Narrative Skills are...
An ability to understand and tell stories and describe events.
Why is it Important?
Narrative skills help children learn story structure, predict what will happen in a story, understand what they read, and build critical thinking skills.
Build the Skill:
Babies
- Talk to your baby as you go through your day, telling him what you are doing.
- Listen to your baby’s responses when you talk – it may be a sound, a wiggle, or an expression – and respond back.
- Share nursery rhymes and bounces with a strong sequence. As you sing them over and over, she’s learning that certain sounds and actions can be anticipated.
- Share books that relate to your baby’s life and talk about what you see in the pictures.
Toddlers
- Narrate the day for your toddler, from the repetition of getting dressed to talking about what you are going to do later. For familiar activities, ask what comes next – “shoes or socks next? Can you hand me one?”
- Listen to your child’s questions and pause to give him time to repeat a word or two. Ask her “what do you see?” or “what happened?” Affirm and enrich her simple answer with a descriptive word “Yes! It’s a brown doggie”.
- Rhyme: Some nursery rhymes are mini-narratives with a beginning, middle and end.
- Read books with a simple plot in which something happens.
- Read and re-read books that give your child a chance to participate by saying what’s coming next, lifting the flaps, or making animal noises.
- Share simple wordless or nearly wordless books and encourage your child to help “read” the story.
Preschoolers
- Give your child lots of opportunities to talk with you.
- Ask questions that can’t be answered with a “yes” or “no”. Encourage your child to think and increase their understanding.
- Read books with a repeated pattern or cumulative structure.
- Enjoy wordless and nearly wordless books that have more complex plots and details. Let your pre-reader help build the narrative by ‘reading’ the pictures.
- Retell favorite stories. Use toys or props to extend the fun and stretch imaginative skills.
- Create verbal stories together. Start with “once upon a time there was a ____” and let your preschooler fill in the blank. Take turns building and retelling the narrative with a beginning, middle, and end.
- Create pictures and books that tell a story. Have your child draw the pictures and tell you the words to write down. Make a scene with stickers and write down what he says is happening.
- Play and imagine. When your preschooler imagines, you are invited into a world-building narrative. Enjoy the adventure together.
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