Nursery World - How to be slow… with stories

There are several ways that settings can make reading and telling stories a slower, more beneficial experience, finds Alison Clark

Children tell their own stories in different ways, in their own time.

A love of storytelling can be one of the longest-lasting gifts young children can gain from their early years experience. Stories can be read, drawn, performed, sung, sewn and made. But sometimes engaging with stories, in their many forms, can become just a lifeless routine. In the need to ‘get on’ with the next thing, it can be rushed. Parents can find this too. Carl Honoré writes about searching for a ‘one minute bedtime story’ to read to his young son. This was the catalyst for him to try to find ways to slow down and enjoy the present moment, and led to his book In Praise of Slow(2004).

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