A Magical Story-telling Journey
By chance I joined a workshop called ‘The First Teachers Training’ at an elementary school in Tuen Mun. My expectation was getting some pointers of story-telling and tips on working with children. By the end of the second workshop, I was amazed to see how a good story-telling teacher could play magic on a shy kid.
There was a mother who brought her (maybe) 3 years old son joining the workshop. The little boy seemed shy and quiet, not very responsive at the beginning of story-telling demonstration. But the trainer, Percie Wong, was very patient and kept going back and forth to encourage the little boy with different questions about the story before moving onto page. Eventually he produced an answer and from there on, he participated in ‘guessing’ what would happen next. At the end of the story, everyone could see he enjoyed not only the story itself but also taking part in the story-telling. It was only 10, 15 minutes period, the huge change from ‘staring blank’ to ‘pitching in’ for the story-line; to me it was an impressive experience.
This workshop expanded my understanding how important it is to raise a young reader. Teaching a child to learn more words through reading is a very short term view whereas parents should be looking at the long term benefits that reading could bring to children for their school success.
The concept of reading ‘picture’ books is an eye-opener to me too because I learnt now pictures can provoke imagination as well as sharpen their skills in observations. These are valuable tools for a child in his life-long learning path.
Thank you very much, Percie. You shown us the significance of shared reading with good sense of humor and taught us techniques to make reading more enjoyable and fun. Also thank you BMABHK for the training workshop and the very interesting picture books.
Louisa , participant of Community Training Program, (Toi Shan Association Primary School)
