Once Upon a Time Vocabulary
When you hear those four magical words, “Once upon a time…,” you are transported into a story’s world. You’ve probably heard reading to your child is good for language development. One reason listening to a story is good is that it helps him learn the “script” of a story. Listening to stories teaches a child about literary vocabulary – those words and phrases that we don’t usually speak, but hear in stories. We don’t generally speak phrases like “a land far away” and “happily ever after,” but reading helps a child understand their meaning and later use them in narratives.
Listening to and reading stories helps a child learn to tell a story. When I teach storytelling (narratives), I uses this framework:
- Use a starting phrase: “one day,” “long, long ago,” or “once upon a time.”
- Tell what the character usually does: everyday he _____.
- Something unusual happens: but today….
- What problem does this create?
- Now think of a solution to that problem.
- What happens in the end?
- Use an ending phrase: “the end,” “they lived happily ever after,” or “he learned his lesson”
