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Oral storytelling with Claire McNicol
Storytelling is a wonderful way of creating connection with your listeners at Bookbug Sessions. Watch storyteller Claire McNicol tell a story collaboratively with a group of parents and children, then follow a step-by-step guide to learning and telling a story by heart.
Three top tips for storytelling
- Begin before the beginning. Introduce yourself, meet and greet the children and parents warmly. Endeavour to learn and use names when inviting participation.
- Eye-to-eye, mind-to-mind and heart-to-heart. This old traveller proverb contains great wisdom on how to tell a story. Making good eye contact with your listeners fosters an intimacy in the sharing and soon storyteller and listeners are resonating with one another.
- Invite participation. Create collaboration with the listeners by inviting participation through:
- Actions and gestures: 'if you've got their hands, you’ve got their minds.'
- Vocal repetition of refrains and dialogue: this can be done chorally or through individual role play.
For storytelling inspiration, why not get started by exploring some of our book lists?
About the Youth Arts Fund
We gratefully acknowledge funding from Creative Scotland's Targeted Youth Arts Fund, which enabled Scottish Book Trust to commission mentors, artists and a young emerging artist to work alongside early years practitioners and families. Through working with artists and mentors, we have been able to develop a suite of specialist resources that support and enhance the principles of early book-sharing and music-making for use by the wider Bookbug community. The mentors gave support to Bookbug practitioners working with target groups of children and families through our Bookbug for the Home programme, addressing concerns around additional support needs and English as an additional language.