Albert Einstein once said:
"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."

School begins every day with ValenTIME. ValenTIME is a fifteen minute interactive session during which the teacher interacts with every child in class, exploring the world of stories and storytelling together. Over a period of time, the child learns to love stories, and eventually begins to read on his or her own.

All A School teachers have been trained by distinguished Story Tellers, including Master Story Teller, Ms. Jeeva Raghunath, world renowned Story Teller Dr. Eric Miller from the World Story Telling Institute, and Ms.Geetha Ramanujam of Kathalaya

Storytelling and Story-listening add to Children's Intellectual, Emotional, and Social Development

Storytelling and story-listening can contribute to a child’s intellectual, emotional, and social development.

It is imperative to keep in mind that telling stories to children is just the first step in an interactive process.  After any story is told,

1) The storyteller can lead a discussion about the story. 
2) The listeners can draw/paint the story.
3) The listeners can make costumes, masks, puppets, and props, relating to the story.
4) The listeners can act-out the story as a skit. 
5) The listeners can be invited to add to, and in any other way, change the story. 
6) The listeners can be invited to tell additional stories that might come to mind -- including real-life experiences, traditional stories, and made-up stories.

Regardless of whether a story's characters are humans, animals, divinities, aliens, etc -- all stories are about situations.  Story listeners can project themselves into these characters, and imagine themselves in these situations.  The listeners can consider whether, placed in a similar situation, they might do things the same, or another way from the way the characters did.  This gives the listeners practice for living.

Making Sense Out of Experience

Storying is the process of constructing and considering stories.  Through storying, children can develop a sense of story.  A story can be defined as a series of events.  One way we humans make sense out of experience is to organise pieces of experiences into stories.  Adults may take it for granted that in stories -- as well as in everyday life -- one thing may lead to another, and occurrences may be connected.  But children have to learn this -- and one way they can learn it is through storytelling and story-listening.  Story telling and listening enables children to think in terms of sequences, progressions, and events.  This helps them recognise patterns of behaviours and actions, in stories and in life.  This allows them to cultivate the habit of organising data into sequences that progress from a beginning, to a middle, to an end -- and hold together cohesively as a unit.  This helps children put things together -- to make sense out of experience.

Considering Behaviour, and Morality and Ethics

Usually a story's series of events, taken as a whole, can be thought of as having a point -- a message, moral, or meaning.  It may be of limited value to children to simply explain the moral of a story.  It is usually more valuable to lead a discussion in which the children are asked questions such as, “What did you learn from the story?  What did you like about the story?"  Answering and discussing such questions can help children in a number of ways.  Doing so can help them think about characters' motives.  This can help children understand the different characters' personalities and actions -- and enables children to think about values, ethics, and principles of morality.  The children are then in a position to be able to apply this kind of thinking to their decision-making regarding how they might behave in their own lives.  In these ways, children can become more aware of their own -- and others’ -- thoughts and feelings, and can become more articulate in this manner.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Storytelling and story-listening -- along with discussing and re-telling stories -- can help children further develop their understanding of grammar, and increase their vocabulary.

Creativity and Reasoning

Storytelling and story-listening gives children practice in creating mental imagery (visualising images), and brings out the vivid imagination and the creativity of children.  Also, children's reasoning abilities are activated when they describe and discuss these images (and any other aspect of a story).

Involvement and Engagement

By discussing, creating, and telling stories, children can explore and express their feelings.  This personal emotional involvement and engagement with the story -- and with their story-play partners and guides -- tends to make children optimistic, excited, and enthusiastic about their use of language.

Social Skills

Storytelling and story-listening utilize the social element of language.  By telling stories and participating in group conversations about stories and storytelling, children can develop their public-speaking abilities, and can also learn how to take turns speaking, and how to listen to others.

In summary:
Storytelling and story-listening -- along with discussion -- enhances children's comprehension skills, at the literal, inferential, and critical levels.  Inferential refers to becoming aware of patterns, recognising causal links, understanding that there are consequences to actions, and being able to predict what might come next.  Critical refers to considering characters' behaviours and other aspects of a story, from its various angles.

Reading and Writing

Oral competency in language is a prerequisite for literacy.  All of the above-mentioned skills that are developed in children through storytelling and story-listening -- including language vocabulary and grammar, content comprehension and retention, gaining a sense of story, pattern recognition, and critical listening and thinking skills – further help them learn to read and write.