Fairy Tales and the Lingual and Intellectual Development in Preschoolers

Introduction

“If you want your children to be intellogent, read fairy tales to them. If you want them be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” - Albert Einstein

We started with a saying, which increasingly convinces us that we should act accordingly. So, why do educators read fairy tales to our pupils in early childhood and elementary schools? Because fairy tales are imaginative stories with rich visual and contextual elements that evoke inner emotions in children. They engage children who believe the stories—many of which, though outside their own world, are relevant to their lives. In this way, fairy tales model behaviors for children such as problem-solving or emotional intelligence. Bad things happen to good people in fairy tales, and then, in many cases, those good people (often children) find their way in and around these difficulties. As G.K. Chesterton once said, "Fairy tales don't tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed."

From an educational perspective, future young readers are learning the basics of storytelling in a thematic and consistent way—the setting, characters, and plot (rising action, climax, and resolution) unfold predictably and help children orient their minds to the elements of writing. And, of course, understanding these elements will help children not only to write, but also to read. In Waldorf Education, developing the imagination is a key part of helping to foster reading comprehension. To imagine these tales is to think abstractly and transform words into personal, inner meanings.

After all, as Hans Christian Andersen once said, "Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale."

Materials and Methodology

Storytelling is a method widely used by teachers in teaching history to children, and it is an activity that children enjoy. Almost all children in the world enjoy listening to stories, especially if they are presented in an interesting way.

Through storytelling activities, children recognize and understand different alternatives for non-aggressive conflict resolution. A story is a verbal description of something. Stories can be used as a tool to stimulate aspects of children's development because stories and storytelling activities are closely associated with children.

Children get several benefits through stories among others, improving children's imagination, developing language skills, developing social aspects, developing moral aspects, developing emotional aspects, promoting achievement of enthusiasm and training children's concentration.¹

Storytelling is a fundamental method of sharing knowledge among people, as it allows participants to be transported to another time and place. Through the use of descriptive oral language, students can have an expanded experience with literature.

Before telling a story to the students, the teacher should read it completely and understand the appropriateness of the moral message for their age.

Essentially, there are three important elements that need to be prepared: the story material, the storytelling skills, and the props that support the story.

The steps to be prepared for the story:

Story material, namely preliminary preparation: after the story material has been selected, several important things need to be done, namely reviewing the content and mission of the story, creating the scene, as well as designing the opening and closing of the story.

Review the story: that is, a storyteller must read the chosen story several times, and several aspects must be taken into account, namely setting specific goals for the age of the child who is the audience; recognizing the characters in the story; paying attention to the time, location, and type of event; choosing correct and easy-to-observe sentences; and determining which auxiliary tools (costumes and props) will be used.

Create a storyline: that is, a storyteller should make an ordered summary of the story to make it easier to tell. If the story is to be told at length, it is essential to keep the child's attention.

Drafting the opening and closing of the story. Opening the story with something different and creative will make children interested in listening to stories, for example by starting with magic, imitating sounds, dramatizing, acting out, or hiding a character so that children pay attention. In addition to designing the opening, a storyteller must also design the closing of the story. A story needs an interesting closing. The closing of the story is so important because that is where the message can be embedded. The storyteller should avoid closing with abstract messages; in other words, the storyteller should provide an operational explanation for the listener.

Storytelling skills: a storyteller must have strong storytelling skills, especially for early childhood, so that stories can be understood by children. The skills the storyteller must have include physical movement, voice control, music, and the means to win over the child.

Props that support the story. The use of props is essential, not only to attract children's attention, but also to help them remember, digest, and understand the story conveyed.¹

For the presentation of a story, a storyteller should learn techniques to present it.

Choosing and preparing a place. Storytelling activities do not have to be done in the classroom. Storytelling activities can be carried out anywhere, provided they meet the criteria of cleanliness, safety, and comfort. The chosen place should be arranged in such a way that all the children can see the teacher telling the story.

Telling stories with teaching tools: stories can be told with different tools, which is called storytelling with props. Props used in storytelling include books, photographs, panels, puppets, and silent films. All props require special skills that allow them to function optimally.

Storytelling without teaching aids. Storytelling without teaching aids is also defined as telling stories by relying directly on voice quality, facial expressions, and hand and body gestures.

Expression of character figures. Characters can be expressed in different ways, including through visual expression (facial features, mouth, eyes, face, hands) and vocal expression. Character traits, feelings, and emotions can be conveyed through the portrayal of the characters. Not all character traits can be expressed through advanced features. However, the teacher can develop the expression of the characters through three basic expressions, namely the sad expression, the happy expression, and the expression of anger.

