From the earliest of times storytelling is an important part of everyone’s culture.

Creating a cosy corner, or spending time at bedtime telling or reading stories is essential for a child’s development.

It is never too early to start telling or reading stories to young children. As well as creating your own routine, libraries or bookshops often have storytelling sessions which gives an excellent opportunity to both identify suitable books, or to hear how others tell stories.

But as well as reading stories, telling stories can also become a favourite family activity. It may seem daunting at first but children love hearing stories particularly if related to their own family, or are favourites that are often repeated.

There are many excellent examples of children’s picture books to help you get started e.g. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson, The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr.

It’s also important to find books that relate to your own culture and situation. Again your child’s teacher, libraries and bookshops can help with recommendations.

Over time you and your children can create their own picture books thus starting them on their own creative journey.

Children also love when stories develop and will often add their own ideas so that the stories become a joint development. They often love repetition and may request the same story over and over again.

When creating your own stories, it can start from the simplest of situations, for example it may relate to a family pet, having a story that revolves around one cat and then each night another cat joins in the adventure. Each cat will have their own characteristics, and as the nights go on the list of cats becomes longer and your child will often have their own ideas about what the adventures could be….

You can also develop this into something that you could write for them if they are staying away without you, or if you are away on business trips. Writing the night’s story can also be helpful for you to remember as it is likely your child will want you to repeat it and they will remember all the little details even if you don’t. For example in the cat’s story I mentioned we ended up with twenty cats all with different characteristics, which was impossible for me to remember although the children did!

Timing is everything, and creating a nighttime routine where going to bed becomes a pleasurable activity with storytime becoming part of their settling down.

The structure of a story is often built around the following key elements:

A character or characters
A location
A situation or series of situations
An outcome
What happens next – A possible future development.

What makes the story come alive is how you tell the story, making the character come to life using funny voices. Children love a sense of the absurd, so making your description of the character more vivid helps them develop their imagination. As the story develops building in anticipation, asking questions of your audience, and then towards the end of the story building up to a satisfying climax, or leaving the audience wanting the next stage of the adventure for another time.

If it is a bedtime story it can be helpful to include a wind down element where the adventure slows, your voice gets quieter and slower, there is an element of sleepiness coming into the end of a story. For example we had a trip into a bluebell wood where all the animals were getting sleepy, first the rabbits went into their soft burrow and snuggled down curling up and feeling really really sleepy, then the squirrels tucked their bushy tails over their eyes and snuggled down in their cozy home in the tree. Then all the bluebells closed their flowery heads, then the birds went back to their nests and closed their eyes, then the butterflies etc. Hopefully by the end your little one will be asleep too!

The joy of storytelling is that it can be created at any time, all you need is your imagination and a willing audience; so in a queue at the supermarket, on a long car journey, on a wet and windy afternoon, or when a child is feeling anxious, or just before bedtime gather them up and allow them to escape to another world and who knows you might create a best selling children’s book!