Amma's Wisdom

the stories and sharings of Madeleine Sklar

Listening, Developing Auditory Learning Skills and The Influence of Short Fairy Tales for Children

Nov 24

Posted by Amma in Chidren's Stories, Parenting | No Comments

My six-year old granddaughter always wants to hear a new story whenever we’re together.  Telling her stories on demand has made me more skillful at creating short fairy tales. Nevertheless it hasn’t necessarily made it any easier for me to remember all the stories I’ve told.  Although we’ve spent our early morning cuddling as I tell her stories, on occasion, when I return after a long day at work finish taking care of my other chores I can forget (when I’m finally free) to write down my morning’s story.

What I find both amazing and helpful is that I am now able to call her, even two weeks later, to ask her to remind me of a story I’ve told her.  I will ask her, “Darling, I remember telling you a story about a dragon, and a story about a haunted mirror, but I forget what the third story I told you was about. Can you remind me?” And, having listened to so many short fairytales, she now has developed a wonderful auditory memory, and so, even a couple of weeks later, she is capable of reminding and retelling me the story I once told her.

Throughout the ages and even today in many parts of the world, the tradition of story telling is, a primary means of teaching and inspiring children.  Listening to stories helps develop their memories. Furthermore, because the child is hearing an un-illustrated story, myth or short fairy tale, the listeners are forced to create the accompanying pictures in their own minds.  This exercise increases their ability to visualize which in turn helps develop their creative imaginations.  When I ask a group of children what “Cinderella or Snow White looks like, most will describe the images by Disney’s artists.  However, after telling them my short fairy tale, “The Bird Girl,” when I ask about the pictures they see in their mind of “Great Grandmother,” tree, or Zaporah (the bird girl) and her friends, it is clear each child has their own unique vision.

From time immemorial, the spoken word has been a major influence on human development.  Throughout most of history children have learned about their society’s values, ethics and expectations, through hearing stories.  Listening to the storyteller’s tales, children learned about their roles in society, they learned about the choices open to them. They experienced empathy and understood morality. If we want to keep the oral traditions and an awareness of the beauty and music of the spoken word alive, we need to promote children’s auditory literacy from an early age.

Auditory literacy is also a necessary component to the learning of languages.  As reading and observing works of art and nature attunes a child’s eyes to the visual world, listening to stories and repeating the ones they’ve heard attunes their ear’s sensitivity, helping them develop their auditory intelligence, which is the basis for learning languages.  There is evidence that early childhood is the best time to learn languages.  Children today are growing up to inhabit a world where communication among people of different nationalities and cultures will be much more prevalent than it was in the world we, and our ancestors grew up in. Watching my granddaughter and her schoolmates play, I realize our children and those who will follow them are growing up to become part of a world where it is beneficial to be at least bilingual, and even better to be multilingual.

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Saving Children’s Auditory Literacy, Imagination and Creativity

Nov 23

Posted by Amma in Chidren's Stories | No Comments

Between the requirements of school and various adult directed “enrichment,” activities, and the demands of homework, even children in kindergarten and the early grades, have very little free time left for day dreaming and independent play.  While school is important for learning social skills, as well as the basics; reading, writing and arithmetic, when a child’s main interaction with adults involves an adult telling them what to do, they understandably grow up without knowing how to deal with undirected time.  This lack of self-direction leaves children vulnerable to “bad influences.” Because they grow accustomed to always being told what to do, they can be vulnerable to uncritically following a leader or group.

When children are unable to be self-directing they have a hard time knowing what to do when they have to entertain themselves.  Thus after having spent a very short time playing alone, they often begin complaining to their parents or the in-charge adult about feeling bored. The busy adult, who is also often over scheduled, will at this point, offer the suggestion that they watch a little television or a children’s movie. If the pictures a child might create in his or her imagination, by listening to a short fairy tale or story are usurped by adult generated images, the child’s ability to visualize is either not able to develop fully, or is lost through lack of use.  Furthermore, all this adult direction, coupled with the visual images supplied by television and/or movies, results in short circuiting the child’s independence, auditory literacy, imagination and creativity.  And ultimately, it results in the loss or delayed development of their ability to think critically, and to question one claiming authority.

