This post is in partnership with Tall Tales App.
“Mama, tell me a story.” I heard this at bedtime for years. My daughter Molly and I had epic tales about twin princesses and one about a girl who would visit a land of fairies and gnomes with her magic watch and a secret door in an apple tree. When I’d share this with friends, one of the first things they’d say is, “How do you make it all up? I can’t do that.” they’d share their bedtime reading struggles with me, and I’d do my best to help. But now, when parents ask, I can tell them about the TallTales App to make personalized, engaging bedtime stories every night. Mix this app with traditional books to keep bedtime reading fun!
Bedtime Reading made better with the TallTales App
I don’t usually love apps for reading, but I was giddy a minute into using Tall Tales. Let me put my nerd hat on for a minute and explain why this app doesn’t just stop whining about bedtime stories. It is also beneficial in so many ways for literacy development. Let’s look closer at the power of bedtime reading and how TallTales can help boost all of this.
Parents have a significant role in literacy development, and the number one way parents can support literacy development is by reading to their children. More than just reading, reading rhyming books is especially beneficial. Rhyming is a foundational literacy skill and rhyme awareness is a crucial element of phonological awareness. The ability to notice and manipulate spoken sounds – like noticing words that rhyme. That is why I absolutely adore that you can create rhyming stories on TallTales!
I also love that while the app generates the stories, there are no images. Oral storytelling has a lot of benefits for young children, including engaging the listeners’ imaginations to create pictures of the story in their minds, vocabulary development, and listening skills. Listening skill development is often ignored in literacy activities, but it’s vital because it leads to children being able to hear and distinguish specific sounds, a must needed skill for eventual reading. This app hands parents and caregivers a tool to make this so much easier to support.
What makes Tall Tales a must-have literacy tool?
It’s all about your kid.
What do we know about how young kids learn best? Luckily a lot. Thanks to researchers, we know that young children learn best when building meaningful personal connections, working with others, and being actively interested and engaged. Bedtime reading is always a pretty good way to do this. They are building connections with the reader and are usually pretty free from distraction, but where bedtime reading isn’t always a hit is with engagement. Books are expensive, and we don’t always have time to get to the library for new ones. Bedtime reading can get stale. This is where I think Tall Tales is so powerful. Children want to be in stories, Molly loved when I’d put her into the stories, and as she got older, she wanted to have stories about friends too. You can do that with the TallTales app, and when you do, you boost that engagement which promotes learning.
Look How Easy Tall Tales Is To Use!
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Tips for making the most of the Tall Tales App
- Create a few stories before introducing it to your child so you have some ready to go – make sure they are about their absolute favorite things!
- While reading, stop and ask your child questions about the story just like you would while reading a book. ” Have you ever found a bunny in our yard before?”
- Create stories together – get silly! Children learn best when they are active in the process, so include them.
- Use it beyond bedtime. One way I plan to use the app in my PreK classroom is to create rhyming stories about topics we are learning about and have the students illustrate the story with their pictures. What a fun way to make a class book – and families could totally do that at home too.
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