Imitation of sounds and character voices. Sound has an important function in a story, and sound in a story is an essential element that often has no linguistic meaning. Sounds give insight into events and can make a story more dramatic and interesting. To modulate their voice effectively, teachers must know the characteristics of prosody, namely stress (words and sentences), intonation, pattern, melody, and tempo.

Igniting the atmosphere of the story. The atmosphere is largely determined by the expertise of the storytellers.

The atmosphere of the story is defined as the condition that accompanies the teacher's narration process. Techniques to ignite the story include optimizing the dialogue of the characters in the story, optimizing the climax of the story, evoking humor at the periphery of the story, involving the child in the story through questions and reprimands, improvisation and interpolation, or preparing language elements such as words or sentences.

Results of the Work

Play and intellectual and language development. Preschool children learn rapidly through play. Thinking and reasoning play an important role in intellectual games. Through play, children learn to count, speak, read, taste, touch, and see. It is fun and entertaining when children find new things and add them to their collection. When children act out and play roles of their choice, they develop language, speech, and expression. Games with mud, sand, and water, as well as painting with crayons and watercolours, give the child freedom and independence to create according to his own imagination and fantasy. Word games are a very good way to stimulate children's thinking skills, reasoning, and creativity. For young children, it is great fun to draw words and learn to write by drawing; for example, the words CLOCK, HAND, and SUN can be expressed symbolically. The same can be done for the words BALL and MOUNTAIN, by drawing them first. Every child should be listened to and respected for their opinions and ideas. Anecdotes and literal riddles are activities that stimulate children's logical thinking and the connection between the data given and the reality they represent. They encourage the development of fantasy and imagination to discover the enigma, ambiguity, or trick they contain.

Play and the intellectual education of the preschool child. Intellectual development means: - gaining a certain amount of knowledge and forming a scientific outlook on the world; - developing mental skills (formation and enrichment of vocabulary, independent logical judgment, drawing conclusions, expanding horizons, and knowledge of subjective truth); - cultivating curiosity (the formation and development of curiosity and the eagerness to learn and know something new); - and forming a work culture. In the realization of these very complex tasks, play occupies an important place. For intellectual education, the following play an important role: - games with rules; - riddles; - imitation games (the child plays a role); - games for familiarizing with the environment, etc. During play, the child develops various functions and skills. Through play, the child gains basic experiences of the world around him. Playing with many different objects and things, he grasps them with his hands, observes them, rearranges them, separates and folds them, etc. Gradually, the child, using different items during play, begins to discover those qualities that contribute to distinguishing items and objects.

Effective Communication

Communication is key in the classroom: successful teaching is generally considered to require 50% knowledge and 50% communication skills. As a result, a teacher must be proficient in all four modes of communication – listening, speaking, reading, and writing – and must know how to use these skills effectively in a school setting. The ability to do this has been proven to affect the success students achieve in their academic lives, as well as the teacher's own career success.

Teachers benefit from good communication skills in three different areas: when communicating with students, with parents, and with colleagues.

"Physical, social, emotional and cognitive development are inextricably linked." This means that the communication method we choose must balance and pay complementary attention to all the developmental needs of the preschooler. This is where an integrated rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to communication is best used. For example, when offering nutritious food to a child, one can use a phrase such as "when we eat healthy, fresh foods, it makes us strong and smart" to integrate health, nutrition, readiness for school, and self-confidence.¹

"Good communication includes positive portrayals of children from different cultures and ethnic groups and all socio-economic backgrounds, those with disabilities and children who have or are experiencing trauma, grief or living through emergencies," the book says. To this end, a conscious effort must be made to ensure that communication methods do not reinforce already poor self-esteem or feelings of inequality among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.²

Studies have found that student success is directly related to interactive and attractive learning environments created by skilled teachers. Furthermore, the way you communicate with your students can positively affect their perceptions of school, their role in the classroom, themselves and their abilities, and their motivation to succeed.³

However, this works both ways: poor communication skills – and therefore poor teaching methods – cause students' comprehension to decrease and can negatively affect their academic progress. This can also lead to students becoming demotivated, disliking school and believing they are unable to achieve. This can have consequences for the rest of their lives.

Therefore, effective communication between teachers and students is extremely important. This allows you to do your job well, with positive results for your students. An added benefit is that your class can use you as a model for improving their communication skills, which are critical to their development and future learning.

