Interactive Stories

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• Humans have always told their children stories.
  By imaginatively structuring and restructuring
  experience we make it personally and culturally
  meaningful (Brownlee, 1993).

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• Interactive stories are about combining
  storytelling and drama but at the same time
  drawing out dispositions such as-
• compassion for others,
• co-operation,
• helpfulness,
• a sense of awe and wonder for the world they live
  in,
• altruism
• empathy

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• Interactive stories help to present information
  and ideas in a different way.
• They are an alternative means of describing and
  communicating and allow children to contribute
  their own knowledge about the world.

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Benefits of reading to young children

• Stories are a central part of a childs learning
  and development
• Stories help children to understand their world
  and make sense of their lives.
• Through stories young children begin to organise
  events that occur to or around them.
• They also learn the essential skills needed to
  read and write.

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• Stories help children to define their
  relationships to people and to the environment.
• Children use stories to process and reflect on
  their own experiences.
• Stories are emotional experiences.

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• Stories give children the words they need to
  express what they are feeling, and a context to
  help them understand those feelings.
• In addition to building cognitive ability and
  improving critical thinking skills, listening to
  stories also helps children become more
  confident, creative and resilient when faced with
  day to day problems.

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Childrens Narratives

• Research on narratives is based on Vygotskys
  (1978) social interation approach which states
  that humans are fundamentally social and cultural
  beings and that any cognitive skills have a
  social interactive origin.
• The term narrative implies listening to and
  telling or retelling stories about people and
  events

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• Storytelling builds vocabulary, enhances
  imagination, increases story understanding, and
  builds comprehension.
• Research on brain development reveals that the
  human brain stores and recalls information best
  in story form. Stories offer multiple connections
  that the brain can "grab" in order to absorb
  information, thus allowing more rapid retrieval
  and longer staying power.

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Benefits of Drama

• The ability to pretend and to leave the real
  world for a fictitious one, gives a different
  viewing point from which to see the world to
  discover, consider and make meaning of the world
  from a safe perspective.
• Drama gives children the opportunity to rehearse
  imagined and real situations and to find
  solutions to problems

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• Drama helps children to develop self-esteem. It
  teaches children about social co-operation and
  group interaction.
• Drama helps children understand others different
  from themselves and allows them to put themselves
  in anothers shoes.

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• Helping children to act out their stories and
  re-write more favourable endings, sometimes helps
  children to cope with stress and trauma.
• The use of fictional contexts puts children in
  control by being able to use their existing
  language, experience, motivations and interests.

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• Combining storytelling and drama enables
  children to
• Participate
• Take on other perspectives
• Extend their thinking
• Extend their language skills

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Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi

• Partnership
• Participation
• Protection

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Links to Te Whariki

• Holistic Development
• Empowerment
• Family and Community
• Relationships
• Belonging
• Contribution
• Exploration
• Well-being
• Communication

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Relationships

• Between children and children
• Children and adults
• Adults and adults
• Children and the natural world

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Family and Community and Belonging

• The stories are mostly based on New Zealand
  contexts, wild-life etc and affirm for children
  that this is the place where we live, this is
  where I belong.
• They draw on everyday contexts such as events
  like going to kindergarten for the first time.
  The stories also depict people in the community
  such as the post woman.

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Empowerment and Contribution

• The stories can easily be adapted and changed.
• Teachers are encouraged to ask children to
  predict what might happen next and to go with
  their suggestions.
• This empowers children when they take control of
  the story

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Holistic Development, Communication and
Exploration

• The stories may lead to further exploration of
  the topics that are presented, for example, the
  elephant story may inspire a project on the
  natural habitat of jungle animals.
• This helps to extend childrens thinking and
  language abilities.
• These stories help children to identify emotional
  states such as happy, sad, and satisfied.

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Well-being

• Storytelling is an emotional event and one that
  can be exciting, soothing, or sad.
• When children participate in these stories and
  have a part to play, there is a sense of
  satisfaction and of achievement.

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Props

• These can be made by the children and/or the
  teachers or bought cheaply from the 2 shop.
• Some of the stories illustrate the importance of
  protecting the environment and use animals as
  props. These can be bought cheaply from second
  hand stores.

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Writing your own stories

• Actively listen to children to hear their
  stories.
• Traditional and familiar stories can be easily
  dramatised.
• Learning stories can be developed into story and
  drama episodes and may also develop into other
  projects.

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• www.userfriendlyresources.co.nz
• www.maestros.co.nz
• Whitireia Community Polytechnic