There are many ways to present stories to this age group – puppetry, pocket stories, finger puppets.  An excellent source is Caroline Feller Bauer.  She is a true inspiration  and she will ignite your own creativity. I have found Caroline Feller Bauer’s New Handbook for Storytellers: with Stories, Magic and More to be extremely helpful. 

There are many similar books in the 372 section of your local library.

At this age group you can read to your children. They can sit on your lap at home and look at the big pictures while you read. In a group (ideally 15 to 20 with aides or parents) you hold the book to the side as your read. An advantage to reading the picture books is that they can be longer stories. As the child progresses through school they enjoy books that are more realistic. These stories involve friends, their neighborhood, or school. There are excellent lists in Jim Release's The Read Aloud Handbook and your librarian will happily help you find the book your child wants to read. Once you find the type of story your child likes to read, the selection process is much easier.

Good stories to tell for this age group include: African folk tales such as Chit-Chat, , Anansi the Moss-Covered Rock, and The Baby Leopard; literary stories such as “The Wishing Star” (Waiting for Spring Stories by Bethany Roberts), The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams, and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak; standard folk tales – Little Red Riding Hood,  Goldilocks, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Gingerbread Man, and The Little Red Hen.  See a much longer list on "The Perfect Story: Part 2."

 

Tell  Kids love it when you tell them stories that happened to you. They don’t have to be well crafted. The incident must have meant something to you for you to have kept the memory. So, go ahead and share it. Here are some story starters for you to share with your child

	The funniest thing happened at my ……birthday party, first day of school, a spelling bee, grandpa's house, etc.
	You won’t believe what happened one year when I went trick or treating…
	My brother (sister) tricked me one year when he/she…
	I was so scared one night…
	My grandpa was a funny guy. I remember one time when he…
	My first bike was a ….

Telling stories is the first step to literacy.  The child is using his imagination as he/she ties together the images as they flow into a story. Some children with attention deficit and learning disabilities are the ones who need storytelling the most. They are able to focus on one activity for 4 or 5 minutes and they aren’t intimidated by squiggly black letters on a page, if they are having trouble reading. For more information on this amazing tool for your children read this article on Storytelling Brainpower.

And from Kate Dudding:

By going to www.storytellinginschools.org  and then searching the site for preschool, I found the following articles:

	http://www.storynet-advocacy.org/edu/research/Sanacore%201989.shtml Reading, Writing, and Storytelling: A Bridge from the Middle School to the Preschool Findings show that most of the preschool children read more books, select a wide variety of materials, maintain a desire to read, and tell their own stories.
	http://www.storynet-advocacy.org/news/winnipeg-sun-8-1-2004.shtml Imaginative Children Better in Math  Math and storytelling may seem like very different abilities, but a new study by University of Waterloo scientist Daniela O'Neill suggests that preschool children's early storytelling abilities are predictive of their mathematical ability two years later. The study has just been published in the June 2004 issue of the journal First Language.
	By searching on kindergarten, I found: http://www.storynet-advocacy.org/edu/projects/Horn%202005.shtml Listening to Nysia: Storytelling as a Way into Writing in Kindergarten According to the author, there are reasons why writing time in kindergarten should begin with oral stories. First, because storytelling begins with the child. Second, by valuing storytelling, the teachers acknowledge the important place of oral language in learning to write. Third, the oral telling of stories gives the opportunity to teach the craft of writing before students can write. Kate Dudding   kate@katedudding.com

 

When I tell at schools, I prefer to tell to grade levels.  There are certain stories and certain types of stories that are perfect for each grade.  I believe any story can be told to any age level as long as the way it is presented reflect the age of the listener. 

So, for the young listeners 6-9 year olds, I am very animated and include participation up to the third grade. The following includes the story types and stories:

	1st – Simple folk and fairy tales from around the world – Sody Salliratus, The Humpback Gorrible, Darby and the Leprechaun, and Rumpelstiltskin
	2nd – Longer folk tales – Sandy and the Toadfrogs, Pink and Green Silver Paper Toffee Paper (a story from Bob Barton),  How Possum Got His Tail (Creek Indian)
	3rd – More intense, involved stories – Abiyoyo,  Anansi and the Hat-Shaking Dance,  Lazy Jack; Native American stories such as Coyote Dance with the Stars.

