Over the last few weeks various lectures and tutor directed tasks have looked at the power of story telling in all aspects of life. I have found it pretty astonishing to discover just how many books there are to help children to understand and cope with the emotions that each and every one of us struggle with at some point in life. Although I found this totally amazing, I can’t help but feel slightly frustrated at the was I was taught as a child and the ways in which stories were introduced to me.
As a child, I couldn’t stand reading. it was always an activity that I hadn’t enjoyed. the majority of the reading I remember doing in primary school was silent and was simple a time for my thoughts to run away with them selves, at many points wondering what dramas id be going home to that night, or the heated discussions that I had to endure the previous night. This time of silent reading was the only time were we were encouraged to spend time with a book. it was always an isolating experience for me. Because of the lack of reading I did, I also found other aspects of literacy challenging. even now, at the age of nineteen, I find spelling to be challenging at times.
Luckily, by the time I reached secondary school, one teacher was able to find a way to have me engage with a book properly! After years of turning to numbers to relax, I had finally been shown another way, a way that was easy to do regardless of the situations around me.
These recent inputs have been appealing to me due to the nature of some of the stories and the many different things that a story can teach. We read a book the other day which explained loss to a child in a way that wasn’t too heavy; a way that no other method could do. similar stories were read about teaching social skills and learning about different emotions. In an age where technology is taking over, surely it’s time we start to strip things back to basics and give children the chances to do all the things that I never got the chance to do as a child; to fell in love with reading… to realise that it is ok to feel however you feel and you’re not along… and to step out of reality into the weird and wonderful land of stories.
