What happens next?
Engaging Your Child in Storytelling and Critical Thinking
Area of Learning
Schema
Literacy, Communication and Language
What You'll Need:
Storybooks: Choose a selection of age-appropriate storybooks with engaging narratives and relatable characters. Consider including books that have suspenseful or open-ended plotlines, which will encourage your child to make predictions.
Writing materials: Have paper and writing materials, such as pencils, pens, or markers, available for your child to jot down their predictions or draw scenes from the story.
What to do
Step 1: Select a storybook: Choose an age-appropriate storybook with an engaging plot and relatable characters. Consider books that have suspenseful or open-ended elements, as they provide more opportunities for predictions and discussions.
Step 2: Begin reading the story: Start reading the story aloud to your child. As you reach natural break points, such as the end of a chapter or a suspenseful moment, pause and ask your child what they think might happen next. Encourage them to use their imagination and reasoning skills to make predictions.
Step 3: Facilitate discussion: Engage your child in a conversation about their predictions. Ask open-ended questions such as "What makes you think that?", "Why do you think the character made that choice?", or "What clues from the story led you to that prediction?" This encourages critical thinking and helps your child develop reasoning skills.
Step 4: Reflect and compare predictions: After discussing their predictions, continue reading the story to see what actually happens. Take time to reflect on the accuracy of their predictions and discuss any surprises or differences between their expectations and the story's outcome. This helps develop their ability to analyse and evaluate their own predictions.
Step 5: Encourage creativity and expression: Provide opportunities for your child to express their ideas visually by drawing scenes from the story or creating alternative endings. This allows them to further engage with the story and exercise their creative thinking skills.
Extend the Activity
To further enhance critical thinking and storytelling skills, consider encouraging your child to write their own stories or create alternative versions of the story you read together. This allows them to apply their prediction and storytelling skills in a creative and independent manner.
Vocabulary Toolbox
Predict, Anticipate, Guess, Envisage, Imagine, Foresee, Conjecture, Speculate, Presume, Infer, Analyse, Evaluate, Interpret, Hypothesise, Plot, Twist, Outcome, Resolution, Climax, Foreshadow, Suspense, Protagonist, Antagonist, Conflict, Characterisation, Setting, Theme, Symbolism, Point of view, Dialogue.