Rowanfield Infant School

Story Making

What is Story-Making?

The Storytelling and Story-Making approach involves:

* learning and repeating oral stories using actions and story maps as visual aids

* building the confidence to develop them through telling

* extending this development into writing

* creating 'new' stories orally as a preparation and rehearsal for writing.

The development of Story-Making is built through a 3-step sequence:

* Imitation: straight retelling of learned stories.

* Innovation: developing, extending and changing elements of a story.

* Invention: creating a 'new' story.

Why do we use Story-Making at school?

* Children build up a bank of story patterns that they can incorporate into their own writing (e.g. rags to riches, quest).

* They become familiar with lots of ‘story language’ (once upon a time, early one morning, suddenly, unfortunately etc) which they can use in their own writing.

* They become more confident speaking in front of the class and listening to others.

* Story-Making builds children’s confidence in themselves as writers. Learning and adapting a story they have been taught orally is a stepping stone on the way to inventing and writing their own stories.

How we teach a story

* The teacher introduces the story and the actions to the children and they are gradually encouraged to join in until they can tell the whole story independently.

* We spend a few days learning the story and playing games to help remember the actions.

* The children draw a story map and use this to help them tell the story in the right order and remember key words.

* We further explore the characters and plot of the story through dramas activities such as hot seating

* When the children are fully confident with the story orally we then ‘innovate it’ changing certain elements.

* They then write this innovated story – they are using the structure of the story that they have learned but using their own ideas.

* Once children have a bank of story structures that they are familiar with, they can confidently invent their own story.

How you can help your child at home

* Help your child to learn the story off by heart.

* Practice the story with the actions. Story-Making actions help the children to learn and remember the whole story by highlighting key

words and characters, repeated phrases, story language and connectives.

* Use the story maps sent home and on the website. Story maps provide a visual representation of the events in the story, include key words and connectives and help the children remember all the events in the right order.

* Encourage children to make up their own stories either orally or in writing.

Each term that Story-Making is taught, story scripts and story maps will be added to this page of the website to allow you to access resources to help at home. You will also find a description of the common Story-Making actions we use at Rowanfield Infant School. If you have any questions about how we teach Story-Making or how you can help your child learn a story then please speak to the class teacher or Miss Street the English Subject Leader.

Rowanfield Infant School - Storymaking Actions

Once upon a time	Closed hands, then open as a book.
Early one morning	Closed hands at side of head sleeping, open hand and lift over head as sunrise
And	Cross index fingers (add sign)
Then	Roll hands
Next	Hands out, palms touching each other.
But	Hands out, palms facing upwards.
Unfortunately	As but, but shrugging shoulders, with sad face
Fortunately	Hands on chest, drop shoulders – phew!
So	Sewing action with needle and thread
Finally	Hands clasped together
Luckily	Wipe hand across forehead and shake out (phew!)
After / after that	Palms facing each other, chopping
At that moment	Point index finger to imaginary watch (same as ‘while / meanwhile’)
Because	Link fingers
By the next morning	‘Next’ action, then ‘early one morning’ action
In the end	Palms facing inwards, bring hands together
First/ at first	Point index finger
Second	Index and middle finger
Third	Index, middle and ring fingers
Now	Point down aggressively
One day	Point index finger, open hands like a fan
Soon / as soon as	Brush one hand away from the other
Suddenly	Hands up level with head, fingers splayed
To his amazement	Cup hands under face
Although	‘Weigh up’ arms
However	Index finger wagging
Immediately	Two hands point down aggressively
Eventually	Back of hand on forehead
Who	Finger on side of mouth – look quizzical
While / Meanwhile	Point index finger to imaginary watch (same as ‘at that moment’)
Later	Hands making forward steps
A long time later	Pinch fingers, move across body
Whenever	Move hands over each other (hand jive) x2
Without warning	Hands over mouth
After a while	Point at imaginary watch, move up arm
In a flash	Flash fingers
It all began	Cross arms
Until	Cup hands round face