Strategies for Effetive Classroom Communication

What we classify as "good" or "effective" communication depends on the context. When you're presenting in front of a class, you'll use different strategies than when you're facilitating a group discussion or talking to a student one-on-one.

This is because when students feel supported, they are more comfortable expressing their thoughts and ideas in class discussions, taking on challenges and asking for help when they need it. Higher levels of engagement and participation then lead to more developed knowledge and greater achievement.¹

It's a good idea to learn students' names at the beginning of the year and use them often. Have an open-door policy for students to come and talk to you about any issue, and be empathetic and caring when interacting with them at all times: don't berate them for not understanding or mock their thoughts and ideas.

Additionally, you should understand that some students are uncomfortable speaking in front of the class. If you ask them to participate, you can use scaffolding (such as sentence starters) to make them feel more confident doing so. However, forced participation is usually unnecessary: quieter students are likely to have excellent listening skills and learn just as much despite not sharing their thoughts.

Group work and group discussions contribute to making the classroom a more comfortable environment. By working in small groups, students are able to share their ideas more easily and improve their communication skills. These activities also give them a good opportunity to ask you questions and get feedback on their work, leading to effective communication between you and them, a better understanding of the lesson and academic benefits.² Communication is not only verbal, but also non-verbal: you need to make sure that the signals you give through your body language are positive, confident and engaging.

For example, making eye contact with students when you are talking to them shows that you are supportive and attentive. Making eye contact is also important when presenting to the whole class – it motivates everyone to pay attention, which helps them learn, as well as making them feel involved. In order to make more eye contact, you may need to learn the lesson content in more detail beforehand so you don't have to look away to read your notes.¹

While teaching, you should use gestures to emphasize your words. This increases the interactivity of the lesson, making it more visually interesting and therefore more memorable. Keep your arms open – don't fold them – and use smiles, nods, and thumbs up to encourage students when they participate. Moving around the classroom while you teach can help remove the barrier between you and your students and give them less opportunity to zone out or get distracted.

Body language is also important when dealing with negative behavior. To avoid confrontation, be sure not to stand directly over or in front of a student, point at them, or invade their personal space. It can be effective to get down to their level and quietly talk about their behavior, or talk to them outside of class to avoid drawing too much attention.

The 'listening' component of communication should not be neglected – over 60% of all misunderstandings result from poor listening.²

Practicing good listening in the classroom can benefit you in two ways. First, you will be a role model for your students, who will improve their listening skills and thus retain the lessons better. Second, by using active listening, you can correct misunderstandings and extend learning, resulting in a better education for your students.

Active listening involves listening carefully to what your students say, checking that you have understood them correctly (for example, by repeating back to them what you think they have said), building on their ideas, and challenging or questioning them. It is the best approach to use to foster understanding in the classroom and is an excellent example of effective communication.¹

There have been many studies focused on feedback in recent years. Positive feedback (i.e., praise) has been shown to build students' confidence – making them more likely to believe they can succeed – and help create a supportive environment and increase academic success.

Using humor in the classroom has been found to increase learning, self-motivation, and positive relationships between students and teachers. This allows you to build rapport with your class and keep them interested in the lesson.

For example, you can tell funny jokes or anecdotes, give simple personal examples, or laugh at students' own jokes. However, you should make sure you don't use negative humor – where you put down or embarrass students – or humor that is irrelevant to the lesson, disturbing, violent, sexual, or coercive. Continue to use only humor that has received a positive response from the class (such as laughter).

Using up-to-date learning tools such as computers, videos, and online resources is another way to keep students engaged and reinforce their understanding. It can also increase the effectiveness of your communication with students of different learning styles, who may benefit more from online resources than old-fashioned ones. Try to use some of these aids regularly in your lessons.²

Personality Development in Children Through Fairy Tales

Cultivating character through fairy tales will become more and more fun, and the atmosphere of the school environment will be more exciting. The tradition of storytelling passed down from ancestors for generations turns out to have a tremendous impact on the development of a child's personality in adulthood.

Fairy tales are the tradition and heritage of people throughout the ages. This shows that the tradition of fairy tales is an essential and inseparable part of human life in creating a better national personality. According to the American psychologist Lawrence Kutner, "Fairytales are important for children to enter their lives without danger. Children can overcome the problem by identifying themselves with the characters of the story.

