Stories beyond Books: Teacher Storytelling Supports Children’s Literacy Skills

Given the changing demographics of young children served by U.S. schools, educational equity practices must include ways of sustaining cultural heritage practices of children from ethno-linguistic, minoritized, and under-resourced communities. In the present study, we partnered with a bilingual Head Start serving mostly children of immigrant families from Latin American backgrounds to explore the effectiveness of a classroom-based oral storytelling program grounded in the cultural heritage practices of Spanish-speaking communities. We trained lead teachers (n = 12) in either an oral storytelling program or a storybook reading program. Research Findings: Analyses were conducted at the child level (n = 185) and provided initial evidence for the benefits of integrating oral storytelling in preschool classrooms to enhance the quality of teacher language input and support the development of children’s narrative skills. Practice or Policy: Findings contribute to our knowledge base on the differential effects of story sharing modality and have implications for the education of young Latine children.