After the third grade, participating becomes passé.  There are very few stories that I tell with participation unless I think the story really calls for it. I sit down on a stool and let the story come out through my eyes, words, and hands. Here are some ideas for Pre-Teen to High School:

	4th – Beginning scary stories like Tailypo and The Freedom Bird, or involved folk tales like Baba Yaga or The Blue Faience Hippopotamus.
	5th – Legends, Tall Tales and fractured fairy tales (they understand the humor): Skunny Wundy and the Stone Giant (Iroquois), The Hairy Man, Jack and the Haunted House, and Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen.
	6th – Stories with a twist or double meaning – Malice Alice, Brer Possum and Brer Snake and The Whistling Tsonquas.

The junior high audience presents a unique challenge.  If they have not heard of a storyteller, they will assume that they are going to be talked down to.  I start off with a set of what I call my “gory stories.” Eventually I introduce something of a more subtle nature, Greek myths, or a personal story.

7th and 8th  - Mr. Fox,  Mary Culhane and the Dead Man,  The Monkey’s Paw, Once A Good Man, Pandora’s Box,  Makin’ Music.

The high school audience poses another challenge.  Your stories have to be good, well- rehearsed, full of rich language and interesting plots. You do not want to make a mistake with this group. Therefore, (as a rule) I often choose not to tell to this age group. I have gone to high schools for classrooms and for a few assemblies. However, there are some magnificent tellers out there who are up to the challenge.  They tell long Greek myths or literary masterpieces (Ron Adams); or Beowulf  (Pam Klipsch); or original poetry (Jeff Miller); or The Story of Scott Joplin (Bobby Norfolk); or Story Performances (January Kiefer and Blake Travis). 

Discussion about telling stories outside of your culture. See "Multiculturalism thru Stories"

	Tell Coyote Dances with the Stars  (1st thru 3rd )
	Tell Skunny Wundy and the Stone Giant (4th – 8th ) See "Stories 'n Stones"

Ideas for classroom or home-schooling lessons:

I was a classroom teacher in my other life for 11 years.  The last four years I was also a beginner storyteller.  These are some ideas that lifted, borrowed, or developed myself.  Lynn Rubright from St. Louis was a big influence.  Use one or two of these ideas (or come up with one/two of your own). 

Movement (K-4): Pull the movement from the story.  To pull 4 moves from the story, you can have it ahead of time or you can ask the students for an action from the story.  Repeat each action 4 times, go to the next action (4x and repeat previous action), do this for all 4 actions.  This can be quite a workout.  After the group has perfected the four actions, add some music.  If it’s an African story perhaps some African drum music; Irish story – an Irish jig; etc.

There are also children’s games that will lend themselves to characters from a story. Ticki-Picki-Boom-Boom is a perfect example.  Tiger can be prowling around the circle until he taps someone (a yam) on the back.  The “yam” chases Tiger while the group chants “Ticki-picki-boom-boom.”  If Tiger makes it back to the yam’s space, Tiger takes its place.  If not, he keeps prowling. See "Study Guide for Ticky-Picky"

	Math:  I’m not going to kid you.  I dislike math. But I was forced to teach it.  There are many stories that will lend themselves to word problems, graphs, fractions, etc. Ideas for Math are in my individual study guides. Click on "Study Guides" and Generic Study Guide."
	Geography:  Keep a globe and map handy for discussions and locations that will evolve from the setting of the story or the country the story came from.  Often, I had kids trace the story from its origin to our present location – list the continents, countries, mountain ranges, oceans, rivers it had to cross.  For older children we calculate the number of miles.
	Science:  Stories stretch some basic scientific principles.  So after telling a story, do some research on the scientists’ stories.  For instance, Example from the Native American story "Why the Leaves Change Color" Compare the story to the scientific explanation.

Another simple science experiment – bring in an object from the story and place it on your science table for further examination.  Example from Ticky-Picky  – start a “yam plant” (yams and sweet potatoes are two distinctly different plants, but the terms are used interchangeably in the US)

References:

Pirates in Pajamas - on-line site to help parents who wish to tell and encourage their children to tell: http://www.piratesinpajamas.com/index.php?page=15   Free on-line e-newsletter.