START WITH SIMPLE STORIES
LIVE In the preschool stage, children listen many different stories throughout the school years such as: fairy tales, folk tales, fables, myths, legends and historical stories. Everything is told by the teacher with all his heart, and touches the children's hearts.
Storytelling helps children develop language. By being aware of their own speech patterns through stories, adults model clear language for children, building children's vocabulary and helping them develop reading skills. language. The ability to grasp language is formed before reading and writing, so we need to expose children to a rich amount of language before entering elementary school..
Morning lessons at a Waldorf preschool always include a story, which can be told or acted out by the teacher. Usually this story will be about nature, or will be a fairy tale or folk tale. Teachers will tell stories from the soul instead of memory, because Waldorf teachers always aim to tell stories with love to touch children's hearts.
Of course, teachers will need to know the story by heart, but once they have memorized it, they will be free to make it their own and retell it in a fun way. Waldorf teachers often choose Grim stories; and when telling, they will not “simplify the original language.” Through rich language from fairy tales, children will build their own vocabulary. Waldorf students, compared to their peers in public schools, tend to have larger vocabularies.
What is important to know is that a child will only imagine a picture in his mind that's as scary as he can handle. For example: if we tell the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff a three year old might imagine a troll that's not much more than a blob, where a six year old might imagine a hairy, ugly troll with big teeth and ears. A Waldorf teacher will tell a fairy tale to young children with a gentle, pleasant voice, without over-dramatization. Again this leaves the child's imagination free to picture the story to be as scary or as benign as he can handle.
The important thing we should know is that children will only imagine scary images in their minds to the extent that they can endure them. For example, when we tell the story “The Three Goats,” a three-year-old might imagine the troll just looks like something shapeless, while a six-year-old might You might imagine an ugly, hairy giant demon with huge teeth and ears. Waldorf teachers will tell fairy tales to young children in a gentle, pleasant voice, without over-dramatization. This, once again, will leave children's imaginations as free to imagine the story as scary or benign as they can bear.
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Written by Ms. Marcie Follett, preschool teacher at Trinus school, Guatemala
Translated by: Trang Tran (Team PlayatHome)
