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Early Child Development and Care

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What effect does story time have on

toddlers’ social and emotional skills
a
I.A. Betawi
a
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The University of
Jordan, Amman 11942, Jordan
Published online: 02 Sep 2014.

To cite this article: I.A. Betawi (2014): What effect does story time have on toddlers’ social and
emotional skills, Early Child Development and Care, DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2014.943756

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 Early Child Development and Care, 2014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2014.943756

What effect does story time have on toddlers’ social and emotional
skills
I.A. Betawi*

Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The University of Jordan, Amman 11942, Jordan
Downloaded by [University of Jordan], [Iman Betawi] at 04:42 23 September 2014

(Received 8 July 2014; accepted 8 July 2014)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of story time and reading stories
on the development of toddlers’ social and emotional skills between 24 and 36
months of age. A sample of 10 toddlers was randomly selected from three
different classes at the laboratory nursery of The University of Jordan. A pre-test
and post-test were developed to measure the social and emotional skills of
toddlers. Data were collected by administrating the measure for the lead teacher
at the toddlers’ room. Results from the data presented indicated that social and
emotional skills for toddlers have improved positively. Also the results indicated
that toddlers’ mean scores in the post-test were higher and more significant than
that in the pre-test. This indicated that story time in toddlers’ daily routine
affects their social skills significantly. Recommendations and suggestions for
future research are presented.
Keywords: Toddlers; story time; reading stories; social and emotional
development; Jordan

Introduction
In order for the educational system to improve the social and emotional skills in early
childhood years, different pedagogical strategies should be employed specially in tod-
dlerhood. Story time and reading stories in early childhood settings is one method to
address social development. This is achieved by improving toddlers’ social skills
such as cooperation, self-control, self-regulation and adaption (Larner, Behrman,
Young, & Reich, 2001). Story time is an effective time that introduces stories that
increase toddlers’ competences in all developmental domains. This study will
address how story time will affect toddlers’ social and emotional skills.
It is now widely accepted that the first three years of a child’s life are crucial to the
child’s development. These early years lay the foundation for the child’s later cognitive
achievements, social skills, self-esteem and respect for others (Larner et al., 2001).
Several research studies documented the benefits that young children gain in the
early years in all developmental domains (Harfitt, 2013; Larner et al., 2001; Miller
& Pennycuff, 2008; Yarigarravesh, 2013) specifically the social and emotional devel-
opmental domain. Scholars found that social learning occurs as toddlers and caregivers
go through the day in their daily routine – playing, talking, exploring and reading
stories. Larner et al. (2001) pointed out in their research that the social and emotional
skills a toddler can master, such as self-control adaptability and cooperation, are rooted

*Emails: ibetawi@yahoo.com, i.betawi@ju.edu.jo, amybsa2majd1@yahoo.com

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

 2 I.A. Betawi

in the child’s early experiences. The early years also provide lessons to toddlers, includ-
ing cooperation and conflict management, that they learn while adults increasingly
guide their behaviour by using indirect strategies, which include explanation, reading
stories; using dramatic play and bargaining that rely on the child’s developing
capacities for self-control (Thompson, 2001).
Hearing stories read aloud is a powerful motivational method for toddlers to begin to
learn to understand social situations. Reading books for toddlers is also a powerful way of
introducing them to a lifelong relationship with quality literature (Miller, 2011). Moreover,
listening to stories introduces toddlers to patterns of different social behaviours. A growing
body of literature demonstrates the effect of reading story for toddlers on all developmental
domains – physical, cognitive, language, social and emotional (Daemi & Farnia, 2013;
Downloaded by [University of Jordan], [Iman Betawi] at 04:42 23 September 2014

Gonzalez-Mena, 2008; Kiefer, 2009; Larner et al., 2001; Thompson, 2001; Yarigarravesh,
2013). The benefits of early book experiences for toddlers include: stimulating the imagin-
ation, reinforcing basic concepts and establishing physical closeness that are critical for
toddlers’ social and emotional development. The sharing of a book is also one of the
many ways toddlers may form social bonds, closeness and the necessary attachment. In
this intertwining of social and emotional dimensions of behaviour, toddlers begin to find
ways to communicate with adults and become involved in the social process. As Miller
and Pennycuff (2008) stated in their research describing the importance of storytelling
on improving literacy and reading through social elements of language for young children
that ‘Because storytelling relies on both the listener and the teller, this strategy utilises the
social element of language. Researchers have found that literacy instruction is most effec-
tive when developed through social interaction and collaboration with others’ (p. 37)
It is important to be able to choose books that are appropriate for a child’s age and
knowing the appropriate strategies for sharing books with toddlers. Therefore, care-
givers must know how to choose developmentally appropriate stories for each age
group. At the same time, they should have the knowledge of the structure of toddlers’
thoughts, language, social, emotional development and changing interests; young chil-
dren’s needs of the real experiences and materials such as stories to support concepts
that they are learning. It is from these real experiences that young children make con-
nections between the abstract knowledge they are constructing and their environment
(Kupetz & Green, 1997; Neuman, 1999).
Storytelling has also been one of the early experiences identified as making signifi-
cant differences in later reading success (Eisner, 1985; Kupetz & Green, 1997; Miller
& Pennycuff, 2008). Additionally, children make inferences from books and compare
what happens in stories with what they know about the world (Miller, 1990). Young chil-
dren learn social and emotional skills in natural settings while listening to stories, playing
with people and things in their environment. In a study conducted by Hassanzadeh Kalate
(2011) to measure preschooler’s social skills, social competence and communication
between peers, he concluded that social skills of children in the experimental group
had improved according to their teacher. While Dewing (2010) in another study con-
cluded that one of the effective activities in active learning for preschoolers is using
stories as a method of teaching social skills for toddlers. He found that thinking increases
after story time and much more motivation is created in order to learn skills deeply.

