It’s Story Time; the interactive DVD is launched

Listen, read, and act; that is the approach used to encourage primary school students to go back to text books. The project took six months to materialize and this morning a DVD entitled “It’s Story Time” was released by BelCaribe. Included are all time favorite stories but the difference is that the content was transformed into interactive material with a full casting by primary school children. Duane Moody reports.

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Duane Moody, Reporting

A new publication, which will provide primary school children with the opportunity to hear the reading of a text, while encouraging their ability to listen to stories, was launched today at the Bliss Center for the Performing Arts. The Book, It’s Story Time, an interactive DVD that was created by BelCaribe, took six months to put together and aims to convert young reluctant readers and help them to gain insight into what books can offer.

Sandra Mahler

Sandra Mahler, Executive Producer, It’s Story Time

“It’s a DVD consisting of children stories taken from the Ministry of Education curriculum. It has taken us roughly six months to produce because most of the times we had to do it on weekends when the children were out of school. All the children on the dvd are from local primary schools engaged in schools presently still. It was difficult, but it was a learning experience for the children and for ourselves because while working with these children, we were able to bring out talent that these children didn’t know they had within and at the same time, they learnt from us and we learnt from them.”

According to Deputy Chief Education Officer, Carol Babb, the DVD is a clear example of another tool of learning for primary school children and could very well be introduced in the education system.

Carol Babb

Carol Babb, Deputy Chief Education Officer

“This DVD will assist tremendously for children. As you know, stories; there are lots of benefits of telling stories to children. It builds their self-esteems, it builds their self-confidence; it’s a lot of fun for them. It lends itself to language development. Children learn words; they develop their vocabulary. It is also a time for bonding between parents and teachers. It gives children an opportunity to express themselves. They use their creativity, they use their imagination…I can go on and on with the number of benefits. But certainly the Ministry of Education is supporting this issue because we know that telling stories, reading stories aloud has a lot of benefits for the development of our young people. Definitely we will support initiatives like this. We have a literacy unit and we really value stories and reading aloud to students so we are going to encourage students to use this video to encourage more story telling.”

The book encompasses stories such as Miles the Fireman, Herbert Finds a Home, the Three Little Pigs and Little Fish which are primary school favorites.  According to Executive Producer, Sandra Mahler, it is a different form of learning using the same material.

Sandra Mahler

“The children had to read the story, learn the story and acted out the story. The stories were stories that they read every day in school. But some of them, after reading the story and casting the story, some of them realized that I didn’t know that story had in that. And after working with us and actually reading and comprehending the story and acting out the story, these children understood those stories that were done in their class every single day, more now than before. Most of our children, or a lot of them in our primary schools today, learn more by seeing the story and hearing the story at the same time. So that was our motivation. Our motivation was to help our children who lack the interests in books and who would now more hear sustained reading of text on this DVD.”

Duane Moody for News Five.