The story becomes a flavoring ingredient in the design of teaching materials at school. Learning while telling stories and educating children through storytelling will make the atmosphere wiser and more enjoyable. In fact, subjects that are considered complicated will be very enjoyable if they are taught through storytelling techniques or embedded in fairy tales within the lesson. Storytelling can sharpen children's imagination and fantasy. When children's imagination and fantasy are sharp, the ability of the right brain will naturally be sharpened and its performance will be maximized.¹

Storytelling can be a very effective method of delivering moral messages. The teacher can insert fairy tales related to the subjects being taught. The fairy tales can be in the form of original stories, folklore, or animal stories from home and abroad. Storytelling can bring teachers and students closer at school, deepen the loving relationship between parents and children, foster a critical attitude, increase imagination, enhance fantasy, and develop children's tenderness. Therefore, being selective in choosing fairy tales is a factor that determines whether a child will imagine and fantasize well or not.²

Character education is the term used to describe teaching children the traits that are essential to building good character. Character education has also been described as the deliberate effort to cultivate virtue; thus, character education requires deliberate planning. There are many other reasons why schools should continue to teach character education.

From a legal perspective, schools teach character education because some states require them to do so, and also because schools are obligated to promote civic values and a unifying moral code.

Therefore, schools should teach character education because it helps students become good people and citizens; it is important to be a good citizen because "democracy is not possible with a group of uneducated and morally corrupt people". Finally, schools should be concerned about the moral values of their students and thus should want to teach character education to instill good values in them. These reasons for teaching character education may seem extreme, but they are related to the development of moral students who will be prepared to live in a democratic society and to the development of a social-emotional emphasis in conflict resolution through various games and cooperation.¹

In children's development, character education will work effectively and effect changes in children's behavior if exemplary conduct through habituation is supported by all actors—teachers and parents—by creating a favorable environment.²

Character development through storytelling has the following objectives:

Instilling hidden characters or "hidden patterns" in children's minds. This involves an identical character or one that strongly represents certain characters. The hidden figure is expected to provide strength, direction, and guidance for the behavior of ordinary children. For example, for children who want to help, sharing stories about children helping others will lead the child to emulate the character they heard about in the story.

Improving children's exploratory skills by looking for other examples of characters in everyday life stories. If the duplication of the character is embedded in the child's mind, then the child will try to find other similar characters in his environment. The child will match what he hears with what he sees or knows. If he thinks that the figure is useful and what he sees is reasonable, then there has been a strengthening of the inclination to help.

Building analytical skills and problem-solving skills related to character behavior. At this stage, if the child finds an occasion where it is needed, the implementation of character is useful so that he can realize it.

Children are expected to show real concepts and character actions in everyday life. At this stage, helping behavior in children occurs "automatically" because of the reinforcement they have received, and what they have known or seen has been well established.

Building analytical skills and evaluating the benefits of character behavior and the impact of negative out-of-character behavior. At this stage, if the child faces a problem—for example, seeing a friend who does not want to help—he can take a stand, for instance, by making a statement to his friend through affirmative sentences,

Chapter 1

for example, let's help our friend who fell. Thus, character values are useful for the child to spread to other friends.¹

Developing Critical Thinking Through Fairy Tales

Fairy tales teach children to be critical thinkers. As they ponder the situations that led the main character through all their adventures, they can decide what they would have done differently in the character's situation. Would they have eaten the apple if they had been in Snow White's place? After all, every child knows not to take candy from strangers. Fairy tales also teach children to see beyond a person's appearance. An innocent-looking old woman is still evil in the case of Snow White, while a big, scary gorilla can have a heart of gold and raise a human child, just like in Tarzan. Children learn that their decisions can shape the situation, so they should always think before they act.²

The complexity of human nature, in which good and evil coexist, is well identified in fairy tales. Figures in fairy tales are good and bad at the same time, as we all are in reality. But since polarization dominates the child's mind, it also dominates fairy tales. A person is either good or bad, never anything in between. For example, one sister is virtuous and hardworking, the others are dirty and lazy; one parent is good, the other bad. Comparing opposite characters allows the child to easily understand the difference between the two, which he could not do if these figures were closer to real life. In the safe space of imagination, children can come into contact with this wide range of 'forbidden', dark emotions - negative reactions and expressions of life, themselves, and others - without having to suffer the painful consequences of everyday life or disrupt the lives, sense of reality, and relationships of children with important persons from the world of adults.³

Fairy-tale stories expressed through language with transference and symbolic representation facilitate the development of symbolic thinking, representational skills, and the mental processing of life events at the fantasy level, which form the basis for the development of creative thinking and emotional intelligence.

