The Benefits of Telling or Reading Children’s Stories to Kids.

I cannot count the number of stories I have in my long-term memory. The stories come up when the situations that make me to remember them come up. Most of those stories are fiction. I think some are real but I will never forget anyone of them because my parents told them to me when I was very young. An example is a story about a five-mile race between a rat and a tortoise. The rat knew that there was no way the tortoise would win the race owing to the fact that the tortoise was a very slow walker compared to the rat who was a racer. When the race started the rat ran about two miles and suddenly a thought came to him. “I can stop here and sleep as long as I want, and when I wake up, I will run to the end and still win the race. There is no way the tortoise can win; he is such a slow walker. Ha-Ha” And so, he started sleeping. He slept so long that the tortoise got to where he was and slowly crawled past him. When he finally woke up, he looked behind him to see where the tortoise was, he could not find him, he looked in front of him, no tortoise. “Ha-Ha”. He said to himself “He is way back there!” And so he continued the race but to his astonishment, when he got to the finishing point, the tortoise was already there. What I learnt from that childhood story is that I should never under-estimate anyone. I should put all my zeal into what I do because everyone has their strategies of achieving their goals. The benefits of children stories are numerous but I will just discuss some of them here.

1. Children learnt a lot from stories: Children attribute the objects or characters used in the story with a particular behavior, they decide which character is good to identify with and which character is not good and the lesson of the story is grasped.

2. Stories last a long time in their memories: This is very good because the lessons associated with stories also last long even till adulthood; yes, that is why I was able to relate the story above. It is easier for my mother to say to me “Don’t be like the rat in the rat race”. (That will send a whole lot of information across to me) than to start telling me not to underestimate anybody or all the lessons associated with that story. That is another way to say that stories help to teach good lessons that help to form good character from childhood.

3. Strengthens the bond between adults and children: I remember always believing that certain people always had stories to tell because indeed they always had one when the need arose. My mother and my father always had stories in their mouths just for the asking. Children’s story telling has a type of bonding associated with it. Some children who have stories read to them at bedtime always look forward to it. Sometimes, they do not even keep awake till the end of the story. All they needed was to have their mum or dad stay by their side while they slept. What a sweet feeling!

4. Attention span development: Story time is usually fun time, because the children usually have fun and excitement as they follow the story to the climax and gradually as it comes to a resolution. Their hearts are filled with suspense and attention through the story time. It’s really fun time and the good thing is that while it fun to them they gradually develop attention span which means they learn to keep quiet and listen and focus on the story and this attention span development usually radiates to other spheres of life.
Children's Stories