When my children were young they spent hours listening to short fairy tales on cassette tapes created by their father and myself.  As a result they both were far ahead of their peers in terms of vocabulary development, comprehension and musical ability.

There have been numerous studies, which suggest that promoting auditory literacy increases a child’s ability to learn foreign languages and also play musical instruments.  This was certainly the case with my own children, and those of my friends and acquaintances who were also raised either without, or with a severely limited amount time spent in front of the television or watching movies.

Just as children need to develop their auditory literacy, and visualizing ability through listening to short fairy tales, they also need to be allowed more unstructured self-directed time, so that they may learn to exercise their imaginations through, free play and even daydreaming.  Providing a child with blank books (not coloring books) and papers of various colors and sizes to paint and draw on, gives them tools with which to create.  Items such as cardboard boxes, duct tape, glue, wood scraps, and whatever other imagination stimulating objects we can collect, are vitally important for the development of a child’s independence and imaginative abilities.  These abilities form the core of all leadership and inventions.

The development of these skills may not be very important if you want your children to be able to be one in an army of workers.  However, these skills are necessary if our children are to be fully prepared to meet the requirements of the twenty first century.  If we want our children to thrive, they must have the ability to communicate with people of other cultures and backgrounds, and they must know how to make their way in a world where self-direction, resilience, creative thinking, and resourcefulness are paramount.

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On Telling Stories To Children

Nov 5

Posted by Amma in Chidren's Stories, Parenting | No Comments

I’ve always loved making up stories and have a passion for short fairy tales and myths. As a child I invented countless tales to entertain my younger brother. After my children were born, I created numerous songs and stories for them and for others in my daycare business. And now that I have a granddaughter who loves stories and always asks me to tell her a new one, I have a new muse, and reason for creating and telling short fairy tales.
Children are and have always been captivated when a storyteller enjoys sharing the drama inherent in a good short fairy tale or story. Although short fairy tales should be easy for a child to follow without growing restless, their attention will be lost if the one telling the story is unskilled and uninteresting speaker. Storytelling is an ancient art. While not everyone can be a great storyteller, anymore then everyone can be a great painter or musician, as is the case with all the arts, most can learn and develop their skill. With practice most people can even become fairly competent at the art of storytelling.
Following my daughter’s suggestion, about a year ago I produced a children’s website so that my granddaughter and numerous other children can either download the stories and read along, or just listen to my recorded stories and short fairy tales on line.
I feel very fortunate to have my husband’s assistance and expertise as a recording engineer. As I read my stories, he recorded them and together we were able to analyze the recorded versions. Once we listened to the recording, especially my earliest attempts, I found that the stories needed to be re-recorded. In the mirror of the recording process I was able to see what vocal choices worked and which didn’t sound as good. This taught me a tremendous amount about becoming a better storyteller. I learned when and to what degree I needed to alter my voice for the various characters in my story. I learned the importance of modulating the pitch and volume of my voice, so that it was both more musical and more dramatically expressive. I realized that increasing the excitement in my voice in some parts, having shorter pauses, speaking faster, or slower in places and even whispering all added interest. I also realized I needed to lower my voice for one or another of my characters so they didn’t sound squeaky. Although you may not have a recording engineer’s help, I highly recommend recording your self so you can listen to yourself telling a short fairy tale. Better yet have a friend listen with you. That second opinion can really help.
Finally, when bringing your stories out to share them in person with either individual children or a classroom full, there is one additional important technique you’ll want to develop.
I found when telling stories to children, that it was essential to overcome my innate shyness. Through fully immersing myself in the story, I was able to ignore the critical inner voice and enter fully and unselfconsciously, into the characters. Becoming one with the story, I became one with my audience.
And so, I learned to brave the dive into the river of a story, where swimming on its current I was warmed and transformed.