Storytelling greatly contributes to the development of children's creative imagination, which is essential for their psycho-emotional health. To have an imagination is to enjoy inner richness, a relentless and spontaneous flow of images, and to see the world in its entirety. The structure of fairy tales allows children to

Chapter 2

move into a dream world without restrictions and limitations. At the same time, through the mechanisms of identification and projection, the child has the ability to identify and express his negative feelings, attach importance to personal traumatic experiences, and, ultimately, seek and find meaning in them.

Disscusions

Teaching young children to communicate is possible only through close cooperation among them, actively involving them in cognitive activity or play. Children must be taught to ask their own questions, to express their opinions on various topics—even in a negative way—to create a relationship of trust, and to hold a conversation without conflict. One way to teach children to communicate and cope with all these tasks is theatrical games. These games are very popular among preschoolers because, together with the characters of fairy tales, children explore the world around them, going through a variety of emotions and feelings and assessing the behavior of their favorite characters in interaction with other characters in fairy tales. It is important, in addition to memorizing scripted texts and gestures, to develop improvisation, children's imagination, the ability to feel the emotional state of theatrical characters, a sense of confidence in their abilities, and verbal communication skills. During play, children act and behave safely, and are active. Fairy tales are characterized by interaction, communication, arguments, disagreements, sad endings, and the transformation of the hero's image. The interpretation of the division of roles helps the child to understand the moral and ethical background of the characters' behavior, because he receives a positive or negative evaluation of the qualities and actions of the fairy tale heroes. Such an evaluation forms a personal capacity for ethical behavior and pushes him to make a choice in favor of moral acts.

All game exercises can be divided into six sections, depending on which sphere of the human personality is affected. The first section includes games that affect the physiology of preschool children. Games that focus on bodily sensations help the child cope with passivity, rigidity, inhibition, and withdrawnness. It is no secret that relaxation at the level of the body and muscles helps a person find psychological peace, balance, and relaxation. In the game "Move like a bear, an ostrich, a frog, etc.", for example, children are encouraged to portray any animal or fairy-tale character in motion. In games that develop verbal and non-verbal ways of communication, verbal communication is developed by writing a story about the experience of a strong feeling—such as fear, anger, or sadness—and also in the game "Corrupt Phone". Teaching non-verbal communication with the help of gestures, facial expressions, and pantomime is carried out in the game "We talk through the glass"; games that introduce human emotions teach children to express their emotions and correctly understand the emotional state of a friend. This section uses the games "Diary of moods", "Image of emotions with fingers", and "Emotions in pictures". For this game, cards depicting different emotions with schematic drawings are used, and children choose the corresponding pictogram matching the emotion shown in the picture. On the blank cards, children can see their own face, happy or sad. In games that direct attention to oneself, feelings, and inner state—such as the exercise "Psychological portrait"—children take turns answering questions about themselves: what can be praised and what can be blamed? Other games foster a conscious attitude toward the family as a whole, and toward each member separately and independently, as real and full members of the family. To implement this approach, through "Draw your family and your home" and viewing photo albums with the task of commenting on each photo, we talk about parental love.

Conclusions

To summarize, we would say that the fairy tale is the main form in which the child learns to read his mind through the language of image-symbols, which is the only language that allows understanding before mental maturity is reached.

Understanding the dynamics that occur in the journey of the hero/heroine of the tale, which usually leads from misery to higher development, can reveal to us, as therapists and youth workers, some ways to help not only children, but also adults, on their way up in life. However, it is necessary to remember that no technique or method can fully respond to the multidimensional needs of children, be they social, educational, emotional, cognitive or biological. Therefore, fairy tales are complementary to the range of methods used within the framework of psychoeducational or therapeutic interventions. At this point, it should be mentioned that the above study is part of research on storytelling and its benefits in changing unhealthy eating habits in children.

We should not forget that fairy tales can also be interpreted through play, which helps the child not only to mature physically, but also to learn social relationships. What is even more important is that play enables the child to form higher psychological processes as well. Most of those who work with children agree that play has a fundamental role in child development. Play is the work of the child, the means by which he grows and develops. Based on what was said above, it can be concluded that play, in addition to being an activity that is usually undertaken for fun, is also used as an educational tool. Considering that it is the best way to educate a child, it is very important to choose the books and activities that we dedicate to children carefully. Moreover, play enriches the child's personality, enabling him to make progress in further development. For this reason, from early childhood, the child should be provided with the conditions to play, read, touch, move, and speak. Likewise, the child should be enabled to create, discover, and oppose. Games should enable the development of the child toward a free and authentic personality that, through play, will develop initiative, creativity, and a sense of responsibility; these factors, which are argued to be developed through play, are essential for establishing relationships with others and with society.

References