One Story at a Time: An Exploration of Literacy, Libraries, & Storytelling in Rural Uganda

One Story at A Time: An Exploration of Literacy, Libraries, & Storytelling in

Rural UgandaDr. Geoff Goodman, Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program

Dr. Valeda Dent, University LibrariesFulbright Scholars 2014Long Island University

Today’s Presentation

*The Fulbright study*Goal of the research*Expected outcomes

*Next steps*How LIU can help

Uganda…with a baby in tow!

Kabubbu, one of the two remote sites for our study.

Research Day 1 at Kabubbu Primary School, Uganda.

Research Day 1 in Mpigi, Uganda, the second

remote site.

Carlyn @ 8 months!

Typical row houses in Mpigi, Uganda.

Current Research Study Overview

The Storytelling/Story-Acting Activity (STSA) is an activity developed by educator Vivian

Paley (e.g., 1990) in which children, through their engaged participation, are enabled and

encouraged to generate an ongoing practice of peer-oriented narrative collaboration.

STSA combines narrative and play that can be deeply engaging to children and, in the

process, helps them to develop strong language skills. As its name implies, the activity

includes a storytelling and a story-acting phase. At the beginning of the activity, any child

who wishes can dictate a story to the librarian, who writes down the story as the child tells it

with minimal intervention. Later during the activity, each story is read aloud to the entire

group by the librarian, while the child/author and other children, whom he or she chooses,

act out the story (Nicolopoulou & Cole, 2010).

STSA Goals1. To foster a culture of cooperation, inclusion, and collaborative learning in the library. 2. To promote children’s acquisition of key, mutually reinforcing elements of school readiness (i.e., narrative comprehension, social competence, emergent literacy). 

a) STSA increases children’s vocabulary, language complexity, and story comprehension and production—skills found to promote literacy acquisition best. 

b) In creating and acting in their own and others’ stories, children gain knowledge of the power of stories. 

c) Telling stories for and with their peers and acting them out together for an audience helps children develop self-regulation and the capacity to make and maintain friends. 

d) STSA promotes children’s abilities to understand others’ perspectives, including their internal worlds, thoughts, and emotions, and their coordination: 

a) expressing increasingly complex and coherent storiesb) cooperating with other children during the dramatization of

storiesc) enacting a fictional character and taking various characters’

points of view (Nicolopoulou & Childs, 2002-2003)

Play in Relation to STSA

Children desire to realize their wishes through fantasy or imagination.

Two interconnected components of social pretend play (Vygotsky, 1978):

1) An imaginary situation (a possible world)2) Rules that define and create the imaginary situation.

 In play, children self-consciously impose rules on themselves rather than receiving them from others. Play pushes the child beyond the perceptually bound world to the creation—in imagination—of a symbolic world dominated by meanings, with its own internal logic, in which action arises from ideas (internal mental world) rather than things (Nicolopoulou, 1997).

In STSA, children experience stories contextualized by the actions of themselves and others. Because a play scenario is acted out, children can see more clearly how things fit—or don’t fit—together in the scenario that they tried to create only with words.

ParticipantsIn January, 2014, with the help of Ssentume Julius, we recruited 123 children ages 3 to 5 and their caregivers from the remote villages of Mpigi (n = 61) and Kabubbu (n = 62). While poor by Ugandan standards, both villages have rural community libraries from which we conducted our baseline assessments as well as intervention. We returned in August, 2014, to conduct our post-intervention assessments on these same children and caregivers to determine whether the STSA activity improved participants’ readiness for school in three domains: emergent literacy, narrative comprehension, and social competence.

Research Hypotheses1. Children who participate in the Storytelling/Story-

Acting (STSA) activity twice per week will have higher scores in three domains of school readiness (emergent literacy, narrative comprehension, and social competence) than children who do not participate in this activity.

2. Primary caregiver reading/literacy habits, cumulative social/contextual risk, and primary caregiver sensitivity relating to the child will moderate the effect of group placement (STSA participation vs. nonparticipation) on school readiness outcomes.

ProcedureChildren from each village were randomly assigned to four

groups of 15 or 16 children. Two groups in each village are receiving the STSA

activity, while theother two groups are not.

ProcedureOnly the children from the four STSA groups (Cranes,

Pigeons, Lions, and Elephants) received the “Secret Sauce”—the STSA activity. 1) Julius wrote down each child’s story verbatim, up to

four stories per session (20 minutes, overlapping with drawing activity, large-motor activities). Julius underlined each character in the story, while the child observed.

2) Children gathered around the rectangular chalk stage, while Julius called up the first child author.

3) Julius read the child author’s story verbatim to the group.

4) Julius instructed the child author to select children from the audience to play the characters in the child author’s story.

5) Julius read the story a second time, while the children acted out their assigned roles.

Our “Giraffes” Non-Storytelling/Story-Acting group at Kabubbu Rural Community Library.

Preparing to go to the library for the Storytelling/Story-

Acting activity.

The Kabubbu Rural Community Library.

A story being dictated to our Project Coordinator by one of our preschool participants.

