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1. Introduction

This paper assesses the role of teacher storytelling as a method of instruction in helping children to read and comprehend English texts in primary schools. Stories can be defined as “one of the most natural ways to share information, and it is as old as the human race” (Quesenbery and Brooks, 2010, p. 2). Ellis and Brewster (2014, p. 2) discuss that “the telling of stories has been a vital mechanism ever since humans developed language – perhaps the most vital in transferring knowledge of all sorts”. Researchers agree that storytelling is a natural and effective way to communicate, to share information and knowledge (Ellis and Brewster, 1991, 2002, 2014; Cameron, 2001; Davies, 2005, 2007). Many educators have proposed several benefits for the use of storytelling in teaching English for children, such as Ellis and Brewster (1991, 2002, 2014), Wright (1995), Cameron (2001), Ghosn (2002, 2013), Davies (2005, 2007) and Bland (2013), to name but a few. For example, Ellis and Brewster (2014, p. 7) argue that

[…] listening to stories allows the teacher to introduce or revise new vocabulary and sentence structures by exposing the children to language in varied, memorable and familiar contexts, which will enrich their thinking and gradually enter their own speech.

Young children usually face several difficulties when reading a text for the first time because they are not familiar with written words and continuous discourse. Stories provide students with a great deal of continuous discourse, a wide range of vocabulary and grammatical structures. Therefore, listening to or reading stories can expose students to a great amount of both oral and written language input and can help students improve their reading comprehension, as well as broaden their vocabulary and grammar.

While there is a general agreement on the general benefits of storytelling, there is still a lack of academic research assessing the effect of using storytelling in fostering children’s reading comprehension. This is the reason why this project was carried out, so as to verify the effect of storytelling in helping children improve their reading comprehension in primary education.

The research questions of the project are the following: RQ1.

“Does storytelling help children remember and understand the vocabulary of a certain topic and a specific grammatical form which...

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