Storytelling with children aged 3 to 6

Speech development is an extremely important, dynamic and intensive process, which is a reflection of child’s thinking and their need for communication with the surrounding environment. It is connected with cognitive and motoric development and is influenced by physiological and psychological factors which can either encourage speech development or slow it down. Factors that positively influence child’s speech competence are early communication with an adult, storytelling and reading, open communication, encouragement of play and imagination, and motivation that leads to child’s independent storytelling, during which he or she verbalises a story and connects their own thoughts, emotions and experiences, and conveys the understanding of their own and other people’s mental states. The aim of our diploma paper, titled Storytelling with children aged 3 to 6, is to study changes in storytelling with children from ages 3 to 6. We study the effect of gender in storytelling, the influence of family environment, coherence and cohesion of the stories told by children, and attitudes of kindergarten teachers towards encouraging speech and storytelling in preschool period. In the theoretical part of the paper, we firstly present child’s speech development and changes which happen in this important period, the first stories and their composition, which is becoming more and more structured and conventional. We also present a picture book and illustrations. We describe criteria for grading child’s storytelling, other connections to storytelling and the mutual influence of these two factors. Secondly, we focus on family environment and kindergarten, and the role they play in speech development. In the empirical part, we present the results of a survey taken by 100 kindergarten teachers working in Central Slovenia and Pomurska Region. Study has shown that the majority of the teachers give much emphasis on speech development and storytelling. They are aware of the influence they themselves and the environment in which a child lives have on speech development. In order to encourage and develop speech competence with children and their vocabulary expansion, kindergarten teachers use different methods and means. They try to enable the children rich and stimulative linguistic environments by providing book corners and playrooms equipped with linguistic elements, and by visiting libraries and other cultural establishments