Vivian Gussin Paley’s ‘storytelling curriculum’
consists of two interdependent activities, dictation and dramatization. It has long
been recognized for its impact on young children’s psychosocial, language,
and narrative development. As a result of the Bush administration’s
educational polices, holistic, play-based curricula like storytelling are rapidly
being replaced in early childhood classrooms across America by curricula aimed at
specific sub-skills of the reading and writing process. This article provides a
structural analysis of what happens when children dictate and dramatize original
stories in the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classroom. It highlights the
opportunities for literacy learning around specific literacy sub-skills that are
available in this holistic, play-based activity as well as the teacher’s
role in the process. It also looks at the storytelling curriculum’s
relationship to the goals of a ‘balanced’ approach to early
literacy instruction, including oral language development, narrative form, and word study.
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