. It helps them understand that they are individuals who are a part of a bigger system, the society, and they need to follow certain norms in order to be an accepted member of this society. Values imbibed through childhood stories take deep roots and shape our worldviews. Stories also encourage children to be more participative in a group set-up and become better listeners.
• Intercultural Understanding: Stories give children an opportunity to explore the various cultures that exist and had been existent many years ago. It gives them an opportunity to learn more about the different people that live around the world along with the traditions and values they follow. This helpschildren understand the differences and similarities that these cultures celebrate alongside being able to appreciate them.
As you saw, listening, reading and speaking are three important ways through which children participate in stories. Nowadays, ‘watching’ (movies and television) and ‘playing’ (video games) have also emerged as significant modes of participating in stories. While we bring increasingly richer and diverse story experiences to our children, we need to balance all modes of participation to help develop most skills. Overuse of passive participation modes (e.g. watching) may hinder a child’s development instead of quickening it. We need to promote active engagement of children in stories, and, although it may take more effort, it is infinitely more rewarding.