ABSTRACT
‘Storytelling’ is the ancient and traditional way of spreading news, recording historical events, enlightening and educating, entertaining the masses or but a few, and is carried out by tribal leaders, religious figureheads, parents, family, friends, teachers and practitioners. With the thought of examining the role of storytelling as an aid to the development of literacy, it is necessary to delve deeper and question how children as unique individuals gain from such sessions. Practitioners need to consider the purpose and value of storytelling in today's schools and early year settings. Most storytelling sessions are experienced with individual children or very small groups. A comfortable, positive attitude is laid from the child's introduction to nursery when one-to-one reading is used as an embedded strategy for settling new children. At Wester Coates, staff shares the view that storytelling not only encompasses fairy tales, imaginative stories, accounts of real-life stories, facts and information but also includes rhymes and poems— many of which tell a story.
