Story Choices

Project Overview: The Story Choices Project

All Early Years settings know about the value of storybooks to their day-to-day practice, and most already use some of the principles of interactive book reading. This project will investigate how much planning these storybook activities makes a difference to outcomes.

We will compare two approaches, as follows:

• a) Spontaneous or Child-led Approach: Educators ask children to select the book for the daily group reading session or actively involve them in the book selection process. While reading, the questions and discussion points occur spontaneously.
• b) Planned Storybook and Discussion Points Approach: Educators not only select the storybook ahead of time, but they also plan the specific discussion points they will use while engaging children in conversations about the story.

We are recruiting approximately 100 preschool and nursery settings to take part in this project.

Project Objectives

• To assess the value of planning on the effectiveness of storybook reading, with respect to language development and attitudes towards reading.
• To assess the role of different preschool practices in developing language.
• To provide relevant and valuable information to preschools on the most effective way to carry out storybook reading.

Project Impact

This project is important because it will help us understand the best way to plan storybook reading in preschool settings. It will help to improve preschool support in the future.

Outputs

We do not have any publications yet but we will have a report at the end of the project.