On Becoming A Better Children’s Storyteller has been featured on
EzineArticles.com: http://EzineArticles.com/featured/

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Preventing: The Too-Much-Candy Melt Down

Nov 2

Posted by Amma in Parenting | No Comments

Happy Halloween is some times not so happy. The too-much-candy emotional melt down and the too-much-sugar stomach upset are the down side of the holiday. There is also the stress sugar puts on our immune system.
Because It’s important to keep yours and your child’s immune system strong at a time of year when we’re all vulnerable to ill health, due to the increased number of cold’s and flues. I want to share with you my daughter’s solution.
My granddaughter, who loves short fairy tales and stories about dragons, has so much fun of going “trick or treating,” that her mother (my daughter) hates to deprive her of that thrill. At the same time, she doesn’t want her child suffering the ill effects of lots of candy. This then is her solution:
When they get home, the candy from her bag is spread out on a trey. Her child then is given the choice to eat all the candy, or to choose the single piece she most wants and trade the rest of the junk for a prize of her choosing (a book or toy).
As has been the case in other years, this year my granddaughter chose the prize. While the other children at the party ate candy, she happily ate a cheese sandwich and her one small packet of “gummy bears,” her favorite candy while looking forward to the time after the festivities when she’d be able to enjoy her prize, a new book about dragons.

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Hello world! This is my first blog. Although I am confident about writing my short fairy-tales for children, writing a blog is a new experience. So for my first blog, I’m including an article about my process when creating a story.

Oct 22

Posted by Amma in Chidren's Stories | No Comments

About Creating On-demand Short Fairytales And Stories For Children

On occasion I have been asked by people who’ve read or heard my stories, “How do you think up these provocative stories?  Are they really your own thoughts?” In attempting to answer their questions, I’ve had to review and articulate a creative process, which I’ve always taken for granted.  This led me back to the origin of my most recent stories.

Three years ago, I was visiting my granddaughter when she happened to ask her mother to tell her a story. In response to her request, my daughter replied, ” ask Amma. She tells the best stories.” And thus, my most recent foray into creating short fairy tales and stories for children began. With the approach of Christmas, I decided to make a book of four of the stories I’d told her, with blank pages and colored pens for her to add her own illustrations.

As for how I think the stories up: Sometimes the subject of the story or short fairy tale is in response to a child asking for a story about a given character or characters. Other-times it’s in response to a request for a type of story such as a scary story, silly story or an adventure.  And sometimes a child will request the kind of story he or she wants to hear as well as picking the story’s subject. My granddaughter often asks for a scary story about Goldilocks.

Some techniques I’ve developed for creating a story:

To begin with, after a child requests a story, tell them “I’m going to need a quiet moment so I can listen for the story to come into my head.” Than take a few moments to let your eyes become alertly unfocussed.  Allow them to drift from one object to another as you scan the contents of your environment waiting for something to catch your eye.  If your outdoors you might suddenly notice the shape of a cloud, or a particular tree, rock or flower.  If you are indoors do the same with the contents of the room.  Let your mind open and slow your thoughts.  Notice any, images, or associations that drift in.  For example, if you’re outside you might pick up a stone. Turn it over in your hand.  Notice it’s color and texture.  Ask yourself “what does this shape make me think of?  What does it remind me of?”  You might notice a cloud, or tree, or something else.  The same process holds true for whatever you attracts your attention.  These thoughts and associations are the trigger for your imagination.  Allow the object you’ve chosen to be the subject of your story.  For example, my story, “The Little Christmas Tree,” was triggered when, after Christmas, I glanced around the living room and noticed the Christmas tree.  My scary short fairy tale, “The Haunted Mirror,” was inspired when I noticed a mirror on the wall following my granddaughter’s request for a scary story.

Once you’ve allowed the object and type of story to trigger your imagination, the story will flow through you. Like a tap that has been turned on, when you’ve opened to the storyteller within, you may find your self as well, as your audience spellbound listeners, enchanted by the same magic.