Origami Storytelling in Primary Education: A Review of the Benefits of Language and Problem Solving
Storytelling in elementary schools improves children’s language skills by providing them with a valuable opportunity to practice listening comprehension, a vital component of early childhood education. The ability to understand spoken language involves much more than just listening to words and figuring out what the speaker wants the words to mean. Nonverbal vocal pitch, tempo, and tonality cues are essential for effective communication. In face-to-face interactions, the additional non-verbal elements of body language, gestures, and facial expressions make up up to 80% of expressive language. But how can teachers capture and hold the attention of their distraction-prone students in our multitasking, screen-dominating learning environments?
Why not try using the art of Japanese origami paper folding to help focus students’ attention during language arts activities? When an unexpected curiosity like origami is added to a storytelling presentation, the educational benefits for elementary school students increase. Origami models and other interesting objects add visual stimulation and attract attention, so young students are focused and motivated to pay more attention. Another advantage of adding origami to stories is that origami is created step by step. As a story progresses scene by scene, an origami model can also be built, fold by fold. When the story ends, the origami model is also created. This specialized technical storytelling is called Storigami. Storyteller + Origami = Storigami.
Viewing and listening to stories illustrated by the progressive folds of the origami models allows students to imagine the visual details of the scenes and characters described by the words, but also gives students the experience of analyzing the symbolic representations of the shapes and folds of paper that are combined with characters or actions from the story. The ability to understand how shapes relate to history and then imagine possible outcomes are key elements to successful problem solving, one of the most important goals of primary education.
How can teachers and other educators learn to use Storigami to develop language arts and problem solving skills in their elementary school classrooms? Fortunately, a Midwest educational publisher, Storytime Ink International, has published several collections of origami stories, such as Nature Folding Stories – Quick and easy origami stories about plants and animals. This book and other folding storybooks describe how to use the technique, step by step. Storigami books are available from most public libraries and from various online sources, including http://Amazon.com/ and http://Storytimeink.com/