The Role of Storytelling and Story Reading in Preschool Classrooms: An Investigation

This study focused on teachers’ perceptions of the use of storytelling and story reading in pre-kindergarten classrooms in order to address current national education goals for literacy skills in young children. A mixed method approach was used to obtain data. Twelve teachers were surveyed regarding intentional use of storytelling and story reading as well as child-initiated storytelling and story reading in various areas of the classroom. Follow-up in depth interviews were conducted with two teachers and sample lesson plans were obtained. Results indicate that implementing both storytelling and story reading components into multiple areas of the pre-kindergarten classroom would be beneficial to children’s development of literacy skills. Recommendations for practice included providing teachers with training and educational opportunities around literacy techniques such as storytelling and story reading in order to increase their ability to be successful in achieving national literacy goals