Narrating Fun with Your Child

Want to keep story times fun and engaging? Here are some easy tips to help you out

It’s a given. Little ones love stories. Be it during the day or before bedtime. Stories have the power to keep them entertained and switch boring situations into fun ones. Narrating a story to a young listener weaves an enchanted spell on little ears as well as the storyteller.

Here are some tips to make storytelling interactive and a fun way to spend quality time with your kids.

Add an element of curiosity

The good thing about books is that there is always more to discover. If your child has a favorite storybook that he likes you to read, again and again, spend time looking closely at pictures and spot new details and characters you might have missed before. Look at pictures and ask your child to describe the picture to you. This will help visual literacy skills and make your child understand the story better.

Bring stories to life

Visual aids can help tackle complex elements and unfamiliar stories with ease. Pictures can avoid distractions holding the attention span for longer during story times. Printouts, comic strips, and puppets can help bring stories to life to entertain young minds.

Let your child finish off sentences

Give your child a chance to add to the story using their imagination. Start the story with something like, there was a boy named Jack, who loved to... and pause! Let your child fill in the blank by using their imagination and see where their mind takes you.

Get creative

Involve in some crafty activities related to the books you read and bring them to life. If you are reading a book about baking, try baking a cake together. You can make up your rhymes about what happens in the book and build characters using blocks or Lego. If the kids in the story came across dinosaurs, you can make a forest at home with dinos in it. Getting crafty and creative will give your story a new life.

Be a little mischievous and silly

How did the evil witch sound when she asked the mirror who is the most beautiful of them all? Or how the hungry grasshopper begged for food from an ant when winter comes? Children love being imaginative and they love it, even more, when you change your voice and act out the character.

Adding a little drama and mischievousness to your storytelling sessions is the best way to see reading as playtime not work time which gets children on the path to becoming lifelong readers. Putting on a silly act is sure to get a good laugh from the kids making story times even more memorable and enjoyable.

Use sounds to keep your child engaged

When you come across imitative words during storytelling like pow, woof, hiss, grunt, roar, chuckle, coo, bang, and more, act it out. Watch your little ones giggle, chuckle, or get startled. It is a great way to make story time interactive, and build suspense and recall. This will also keep your child engaged and excited for the next story session and build your child’s listening skills.