Purpose of the study

Since reading stories for young children and toddlers play an important role in the
development of the social and emotional skills and it also one method that trains and
 Early Child Development and Care 3

introduces toddlers to different social situations, this study investigates how stories can
affect the social and emotional development of toddlers. That is, how the information
that the child gets from stories can affect the emotional intelligence and the social con-
cepts of toddlers.

Research questions
On the basis of the forgoing discussion, this empirical study was aimed at answering the
following question:
(1) What is the effect of reading stories on the development of social and emotional
Downloaded by [University of Jordan], [Iman Betawi] at 04:42 23 September 2014

skills of toddlers?

Methods
Participants
The participants of the study consisted of 10 children (6 males and 4 females) enrolled
in the laboratory nursery at The University of Jordan in the governorate of Amman.
Choosing the laboratory nursery of the University of Jordan was purposeful. As a
part of in-service teachers’ professional training and development, the researcher
emphasised the importance of story time in the daily schedule for toddlers and encour-
aged the caregivers at the nursery to incorporate story time and reading stories for tod-
dlers in the schedule. Also emphasised were the benefits toddlers will gain from this
method. One section of three toddlers’ rooms was assigned randomly as single exper-
imental group (n = 10). The research design used was one group experimental design
with pre-test and post-test.

Instrument
To answer the research question of this study, the researcher developed an instrument to
measure toddlers’ social and emotional skills. The instrument consisted of the child’s
basic information and 20 items. The basic information was child’s name and gender.
The 20 items were all worded positively (e.g. Enjoys laughter with others, Says
thank you when needed, shares with others), and each item was responded to on a 3-
point Likert scale (always 3, sometimes 2, rarely 1). The instrument was developed
according to the literature of young children’s social and emotional development
using the Social Skills Rating Scale (Gresham & Elliott, 2008) and according to the
social skills the chosen stories attempt to introduce the skills for toddlers. Based on
the experience and knowledge of the researcher, several stories were identified and
selected as suitable to the purpose of the study. These stories teach social and emotional
skills and concepts for young children in a very attractive and interactive way. Early
childhood specialists and faculty members were asked to give their opinion regarding
the suitability of the stories as developmentally appropriate to teach social and emotion-
al skills for toddlers. Based on that one story was identified as the most suitable to be
read to the children as age appropriate to teach social and emotional skills for toddlers.
In order to check the content validity of the instrument, it was presented to seven
faculty members and specialists in early childhood education. They gave their
opinion regarding the appropriateness of the items; whether they measure social and
emotional skills and whether they were clear and easy to understand. Taking their
 4 I.A. Betawi

comments into consideration, some of the items were modified and few more were
added. In order to estimate the reliability of the questionnaire, internal consistency
measures were computed using the Cronbach’s alpha method for each scale. The
reliability analysis results revealed that social and emotional scale for toddlers was
reliable at .894.

Procedures
Filling out the questionnaires
A meeting was arranged with the nursery principal and teachers to explain the purpose
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of the study and the questionnaire. A random selection of one toddlers’ room of three
was done. The teacher of the selected room was briefed and asked to send the consent
form home with toddlers. Child consent forms were distributed to the children to get
parents approval for their toddlers to be part of this study. After getting back the
consent forms, a total of 10 toddlers constituted the sample of the study. After taking
the time to clarify all the questions that were asked by the teacher, the lead teacher
was asked to fill out the questionnaire for toddlers in her room. The lead teacher was
asked to fill out the questionnaire twice for each child one before introducing the
story to the toddlers and another after the story was read to the children. The time inter-
val between filling the pre-test and the post-test was three weeks. The three-week time
interval was used to control for maturation threats of the study. Each day the teacher
will read the story for the toddlers in story time.

