In short
- Read the story with the class before the visit, so the guest meets readers rather than an audience.
- In Isbell and colleagues (2004), young children who heard stories told retold them with better comprehension, while children who heard them read gained in language complexity.
- Elley (1989) found that 7- and 8-year-olds learned words from a story read three times, and learned far more when the teacher explained the words.
- There is little research on author visits themselves, so treat the plan here as practice: one scene read aloud, pupils' questions, a short activity, and a follow-up.
A visit from the person who wrote or narrated a story turns a text into something a real person made. That is worth a lesson, but only if the lesson is built around the pupils' reading and not around the guest. This article sets out what to do before, during and after a visit, with a 40-minute plan and sample questions pupils at A2 could ask. It reports what research found on told stories, read stories and story reading with young learners, and says plainly where the advice is practice rather than evidence.
How do you host a guest storyteller in class?
Have the class read the story first. Keep the visit to one lesson or less. Let the pupils ask the questions, in English, prepared in advance. Then do something with the visit afterwards: a letter, a rereading, a class story. A visit that meets those four conditions works with a famous author or with a parent who narrates. A visit that meets none of them is a show, and the pupils are its audience.
- Before: read the story, prepare questions, brief the guest on the pupils' level.
- During: a read-aloud of one scene, the pupils' questions, one short activity.
- After: write to the guest, reread the story, and write a scene of your own.
This shape is practice, not a research finding. We found no study that tests author visits against a control. What the research does cover is the reading around the visit, and that is where the value sits.
What research says about told stories, read stories and young learners
Isbell, Sobol, Lindauer and Lowrance (2004) compared telling and reading with children aged 3 to 5. Two groups heard the same 24 stories. One group heard them told, the other heard them read from a book. Both groups gained in oral language. Children who heard the stories told showed better story comprehension when they retold them. Children who heard the stories read showed gains in language complexity. A live storyteller and a printed text each gave the children something the other did not.
Elley (1989) studied 7- and 8-year-olds in New Zealand, hearing stories in their first language. A teacher read a story aloud three times in one week. Without any explanation of words, the children's vocabulary gains were about 15%. With brief teacher explanations of the target words, the gains rose to about 40%. Three months later the gains were still there. Two lessons follow for a visit: hear the story more than once, and let someone explain the words.
For learners of English as a foreign language, the evidence is in teacher handbooks rather than experiments. Cameron (2001) gives a chapter of her book on teaching languages to young learners to learning through stories. Ellis and Brewster (2014), in a British Council handbook for primary English teachers, set out a story-based methodology with story notes and lesson plans.
Cremin, Mottram, Collins, Powell and Safford (2014) worked with 43 primary teachers in England on reading for pleasure. They argue that engagement in reading is strongly shaped by the relationships between children, teachers, families and communities. A visitor who wrote or narrated the class's story is one more such relationship, for an hour.
The cautions are plain. Isbell and Elley studied young children in their first language, not EFL pupils aged 8 to 16. Elley's reader was the class teacher, not a visitor. And no study here tested a visit itself. Read the findings as reasons to read the story before, to explain words, and to reread it after. Read the rest of this article as practice.
Before the visit
The preparation is where most of the learning happens, and it takes one to two weeks.
- Read the story with the class, ideally in your normal reading sessions, with the audio if the story has a read-along. Pupils should finish it at least a few days before the visit.
- Explain the words that matter for the questions. Elley (1989) found that explanation roughly doubled what children learned from a story.
- Prepare questions in English at the pupils' level. Pupils write them in pairs, you correct them, and each pair keeps a card. See the sample questions below.
- Choose the scene the guest will read. Pick one the class liked or argued about, no longer than two pages at A2.
- Brief the guest in writing: the pupils' CEFR level, how long they have been learning English, which scene to read, the words to avoid, and how long each part will last. Send the pupils' questions in advance.
- Decide who does what: a pupil to welcome the guest, a timekeeper, a pupil to say thank you.
If the guest is a narrator rather than a writer, ask them to read the scene the way they recorded it. The advice in how to narrate a story for language learners applies in the room too. For what an A2 class can read and ask, see what an A2 reader can actually read.
During the visit: a 40-minute plan
Forty minutes is enough. The plan below is a working plan, not a tested one. The guest speaks for less than half of it.
| Minutes | What happens | Who speaks |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | A pupil welcomes the guest. Two pupils tell the guest what the story is about, in English, in their own words. | Pupils |
| 5 to 15 | The guest reads one scene aloud, slowly, while pupils follow the text. The guest stops twice to explain a word or ask what happens next. | Guest |
| 15 to 27 | Pupils ask their prepared questions from their cards. The guest answers briefly. You rephrase an answer if it goes above the class's level. | Pupils, then guest |
| 27 to 35 | One short activity: pupils vote on a different ending and the guest reacts, or a pupil sits in the hot seat as a character and the guest asks the questions. | Everyone |
| 35 to 40 | Pupils say in one sentence what the story taught. A pupil thanks the guest. You say what the class will do next. | Pupils |
Keep the text visible during the read-aloud, on the board or in the pupils' hands. Isbell and colleagues (2004) found that told and read stories helped in different ways. A live reading with the text in view gives the class both at once. For the way a normal session runs, see how to run an in-school reading session.
