Educators and researchers advocate storytelling as a significant contribution to early literacy development. Storytelling has a myriad of positive effects on literacy and actually is an effective bridge of oracy and literacy. It can:

• improve listening skills
• motivate a child to read good literature 
• introduce a child to culture and community 
• increase fluency and comprehension 
• build vocabulary skills

How can storytelling be implemented into a child’s education?

Australian Storytelling recommends educators to,

“Cultivate the development of children's literacy skills, by providing opportunities to play with words, with story, and with text. After hearing a story invite children to retell it (orally), reenact it, or retell it (in 'graphic speech' or text). Employ effective questioning to extend their retelling skills. Embrace the creation of children's own stories expressed in any form, be it orally, pictorially, acted out or written down; and extend their skills by playing with it in a number of these different forms. Build on children's knowledge of narrative and their understanding of the world, by exposing them to a broad range of texts that further extends their writing and reading skills. To further enhance the effectiveness of this approach, plenty of opportunity for one-to-one and small group interactions should be structured into the program, along with a commitment to working with parents towards the literacy development of their children”.

And it can be so darn cute.

For your beginning reader, try the Intensive Phonics software for a systematic and explicit approach to reading. It's fun!