Introducing the age-appropriate story

The process of introducing the story to the toddlers took three weeks, in one session
daily. Each session took 5–8 minutes. The story was read in the morning at 11:00
o’clock every day. The teacher started with showing the children the cover of the
story. She then read the title and introduced the story to elicit prior knowledge about
the theme of the story, and to build background. The teacher asked some questions
such as: What do you see on the cover of the story? What do you think the story is
talking about? Do you have a dog at home? What is its name? The teacher showed
the children the pictures in the story. Then, she started to ask some probing questions
about what they see happening in the pictures and reinforce the ideas and the beha-
viours emphasised, and what they encountered in the story and in their real life. The
teacher involved the children in a discussion about things they can do. The teacher
asked questions such as: What is the dog doing in the illustration? What is the girl
doing? What are the things you can do? Can you behave like that? Would you like
to do that? etc. The teacher makes sure that what toddlers heard made sense. The
teacher also re-read the story to check if it made sense, and re-illustrates anything
that was difficult for them. After three consecutive weeks of reading the story, the
lead teacher completed the questionnaires for the toddlers (post-test).

Results and discussion

The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics and paired sample t-test in
order to determine the effect of reading stories on toddlers’ social and emotional skills.
As given in Table 1, the descriptive statistics for toddlers’ social and emotional skills in
 Early Child Development and Care 5

Table 1. Descriptive statistics for toddlers’ social skills in pre-test.

Variable No. Mean SD Min. Max.
Social skills 10 33.60 2.171 30 37

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for toddlers’ social skills in post-test.

Variable No. Mean SD Min. Max.
Story comprehension 10 45.80 6.529 34 53
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pre-test with the mean and standard deviation of the toddler’s scores, respectively,
equal 33.60 and 2.171. The high and low scores are, respectively, 37 and 30.
The descriptive statistics for toddlers’ social and emotional skills in post-test are
given in Table 2. Mean and standard deviation of the toddlers’ scores in social skills,
respectively, equal 45.80 and 6.529. The high and low scores are, respectively, 53
and 34.
The results then indicated that toddlers’ social and emotional skills have increased.
The mean score for the pre-test was (M = 33.60), while the mean score for toddlers’
social and emotional skills in the post-test was (M = 45.80). Moreover, as shown in
Figure 1, the mean sample test for toddlers’ social and emotional skills in pre-test
and post-test was also increased from 34 to 45.
As given in Table 3, the value of t is −7.102 and by regarding the df of 9 and the
significant level of .0001, we can conclude that the difference between the mean of tod-
dlers’ social and emotional skills in pre-test and post-test is significant (.000). The
amount of t score (−7.102) shows an increase in the mean in post-test for toddlers’
social and emotional skills. The results indicated that story time and reading stories
affect toddlers’ social skills.

Figure 1. Mean sample test for toddlers’ social skills in pre-test and post-test.
 6 I.A. Betawi

Table 3. Paired sample t-test for comparing the mean of toddlers’ social skills in pre-test and
post-test.
Paired differences
95% confidence
interval of the
difference
Mean differences SD Std. error of the mean Lower Upper t df Sig.
−12.200 5.432 1.718 −16.086 −8.314 −7.102 9 .000
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Conclusion and implication

The results of the study suggested that toddlers’ social and emotional skills in post-test
were improved and the difference between the means of toddlers’ social and emotional
skills in pre-test and post-test is significant (.000). The impact of story time and reading
stories on the mean scores of social and skills was also significant. In the view of
Hassanzadeh Kalate (2011), social skills of toddlers improved when using the
method of reading stories to introduce young children to different social situations.
The results of this study also align with the results of Dewing (2010), which indicated
that using methods such as reading stories for toddlers is an effective activity in active
learning. He found that thinking increases after reading stories for toddlers and more
motivation is created in order to learn skills deeply.
Story time and reading stories in early childhood settings as one of the routine
elements in toddlers’ rooms is an effective method that incorporates the aesthetic
ways of knowing to read stories. In addition, it improves social and emotional skills
for toddlers. Reading stories also has the ability to enhance the arts in educating and
motivating toddlers to connect with their environment. Teachers are encouraged to
find ways to incorporate story time and reading stories in their daily schedule for tod-
dlers in preschools. Researchers and scholars are encouraged to continue studying the
importance of story time on toddlers’ daily routine and its effects on all young chil-
dren’s developmental domains, such as language and literacy, cognitive, social,
emotional and physical skills. Training caregivers and teachers to use reading stories
as a method in their daily routine is a priority in Jordanian preschools. There is also
a need to facilitate the affective involvement of caregivers and preschool teachers in
workshops and training that equip them with knowledge of the importance of
reading stories on young children’s social and emotional skills. Also caregivers and tea-
chers should have the abilities to choose the appropriate stories for the appropriate age
group.

Notes on contributor
Iman Amy Betawi is an Assistant Dean for Quality Assurance at the faculty of educational
sciences at the University of Jordan. Her research interests include, but not limited to, father
involvement, infants and toddlers programmes, preschools programmes, teachers training and
education. Dr Betawi has extensive experience in infants and toddlers curriculum development
and early childhood teacher training. She serves as an editor at the International Journal of Ado-
lescence and Youth.
 Early Child Development and Care 7

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