The Stories Teachers Tell:Incorporating Oral Storytelling into Early Childhood Classrooms

• In Event: Teachers’ Extended Discourse Interactions with Black and Latinx Children in the Early Childhood Classroom

Abstract

One promising avenue of intervention work has focused on supporting young children from low-income, culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, including Latine/x and African-heritage children, by building on the cultural funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992) they bring with them into the classroom. Oral storytelling, in particular, is a common practice for Latine/x and African-heritage communities with a rich oral history and tradition. Oral stories are often shared by caregivers to transmit cultural and family values and strengthen interpersonal connections (Riojas-Cortez et al., 2003). Furthermore, oral stories provide children with exposure to rich extended discourse that helps support their early language and literacy (Cline & Necochea, 2003) and socioemotional development (Hibbin, 2016). By incorporating these cultural oral language practices into everyday classroom routines such as circle time, oral storytelling is a promising avenue through which teachers can scaffold children’s learning in culturally sustaining ways. However, to date, little is known about how teachers share oral stories with their classroom, including the types of stories they share and the strategies teachers engage in throughout the storytelling interaction. Thus, the current study explored the following two questions: 1) What are the most salient features of oral storytelling interactions in preschool and kindergarten classrooms? and 2) To what extent do these features differ by teacher- and classroom-level demographics? Participants included lead teachers from preschool (n​=42) and kindergarten (n​=26) classrooms from seventeen public schools (n​=6) and preschool centers (n​=11) in a large city. Teachers (M​=43.49 years old, SD​=10.68, range=23-62 years old) were mainly female (92%) and 63% identified as Latino (n​=25) or Black (n​=14). At the beginning of the year, teachers completed a demographic questionnaire and survey regarding classroom characteristics. Following training in a classroom oral storytelling program, teachers were asked to share an oral story of their choosing with their class. Interactions were video recorded and later transcribed and verified. Coding and analysis of oral stories is ongoing and follows a Grounded Theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998), using inductive, open-coding procedures. Preliminary findings suggest that the most salient themes include type of story ​ (e.g., adapted from a book, classic children’s tale, cultural tale), interaction style ​ (i.e., eliciting information from children versus providing information), and use of culturally-sustaining strategies ​ (e.g., using call and response techniques or including a dicho​, or saying). Kindergarten teachers appear to elicit information more often from their class than preschool teachers, though there do not appear to be age-level differences in the types of stories shared. Once analyses are complete,findings will be discussed in relation to the practice-based implications of teachers’ use of oral stories for supporting young children’s learning.

Authors

• Cassie Wuest, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Adina Schick, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gigliana Melzi, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author