Nursery World - Learning & Development: Stories

Do the activities first and tell the story later - Michael Jones describes an approach that engages children who may be harder to involve.

In early years settings it is common practice to introduce a theme or topic by sharing a story with the children, and then involving them in various activities based on that story. This is usually an effective way of planning to develop children's learning. However, it makes a very big assumption: that all the children will enjoy, understand and be inspired by the story in the first place.

While many children are able to become readily involved in a story, for others this is not an effective starting point. There may be a number of reasons for this: the story may be difficult for the children to understand, they may not like or recognise the illustrations, or they may lack the language skills needed to make sense of a story. Or perhaps they are learning English as an additional language, and just don't have the vocabulary to follow what the story is about.

Register now to continue reading

Thank you for visiting Nursery World and making use of our archive of more than 35,000 expert features, subject guides, case studies and policy updates. Why not register today and enjoy the following great benefits:

What's included