Storytelling and Story Acting Across Cultures: Early Childhood Teacher Researchers Investigate Language and Literacy Learning

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Storytelling and Story Acting (ST/SA; Cooper, 2011; Paley, 1990), in which children’s stories are transcribed and acted out by their peers, offers an effective, culturally sustaining (Paris & Alim, 2017) approach to fostering young children’s oral language development (Cooper, Capo, Mathes, & Gray, 2007). In this symposium, teacher researchers from three different cultural contexts (U.S. public kindergarten; rural Kenyan preschool; Swedish language-immersion program in the U.S.) used practitioner inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) to investigate a shared question: In what ways might ST/SA support young children’s oral language development in our contexts? Findings show that ST/SA allowed oral language goals, including vocabulary and concept development, to be addressed through play across cultures.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Teacher as Researcher

Chair

• Patricia M. Cooper, Queens College, CUNY

Papers

• Storytelling/Story-Acting in a U.S. Kindergarten: Social-Emotional Learning, Common Core State Standards, and Play - Jo-Ellen Rowley, Essex Westford School District

• Storytelling and Story-Acting Enhances English Language Development in a Rural Kenyan Preschool - Rebecca Ngaywa, Blossoming Cherries Learning Centre; Sybil Wakaka, Blossoming Cherries Learning Centre

• Välkommen till Sagoteatern: Storytelling and Story-Acting in a Swedish-Immersion Preschool in the United States - Megina Baker, Neighborhood Villages

Discussant

• Patricia M. Cooper, Queens College, CUNY