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STORYTELLING IN
EARLY CHILDHOOD
Storytelling in Early Childhood is a captivating book which explores the multiple
dimensions of storytelling and story acting and shows how they enrich language
and literacy learning in the early years. Foregrounding the power of children’s own
stories in the early and primary years, it provides evidence that storytelling and
story acting, a pedagogic approach first developed by Vivian Gussin Paley, affords
rich opportunities to foster learning within a play-based and language-rich
curriculum. The book explores a number of themes and topics, including:
• the role of imaginary play and its dynamic relationship to narrative;
• how socially situated symbolic actions enrich the emotional, cognitive and
social development of children;
• how the interrelated practices of storytelling and dramatisation enhance language
and literacy learning, and contribute to an inclusive classroom culture;
• the challenges practitioners face in aligning their understanding of child literacy
and learning with a narrow, mandated curriculum which focuses on measurable
outcomes.
Driven by an international approach and based on new empirical studies, this
volume further advances the field, offering new theoretical and practical analyses of
storytelling and story acting from complementary disciplinary perspectives. This
book is a potent and engaging read for anyone intrigued by Paley’s storytelling and
story-acting curriculum, as well as those practitioners and students with a vested
interest in early years literacy and language learning.
Teresa Cremin is Professor of Education (Literacy), The Open University, UK.
Rosie Flewitt is Reader in Early Communication and Literacy, UCL Institute of
Education, UK.
Ben Mardell is Project Director at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School
of Education, USA.
Joan Swann is Emeritus Professor of English Language, The Open University, UK.
A much-needed resource for early childhood teachers and literacy educators! Storytelling in
Early Childhood: Enriching language, literacy and classroom culture documents the value of play
in an era when playtime for superhero stories and sand castles is crumbling under the harsh
glare of teacher accountability. Inspired by Vivian Gussin Paley’s groundbreaking work on
storytelling and story acting, this contemporary collection is a refreshing respite and reminder
that children still play to learn. Nine leading early childhood scholars provide thoughtful
theorisation and convincing evidence of the power of children’s play and storytelling and
the richness of literacy learning, when their teachers take children seriously, listen deeply,
and respond imaginatively.
Karen Wolhend, Indiana University, USA
This book brings together a section of research from different disciplinary perspectives,
focusing on the important themes of the role of narrative, storytelling and imaginative play
in children’s learning. Centred on a timely revisiting of Vivian Gussin Paley’s work, the
authors bring new and contemporary insights into these themes. The book has many features
that will engage different audiences.
The chapters report empirical work across international contexts, using a range of
theoretical and methodological frameworks. Each chapter contributes to the vibrancy of
research that brings together literacy, play, storytelling and drama. What also stands out is
the quality of relationships between children and adults – a theme that recurred throughout
Paley’s distinguished work. The engagement with inclusion and diversity is embedded
throughout the book, reflecting the commitment to democratic classrooms, pedagogies and
relationships.
The interdisciplinary nature of the research projects reported here shows the strength of
using different lenses, and what emerges when we think within and beyond disciplinary
borders. The authors engage with some well-established theoretical ideas, but from new
angles, and with a critical edge that provoke new questions and debates.
This book is multi-vocal and multi-modal in that there are many voices in the chapters
–those of the children and the adults who work with them, of professional story actors and
storytellers, all with a deep interest in children, and ways of working creatively with them.
Inevitably, there is some well-justified critique of current policy frameworks that emphasise
an acquisition model of literacy and language, and that ignore the complex social practices
that are portrayed so vividly in this book. The authors all respect children’s agency as
fundamental to their engagement with literacy as part of everyday social practice.
The book offers theoretical, empirical and practical insights, and outlines new
provocations for future research in this field. I recommend this as essential reading for
students, researchers and practitioners in early childhood education, childhood studies,
language and literacy studies, and playwork.
Elizabeth Wood, University of Sheffield, UK
Motivated by the work of Vivian Gussin Paley, this volume has a triple focus – children’s
own stories, acting them out, and all in the context of playful learning. While we rush
children forward, we take the joy out of literacy; this book argues for a vibrant approach that
is child-initiated, shared and highly collaborative. Collateral benefits such as perspective-
taking and executive function skills associated with storytelling and acting abound.
