How can Spellbinders help me and my students?
Spellbinders:
Supports your delivery of the ELA CCSS.- Is backed by independent research and teacher observation.
- Trains and places volunteers as oral storytellers in local classrooms – yes, telling, not reading.
- Provides 20 to 40 minute storytelling sessions based upon your needs as a teacher.
- Returns each month so that children form long-term relationships with caring community members.
- Gives you a fun, engaging, and effective tool for your literacy building efforts.
- Has more than 20 years of success in schools.
- Is a Colorado-based nonprofit with Licensees across the nation.
- Has nearly 400 volunteers nationwide paired with more than 2,000 classrooms.
Why Oral Storytelling?
- Listening and speaking are core skills that cross all content areas.
- Oral storytelling requires students to visualize and imagine. This supports reading comprehension and evokes critical thinking skills which are essential to all higher learning.
- Tales from around the world expand a child’s world view.
- Fables and folktales evoke grit, resiliency, and perseverance as they show that dragons can indeed be slain and that heroes and heroines can come from the most unlikely places.
- Efforts that bring community members into the school increase hope and engagement in students, which is linked to academic achievement. (Lopez, Shane. Hope, Academic Success and the Gallup Student Poll. Gallup Inc. 2009.)
- Kids LOVE it! This makes it a great “stealth” literacy-building tool.
“Spellbinders’ storytelling reinforces our teachers’ efforts to foster a love of literature by complementing almost every component of our literacy efforts.”
— Diana Sirko, Superintendent of Schools, Roaring Fork School District RE-1
“All of my students (who aren’t usually like this) were engaged and felt like what they were learning was real and applicable.”
— Elementary teacher, Denver Public Schools
If you would like to have a Spellbinders Certified Storyteller visit your school, contact our national office and we will put you in touch with your local Spellbinders Storytelling Licensee Group!
Email: info@spellbinders.org