6 Education & Schooling A story shared


A professional storyteller reveals the way you read with your child can shape their future. Words: Katie Sipp-Hurley


We’ve long known that high reading skills in children helps lead to greater academic success across the curriculum, but the benefits extend beyond the classroom. In 2022 a collaborative study


by the universities of Cambridge, Coventry and Shanghai found the brains of children under the age of 12 were physically altered by the act of reading for pleasure. Te practice resulted in improved cognition, mental health and physical brain structure. Evidently, early engagement in recreational reading can have a substantial effect on future success and wellbeing. Chip Colquhoun is an education


and reading specialist and co-founder of Epic Tales, an organisation that travels around the UK bringing stories to life for children to enjoy. He has devoted his career to exploring how the power of storytelling can benefit children. Chip believes stories are crucial


to the development of imagination, which underpins everything that makes us successful as humans. “Empathy is imagining yourself


in someone else’s shoes, ambition is imagining your future self, problem solving is imagining a solution to


a problem and hypothesising in science is imagining how patterns will play out,” he explains. How can we help children boost


their literacy skills? Simply, when children enjoy reading, they read more, so the best way to improve reading skills is to encourage a love of reading. Tis can be seen in the government’s 2006 SATs data, which showed 83% of children were leaving primary school having reached the UK’s expected reading standards. Te same year, a National Literacy Trust survey found that 81% of children of the same age reported reading as one of their regular recreational activities. Recognising this, the government


added Reading for Pleasure to the curriculum in 2016, but it didn’t have the expected effect on reading standards. Chip speculates that this is because “if you just tell kids to read, it can feel forced. It needs to be taught in the right way”.


The power of a shared story Troughout his career, Chip has found that the most effective way to teach children is via storytelling. In a study he participated in with the European Lifelong Union, he


10TH SEPTEMBER 2024 FAMILY VALUES DISTRIBUTED WITH


CHIP SHARING A STORY WITH AN EAGER AUDIENCE / ANGELE MARIE HABER


discovered that learning through storytelling (rather than being read to) improved scores in standardised tests by 26%. Chip believes he has learned


the secret of storytelling from his experiences working in UK schools. “Good storytelling should feel like a conversation. Tis empowers listeners, gives them control and makes them want to go out and find more stories.” An essential part of engaging


children in stories is asking questions that go beyond traditional comprehension exercises centred around memory and understanding, and focus more on empathy and


imagination. “It then becomes more a wonder exercise,” he adds, “sharing the joy of discovering the story.”


Inspiration at home In Epic Tales’ educator guidebook, illustrated by Korky Paul (the illustrator of Winnie the Witch), Chip incorporates this interactive approach into lesson plans. But storytelling shouldn’t end in the classroom. Since children so often learn by mimicking their parents, Chip suggests applying this method at home. Instead of treating reading as an academic exercise, he urges parents to explore stories together with their children.


Are parents equipped enough to support their children’s education?


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Chip believes the key to making


reading engaging and inspiring is asking questions. Next time you read with your child, he suggests asking things like: ‘Why do you think this character feels that way? Would you feel the same? Do you want to find out more? Shall we turn the page?’ As the 2022 study showed, taking


time to engage with a story with your child could have myriad positive effects on their education and later life.


Chip Colquhoun’s book All the Better to Read You With: Stories and Lessons to Inspire Reading for Pleasure (£25, Epic Tales)


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