“In all the wonderful worlds that writing opens up, the spoken word still resides and lives. All written texts have to relate in some way, directly or indirectly, to the world of sound, the natural habitat of language, to produce their meanings. “Reading a text “means turning it into sound, aloud or in the imagination, syllable by syllable in slow reading or schematically in the fast reading common to high-tech cultures.” -Walter Ong

There are many significant benefits of storytelling for young children. First, children will be exposed to a wide range of storybooks. As early childhood educators, when we expose children to stories, we need to speak in appropriately structured sentences and using the correct way of speaking vocabularies.

Second, storytelling gives children the opportunity to write and act out the story. By doing so, you will help them improve their English. In addition, they will be able to express themselves not only with words but also with gestures and expressions. Therefore, this will help children to improve their thinking, writing and language skills.

Third, by presenting a wide range of stories to children, they will be able to share their experiences with each other. They will be able to share their culture of origin with each other. In this way, they will have a better understanding of other places, races and religions. Therefore, teachers will be able to teach children how to respect each individual’s cultures and differences.

Fourth, narratives can also improve fears. When the teachers observe that the child is going through some difficulties and is not willing to open up to others, he can use different types of stories to help heal hearts by telling them stories to help them overcome their inner fears.

Fifth, storytelling can help children learn problem-solving skills. From the stories, children will be able to explore different types of problems that the characters face. So the role of the teacher comes in, the teacher can pause and ask the children open-ended questions and see how they solve them before continuing with the story.

The storytelling will then also lead to discussions that interest the children. From there, teachers will be able to know what interests children. Then the teacher will be able to generate ideas and plan the lesson according to the interest of the children. This will benefit both the teacher and the children, since children learn best when they learn the subject that interests them.

During storytelling, teachers can use different methods to engage children’s attention. Teachers can use props to introduce a character, underscore a key concept, build suspense, or even surprise listeners. Teachers can also use the apron to tell a story, teachers can introduce the character when they enter the story. Not only does it have that, the teacher can also use participatory storytelling. This type of storytelling will allow children to participate in the story as well. Teachers can also turn the story into songs that children can recite.

Storytelling also plays an important role in shaping a child’s creative abilities. It allows the child to let her imagination run wild and tends to relate the stories to her daily life. When they come across situations similar to the stories they once heard, they would creatively apply what they have learned from the stories to their own colorful lives.

Apart from creative skills, critical thinking skills will be introduced into the child’s world through storytelling. Storytelling is a form of creative teaching that helps instill critical thinking skills. When children hear and understand a story, they process and visualize the story in their minds, and at times when they do not understand the story at any point; Ask questions related to the story. It effectively helps them to use more of their thinking skills.

As an early childhood educator, it would be crucial that we make sure that storytelling helps them in the ways mentioned above. Storytelling is inevitably a useful medium to be used to create and shape our young children in a more creative and interactive way.