The importance of reading to children cannot be emphasised enough; it is an important aspect of every child’s development. It is widely acknowledged that children who have been read to everyday from an early age, have a larger vocabulary than those who aren’t read to at all. Reading aloud to children also helps them to understand different topics about the world and everyday life. Emotionally, it helps to create a bond, as reading a book helps parents and children spend time together. Therefore, it is important that parents ensure that time is spent each day reading to their children. However, children have vivid imaginations, and they like to use them. So, simply reading a story to a child is not enough, the stories must be brought to life.
The first step to bringing a story to life is to give each character their own voice, which can be silly or serious, depending upon the story. By changing the tone, pitch and pace, you create individual characters that come to life. The amusement children get from listening to stories using this method is astounding. After a while, the children can participate and decide on what kind of voices they want to give the characters in the different stories. This one simple technique will make them want to listen to even more stories. Children love story time when puppets or props are incorporated into the storytelling. Having toys relating to the story is inviting for children, and they will enjoy seeing the resources being used. This is important because reading is much more than listening to words, it is an immersive experience. The children should feel transported into the world within the book. The props help build the story into an event which is ‘real’ to the children. 
Once the story has been read, the children will want to play with the props creating further imagination and curiosity, and they may even begin to retell the story in their own words. Introducing props into story time can also help other areas of children’s development. For example, if the child likes, ‘The Three Little Pigs,’ building houses with bricks can incorporate physical skills as well as maths. Another way to bring stories to life is to take the story outside into the environment. By doing this children can experience the story in greater depth by seeing, touching and smelling all the things that the story describes. 
It creates a multi-sensory experience that children perhaps would not experience indoors. Activities can be developed to enhance these experiences. For example, by listening to sounds outdoors the children use skills critical to developing phonemic awareness. The children could close their eyes and listen to the sounds around them. They could be asked questions such as, ‘What do you hear? Can you make these sounds too?’ For visual awareness, objects could be hidden around the outdoor setting where they blend in with the protective colouring of the environment. As children search for the items that don’t belong, they will be using core reading and thinking skills. Musical instruments, sound effects and catchy songs can also be used to help tell the story. It’s a great way to get children really involved in the storytelling, as this will help the children with their decision making by matching the instruments to the characters or objects. Also, by banging on a drum it helps build gross motor skills whilst opening and closing fingers helps with fine motor skills. Children will also start to experiment with the sounds each instrument makes, which in turn develops their listening and creative skills. Finally, an important aspect of storytelling is to ask the children questions about the story. The benefits children get from having stories read to them are hugely increased when children are asked questions about the story as well. Simply asking them if they can remember what happened in the story or checking if they know what some of the more complicated words mean can really extend their understanding and vocabulary. 
More complex ‘inference’ questions like, ‘How do you think this character is feeling?’ or ‘Why do you think this character did that?’ helps children to think about and understand other people’s motivations and emotions. A parent’s goal should be to encourage a love of books in their children. This can be achieved by reading to the children every day, not just at bedtime. It is important that they see adults around them reading too – preferably not a tablet or screen, but paper! By bringing stories to life, children will begin to ask for stories to be read to them and they will begin to have their favourites, which they will want to have read to them over again. Even when children have begun to read themselves, it is still important to keep the joy of reading aloud part of their everyday story time.
