Family stories are a rich source of knowledge about the world of narrative texts. Although they are spoken, not read, they share many features of printed text, helping a child to understand how stories are organized and crafted. And family stories have the added value of being intrinsically motivating since they are, in a way, about the child s own self. They establish and explain both the child s sense of belonging within the family, and the family s uniqueness in a world full of families. Children Telling Their Own Stories Of course, adults are not the only ones with family stories to tell.
Children have a multitude of stories, just waiting for a chance to be told.
Telling their personal stories allows them to bring some order and understanding to the jumble of people and events that crowd their busy days. It allows them to organize their thoughts and practice expressing them in a form that s comprehensible to others. There was a little boy. And he tells his mom to get the ball and the mom gets mad and locked him in her room. Oh, my goodness.