Supporting Literacy and Digital Literacy Development in Early Childhood Education Using Storytelling Activities

Educators have increasingly adopted formalized approaches for teaching literacy skills in early childhood education. In line with an emergent critique of this approach, the present study investigated the design and effectiveness of a literacy intervention that blended Gagné’s nine events of instructional design with storytelling. Three classes in a public preschool in Indonesia participated in an experimental study involving 45 children, aged 5–6 years. Across 3 weeks, one experimental condition received storytelling activities and a second experimental condition received digital storytelling activities. The control condition received regular literacy classroom activities. Before, and after, the 3-week storytelling intervention, measures of literacy and digital literacy skills were administered to all groups. In the digital storytelling condition, children’s literacy skills increased significantly compared to children in the control condition. Other exploratory data analyses suggested that both types of storytelling activities enhanced digital literacy skills. The findings need to be replicated with an extended series of storytelling activities that involve larger groups of participants.