QUALITY STORYTENTS
A resource for family, early childhood and community literacy workers
Storytents work best when workers are alert to opportunities and show the kind of flexibility necessary for any successful learner-centered, whole language program.
Guided reading, reading to, and shared reading often blend into one another in the storytent. Having multiple copies of crowd pleasers like Munsch favorites Mortimer or Stephanie’s Ponytail allow children to join in or follow along when a worker reads to a group: this is an example of how "reading to" can become "shared reading". Being flexible also provides for moments of direct instruction, as when, one time, a child snuggled into some shared reading suddenly stopped ‘reading’ the pictures and demanded of the worker,“ What are all these letters doing on the page?” For storytent workers, the overarching principle of all this interaction is the desire to build relationship and allow children’s interest and curiosity to lead (Brown and Dryden, 2004).
In the storytent program, we make an effort to provide a consistent service - rain or shine - so that each child or family can have maximum access if they choose. We make an effort to provide a consistently friendly atmosphere, and a wide variety of consistently popular books. However, there is no pre-determined curriculum, no judging of people's needs or correcting of their choices, and certainly no "one size fits all" approach to learning.