Storytelling/Story-Acting Protocol

A Typical Story

Our preschool participants getting ready to act out their

own stories. Chalk on the ground indicates the “stage.”

Our preschool participants choosing the actors for their

stories.

Olivia takes the “stage.”

Ibrahim in the role of the Frog.

ProcedureBelow are some stories acted out by the Mpigi STSA children:

Mpigi Story 1 – ShamimThere was the hare and the leopard, who agreed to steal cheese. Now Mr. Hare went on the road and waited for the car that carries cheese. When the car came, the hare jumped on it and sat in the back where the cheese was. This car was going directly to the hospital. The hare realized that after hearing the nurses telling one of the patients to walk around the compound as he waited for his medication,  so the hare sneaked out of the car and ran back to his home. He found the leopard and told him that for him he has had a good time eating the cheese that they were talking about, but he did not tell the story about him ending up in the hospital. The next day, the leopard also did the same thing: he went on the road and waited for the car that carries the cheese. He jumped on it, but the car just drove directly to the hospital. Before the leopard had a chance to eat any cheese, they were already at the hospital. They opened up the back door and saw him, so he pretended he was sick and then was injected. The injections were very painful. He went back home very sad and told the story to the hare miserably. He also told the hare what had happened to him. He will never go to steal the cheese again. In a little while, their grandmother came, and they went to the well together to fetch water. When they reached there, they found 3 snakes, which had just eaten people. The hare called these snakes and gave a name to each.

Mpigi Story 2 - JauharahSome children went to school. One of the children took rice. When others asked her to give them some, she refused,  and then one child slapped him. She went back home crying. There was a party, and his friends attended, but he did not attend because he was dirty.

ProcedureBelow are some stories acted out by the Kabubbu STSA children:

Kabubbu Story 3 - KennyThere was Salongo and Nalongo, who produced Nakato, Babirye ,and Waswa.  They planted their millet, which later was attacked by the birds, which came to eat the millet all the time. The parents sent Nakato to chase the birds away. When Nakato sent the birds, the birds did not leave. They instead sung her a song, “ Nakato leave us, Nakato leave us, please Nakato leave us to eat our millet for our life.” Nakato went back home and reported this. Now, the parents sent Babirye. The birds did the same thing to Babirye (the song). They sent Waswa; still the birds did not leave (the song).  Finally, Salongo went to chase them, and this time the birds went away.

Kabubbu Story 4 - OliviaA man and his wife produced a child, and at some point, they left the child in the house by herself. When they went away, a monster came and knocked on the door and asked the child to open, pretending to be the father of the child. The monster convinced the child that it had brought her millet to eat. When the child opened, the monster ate the child.

Olivia’s First Story (video clip)

Procedure

Over time, we are expecting to see changes in children’s story development and

drawing development. Not only will we be able to assess change over the six

months of intervention from baseline assessment (January) to post-intervention

assessment (August), but also weekly change will be measured by changes in the

children’s story development (for the STSA children) and drawing development

(across all children).

Site of New Mpigi Classroom

Construction for the new classroom underway.

New Mpigi Classroom

Ekifo Kya Nansujju

Carlyn (aka Nansujju)

The Research Team

The Research Team

Valeda & Geoff

Read More About It

How Can LIU Help? Consider ways to support student experiences abroad

– both humanitarian and academic (so far, we have taken four clinical psychology doctoral students with us to Uganda to assist with the research

project).

Participate in book drives (in your communities, high schools, @ LIU, etc.) – libraries and schools

in Uganda desperately need relevant reading materials.

Consider ways to support faculty who want to conduct research and/or want to lead study-travel

courses in the region.

Spread the word – if you or someone you know is interested in this work, let us know!

We are all responsible for fostering the greater good and for making sure that as

much as possible, access to reading materials and information in the developing world is

not bound by politics, poverty, or technology. 

Project AcknowledgmentsPrincipal InvestigatorsGeoff GoodmanValeda DentCaregiver InterviewersValeda DentKaren GubertDaniel GubertJamie Lynn ForzatoHarriet NamigaddePatrick Okapelo KokasCaregiver TranslatorsHarriet NamigaddePatrick Okapelo KokasChild InterviewersGeoff GoodmanMichelle FanciulloJulius SsentumeChild TranslatorsJulius SsentumeHabib Gayonga Ugandan Project CoordinatorJulius SsentumeAmerican Project CoordinatorTina Lo DocumentarianEric Yellin

Subject RecruitmentJulius SsentumeMaterials DesignTina LoDustin KahoudData EntryTina LoGeoff GoodmanSTSA and Non-STSA Group FacilitatorsJulius Ssentume, Project CoordinatorHabib Gayonga, Associate CoordinatorKitengesa Community Library FounderKate ParryExtramural Grant FundingJ. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship, US Department of StateLong Island University Faculty Research CommitteeMpigi Community LibraryJoey, LibrarianKabubbu Community LibraryAugustine, Librarian

For More Information:Uganda Community Libraries Associationwww.ugcla.orgFriends of African Village Librarieswww.favl.org