Overview of Story Telling Development – Ages 2 to 7

Description

Narrative tasks (i.e. storytelling, telling news, reports) require the organisation and sequencing of ideas, establishing the main idea and taking different perspectives. Children’s storytelling skills develop over time.

Here are the stages of Story Telling Development for children aged 2 – 7 years:

• Stage 1: Heaps (2 Years). The child relates a collection of unrelated ideas. No cohesive links (e.g. and, then) are used
• Stage 2: Sequences (2-3 Year Olds). The child starts to link story elements together. There is a central character, topic or setting. Tends to be a basic description of the event with no causal or time links.
• Stage 3: Primitive Narratives (3-4 Year Olds) Part 1. Stories contain a central character, topic or setting. They may include emerging story structure elements (i.e. initiating event, actions, consequences), and will often discuss a character’s emotions and expressions. Basic joining words to link ideas may be used (e.g. and, then).
• Stage 3: Focused Chains (4½-5 Year Olds) Part 2. Stories now contain a central character and a logical sequence of events. Stories have a cause and effect or temporal (time) relationship but the plot does not show the attributes or the motivations of the characters. Endings may be abrupt.
• Stage 3: True Narrative (6+ Year Olds) Part 3 & 4. Stories now focus around an incident. There is a true plot, character development and sequence of events. The problem in the story is resolved in the end.

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