Story Starters for Children

May 9th, 2017 | 1 min. read

A young female child looks at an open book

Creative writing prompts are a great way to encourage early literacy activities in preschoolers. Through the use of props or story starters, teachers can nurture early literacy skills through the art of story telling. This then easily blooms into early writing skills as students learn to express stories in written form. Story starters are just one of the stages of writing development in children. For more resources to encourage early literacy, browse our hundreds of strategies, tips, and activities.

Dr. Mary Renck Jalongo uses story starters as one of the many tools in her book Literacy for All Young Learners. Visit the book's page to take a look inside and make a purchase!

Word Walls

Young children are learning names of all kinds of things, so create word walls of nouns. Next, develop a word wall of action words.
After you have developed these two word walls, try combining the words into simple sentences, such as "Once there was a ___, and he wanted to ___." Some of these sentences will be humorous.
As children gain experience with word walls, they can use them to produce their own original books. For example, a word wall with days of the week in multiple languages could be used with the children's book Cookie's Week by Cindy Ward. In this story, a kitten gets into all kinds of mischief, Monday through Saturday, and finally takes a rest on Sunday. Children can invent their own day-by-day account of a pet--real or hoped for--and what it might do.

A, My Name is Alice

Read the book A, My Name is Alice by Jane Bayer to the children. In this book, the children have names that begin with every letter of the alphabet. Children can try making a similar book, using both the real names of their classmates and ones that they invent for any letter of the alphabet that has not been used.

A Short Trip

Take the children on a short trip, perhaps to visit the library or schoolyard.
Afterward, let them work in small groups to create original books using the format, "I went walking. What did you see? I saw a (color) (living thing) looking at me." So, after a tour of the schoolyard, they might write: "I went walking. What did you see? I saw a red swing looking at me."
Let the children decorate their books and share them with their friends and families.

Author(s) Mary Renck Jalongo, PhD

Anna Wilmoth

Anna Wilmoth has extensive professional experience as a marketer, publisher, and reporter. She served as director of marketing at Gryphon House from Oct. 2014 - May 2017.

Topics:

Language & Literacy

Article

Story Starters for Children

Word Walls

A, My Name is Alice

A Short Trip

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