Tell it again! Repeat a favourite story in different ways

What you need 

• A favourite book or fairy tale 

What to do 

• Your child learns a lot of repetition, so they will love for you to read the same book over and over again. At story time, if they choose to do this try to repeat the story at least once – we know it can be hard when you’ve read it every day for a week! 
• Find opportunities to retell or talk about the story at other times of day, to reinforce your child’s need to hear it repeated. Some ways you can do this are: 
  • When you’re playing, retell key parts of the story and encourage your child to act out the characters’ actions. You could build a den to be a house in the story or give them some hats or bits of fabric to change into as they become different characters. 
  • When playing with building blocks, build objects or places from the story and talk about what happened when they appeared in the story. For example, you could build a bridge out of blocks and talk about the three billy goats gruff walking across while the troll is under the bridge. 
  • If you’re walking somewhere, take turns telling parts of the story – each time it’s your child’s turn let them tell as much as they can remember before you take on the story again.