Implementing Storytelling into the Elementary School Classroom: A Best Practice Guide with Adaptable Lessons

Incorporating storytelling projects and activities in the elementary classroom helps students become more engaged and interested in what they are being taught. Often, there is not enough time in the day to cover all the material, let alone teach students these concepts in fun and engaging ways that every student deserves. Therefore, teachers should be given the resources to help their students learn the material in a fun and appealing way, such as through storytelling. Previous research has shown that storytelling is a multisensory project that reinforces literacy and language skills, increases students’ retention of the information presented, and increases their active engagement (Stanley & Dillingham, 2009).Storytelling is a research-proven and effective method of instruction that can be used to further teach children the six language arts (NCTE, 1996), story comprehension (Campbell & Hluske, 2015), and the parts of a story while encouraging critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration (Lisenbee & Ford, 2018). I have collected data from various research articles and scholarly books that have detailed explanations of three types of storytelling (traditional storytelling, digital storytelling, and performance literacy storytelling). This data will be analyzed in a narrative and informational format style. All relevant data is compiled into a guide that will give teachers the information they need to easily and effectively implement storytelling into their elementary school classrooms with sample lesson plans adaptable for various elementary grade levels and subject areas.