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, University of Delaware, USA
STORYTELLING IN
EARLY CHILDHOOD
Enriching language, literacy and
classroom culture
Edited by Teresa Cremin, Rosie Flewitt,
Ben Mardell and Joan Swann
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 selection and editorial matter, Teresa Cremin, Rosie Flewitt,
Ben Mardell and Joan Swann; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Teresa Cremin, Rosie Flewitt, Ben Mardell and Joan Swann
to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-93213-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-93214-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-67942-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
CONTENTS
Foreword by Vivian Gussin Paley vii
Notes on contributors ix
Introduction 1
Teresa Cremin, Rosie Flewitt, Ben Mardell and Joan Swann
1 Laying the foundations: Narrative and early learning 13
Teresa Cremin and Rosie Flewitt
2 Paley’s approach to storytelling and story acting:
Research and practice 29
Rosie Flewitt, Teresa Cremin and Ben Mardell
3 Promoting oral narrative skills in low-income preschoolers
through storytelling and story acting 49
Ageliki Nicolopoulou
4 Apprentice story writers: Exploring young children’s print
awareness and agency in early story authoring 67
Teresa Cremin
5 Young children as storytellers: Collective meaning making
and sociocultural transmission 85
Dorothy Faulkner
vi Contents
6 Stories in interaction: Creative collaborations in storytelling
and story acting 101
Joan Swann
7 Dramatic changes: Learning in storytelling and story acting 119
Gillian Dowley McNamee
8 Vivian Paley’s ‘pedagogy of meaning’: Helping Wild Things
grow up to be garbage men 133
Patricia M. Cooper
9 Equity and diversity through story: A multimodal perspective 150
Rosie Flewitt
10 Promoting democratic classroom communities through
storytelling and story acting 169
Ben Mardell and Natalia Kucirkova
Conclusion: Storytelling and story acting: Rays of hope for
the early years classroom 186
Ben Mardell and Joan Swann
Index 199
FOREWORD
Vivian Gussin Paley
‘Where did my story come from?’ Walter asks, watching me write the final
sentence of his dinosaur story. This week his hero is a mischievous dinosaur who
is locked in jail but always finds a way to escape. Next week Walter will be a lion
who eats dinosaurs. Whatever the cast of characters, Walter’s classmates are as eager
to help him act out the stories he dictates as they are to play with him in the blocks
or on the playground.
‘That’s an interesting question, Walter,’ I say. ‘I wonder about the same thing.’
I could tell him that lots of grownups are curious about the origins and purposes of
this constant make-believing going on. We even create research projects and write
papers to explain our theories and pose new questions.
However, the matter of where Walter’s dinosaur story comes from is his query
and he pursues his own answers. ‘It’s from my dreams,’ he decides.
‘I think you mean from your pretend dreams, Walter,’ Andrea says. She is next
on the list of those who signed up to dictate a story. Hers and Walter’s will be acted
out with all the other stories told that day. ‘I mean like when you’re in bed and
you pretend to be someone else.’ Andrea’s ‘someone else’ is usually Baby Princess
Rainbow, a role she takes in the doll corner as well.
I write Andrea’s name at the top of her paper and await her story. The subject
and words will be hers, and it is in the power of each storyteller to influence the
culture and imagination of the group. We humans have much in common with
other primates when we are young. But we alone tell stories. We all crawl, run,
climb and jump. We play with siblings, pretend to fight, and find ways to
communicate our joys and anxieties. We keep an eye on Mom while moving away
from her in small steps, but only the human child invents plots and characters to
accompany the full range of our feelings and experiences.
The narrative begins in the baby’s crib and may well be the earliest design for
storytelling. ‘Peek-a-boo’ sounds like the original lost and found plot, acted out of
viii Foreword
the fear of being left alone. What joy to act out these dramas again and again as the
child grows older and, happily, a vehicle has been provided, free of charge. It is
play and its natural counterpart storytelling, just a step away from play and
recognizable by every child. Walter’s dinosaur, first jailed and then escaped, is not
so far from Peek-a-boo.
In Storytelling in Early Childhood our scholarly writers demonstrate their respect
and admiration for the unique differences in each young storyteller and in the
environment in which stories are told and dramatized. We are invited to study
children from new perspectives and to re-examine our classrooms with awakened
curiosity and creativity.
There is so much to wonder about: How do young children use their narrative
talents to climb the ladder of social awareness and help others do the same? Why
does the simple act of playing inside a story heighten its imagery and so easily serve
the goals of literacy?
It is the theatre of the young we are being asked to reconsider. The world’s
oldest and most reliable tool of education is taking its proper place in the early
childhood classroom and we will want to add our voices to the instructive and
inspiring essays in this book. We want to know what has been lost in our children’s
early years and how we might find new ways to reset the clock. The children will
have much to tell us if we listen to them carefully.
CONTRIBUTORS
Editors
Teresa Cremin is Professor of Education (Literacy) in the Faculty of Education and
Language Studies at the Open University in the UK. Her sociocultural research
focuses mainly on the consequences of teachers’ literate identities and practices,
and creative pedagogic practice in literacy, the arts and the sciences from the early
years through to Higher Education. She has a particular interest in volitional
reading and writing. Her research is frequently co-participative, involving teachers
as researchers both in school and children’s homes. A Fellow of the English
Association, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Royal Society of the Arts,
Teresa is also a director of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust and a trustee of
the UK Literacy Association. Teresa co-convenes the British Educational Research
Association’s Creativity Special Interest Group and is a member of the Economic
and Social Research Council’s Peer Review College. Previously she has served as
President of the UK Reading Association and the UKLA and as a trustee of the
Society for Educational Studies (SES), and as a board member of BookTrust and
the Poetry Archive. Recent publications include: Researching Literacy Lives: Building
home school communities (Routledge, 2015); Building Communities of Engaged Readers:
Reading for pleasure (Routledge, 2014); and the co-edited (with Kathy Hall, Barbara
Comber and Luis Moll) text, The International Handbook of Research into Children’s
Literacy, Learning and Culture (Wiley Blackwell, 2013). Her next book is Writing
Identity and the Teaching and Learning of Writing (Routledge), edited with Terry
Locke. Teresa is editor of the series Teaching Creatively in the Primary School
(Routledge).
Rosie Flewitt is Reader of Early Communication and Literacy at University
College London Institute of Education (UCL IOE) in the UK, and member of
