Examples of Story Dictations
Examples of Story Dictations
The following stories illustrate the diversity of children’ s dictated stories. The first three( reported in Tariq 2024) are taken from our research and are translated to English from French. The last two are from Rothman 2006( 73).
›“ There was a knight who killed dragons. He killed all the dragons.”
›“ Two little elves were walking. They were walking outside. There was one that fell. The other one went into the house. The mom saw the boo-boo of the elf that hurt himself. Mom put a Band-Aid on it.”
›“ Once, someone wanted to play soccer. Then he scored a goal. He took a medal. He went to hide it in his room. He was proud. His parents brought him to eat ice cream! He chose a chocolate one. It was a big day.”
›“ Once upon a time, a long time ago, live in my front yard a tree. One a branches so long it touch another tree. And a rock there, under the tree branch. I bring my doll out, and I put my doll on the rock and I sing to her. The rock looked like a cradle and the branches looked like a room.”
›“ The sun is big and burning. The bees are out. The ocean is calling,‘ Spring, Spring.’ The flowers are growing. The birds are chirping. The cactus is saying,‘ Spring in Mexico.’ And the wind blowing.”
Inviting Storytellers and Peers to Act Out the Stories
To begin story acting, a teacher reads one of the dictated stories to all of the children. We encourage educators to invite the storyteller to stand beside them during this time to acknowledge authorship. While reading, educators should pause to assign acting roles as characters appear in the story. Rothman used a go-round, in which she assigned roles from left to right, in the order that children were seated around the stage( 2006). As Paley believed, this strategy avoids competition among children and fosters inclusion( Wiltz & Fein 1996). Next, the teacher reads the story again, pausing for children to enter the stage and act out their parts. This is a standard procedure among Paley followers.
In her Young Children article, Rothman also described the active role that children in her class took to develop guidelines around story acting. These included rules to avoid teasing and to take turns. Other directives included“ Don’ t go around and be silly”;“ Be quiet as a mouse”;“ Just pretend to touch, but don’ t really do it”; and“ Only seven on the stage at one time.” These rules showed that her class had“ assumed ownership of the process”( 2006, 73). We have observed educators establishing routines around dialogue( asking children to recite a story’ s dialogue in unison rather than giving a speaking role to a single child) and rituals to end the acting sessions( such as clapping softly).
Scaffolding Story Acting
When a story is skeletal or disjointed from an educator’ s point of view, children can still act it out. This may prompt the author to enrich their story or to turn to peers or their teacher for help. In the March 2018 issue of Young Children, Bonnie Ripstein shared her unique approach in“‘ There’ s a Story in My Picture!’ Connecting Art, Literacy, and Drama Through Storytelling in a Kindergarten Classroom.” She invited the kindergartners in her class to act out stories that were reflected in pictures they had painted. She recorded the acting and later watched the videos with the children. This prompted them to share questions they had about the stories. As she expressed, this“ reflection and peer review helped the children see what was missing or needed to change, so their stories would be clearer to everyone. They began to question each other about the stories, leading authors to add more details to their work”( 20).
66 Young Children
Spring 2026