Sample questions pupils at A2 could ask
These are examples written for this article, in the grammar an A2 class has met. Pupils should write their own, but a model helps. For more ways to draw out the story's lesson, see discussion questions to draw the moral from a story.
Sample questions at A2 (examples, not a tested list)
Why did you write this story?
Is Mira a real person?
What was the most difficult part to write?
Did you change the ending? Why?
Which character do you like best?
How long did you write this story? One week? One year?
Do you write every day?
For a narrator: Which voice was the hardest to do?
For a narrator: Did you make mistakes when you recorded it? What did you do?
What do you want us to learn from the story?
Correct the questions before the visit, but keep the pupils' words. A question that sounds like the pupil is worth more than a perfect one that sounds like you.
After the visit
The follow-up is what turns a visit into reading. Elley (1989) found that gains from a story read three times were still there three months later. Do not let the visit be the last time the class meets the story.
- Write to the guest. Each pupil writes three to five sentences: one thing they remember, one question they did not ask, one thank-you. Send them together.
- Reread the story. One more pass through the whole story in the next session, with the audio if there is one. Ask pupils what they noticed that they missed the first time.
- Write a class story. Take the scene the guest read and write the next scene as a class, at the same level. If the guest is willing, send it to them.
- Name the moral again. Two weeks later, ask what the story taught. Compare the answers with what pupils said on the day.
A short account of the visit, with aggregate numbers only and no individual pupils, belongs in a reading culture that parents and the next class can see.
Online visits, and pupils who are shy about speaking English
An online visit follows the same shape and should be shorter, about 25 to 30 minutes. This is practice, not evidence. Put the text on the shared screen while the guest reads. Send the questions in advance, and have one pupil at a time come to the microphone. Test the link with the guest the day before. Keep the class camera on so the guest can see faces. For the mechanics of a live online session, see how to run live online English reading classes.
Some pupils will not want to speak English to a stranger, and a visit should not force them. The following are practical ways round it. None has been tested in a study.
- Questions are written in pairs and read from a card, so no pupil has to compose a sentence live.
- A shy pupil can give their card to a partner to read, and still be named as the person who asked.
- Give shy pupils a role that is not speaking: timekeeper, note-taker, the pupil who hands the guest the book.
- Allow a question in the home language, translated by a classmate. The guest hears the question either way.
- Let the guest read the written questions aloud from the pile, so the class hears every pupil's question in the guest's voice.
Cremin and colleagues (2014) put reading engagement down to relationships. A pupil who did not speak but whose question was answered has still had one.
How iRead handles this
In iRead, a session is a live class, online or in school, that students enrol in themselves, and attendance is recorded automatically. Teachers publish several sessions for the same unit, and each student joins the one they can attend. Writers and narrators are credited on the story, so a class can see who wrote and who read what they are reading. Stories carry a moral, and dedicated quiz questions ask what the story taught.
The core principle: The pupils have read the story, the pupils ask the questions, and the story does not end when the guest leaves.
See it in iRead: A session is a live class, online or in school, that students enrol in themselves, and attendance is recorded automatically. Writers and narrators are credited on the story.
See how live sessions workKey takeaway
Read first, keep it short, let the pupils ask, and reread afterwards. The guest is a reason to read the story twice.
Frequently asked questions
How do you prepare students for an author visit?
Read the whole story with the class first, explain the words they will need, and have pupils write their questions in pairs at their level. Brief the guest on the class's CEFR level and the scene to read. Elley (1989) found that explaining words roughly doubled what children learned from a story.
How long should an author visit last?
One lesson or less. Forty minutes in the room is enough for a welcome, one scene read aloud, the pupils' questions, one activity and a thank-you. Online, aim for 25 to 30 minutes. These lengths are practice, not research findings, and the guest should speak for less than half the time.
Is a told story better than a read story for children?
Each helps differently, in the one study that compared them. Isbell and colleagues (2004) found that children aged 3 to 5 who heard stories told showed better story comprehension when retelling, while those who heard them read gained in language complexity. A live reading with the text in view offers both.
Can a storyteller visit a class online?
Yes, with the same shape as an in-person visit and a shorter time. Show the text on screen while the guest reads, send the questions in advance, and bring one pupil at a time to the microphone. Test the link the day before. No study has compared online and in-person visits.
Sources
- Isbell, R., Sobol, J., Lindauer, L., & Lowrance, A. (2004). The effects of storytelling and story reading on the oral language complexity and story comprehension of young children. Early Childhood Education Journal, 32(3), 157-163. doi.org/10.1023/B:ECEJ.0000048967.94189.a3
- Elley, W. B. (1989). Vocabulary acquisition from listening to stories. Reading Research Quarterly, 24(2), 174-187. doi.org/10.2307/747863
- Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge University Press. doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511733109
- Ellis, G., & Brewster, J. (2014). Tell it Again! The Storytelling Handbook for Primary English Language Teachers. British Council. www.teachingenglish.org.uk/publications/resource-books/tell-it-again-storytelling-handbook-primary-english-language-teachers
- Cremin, T., Mottram, M., Collins, F. M., Powell, S., & Safford, K. (2014). Building Communities of Engaged Readers: Reading for Pleasure. Routledge. doi.org/10.4324/9781315772585