In short
- A moral story works for a learner when the language is within reach and the lesson sits in a character's choice and what follows from it.
- Children often miss the moral a writer intended. Narvaez and colleagues (1999) found that the skill develops with age and takes more than reading comprehension.
- In Lee and colleagues (2014), a story that stressed the good results of honesty increased truth-telling in children aged 3 to 7. Stories about the costs of lying did not.
- Walker and Lombrozo (2017) found that asking 5- and 6-year-olds to explain parts of a story helped them find its moral, so plan questions before the lesson.
You want stories that teach English and a value in the same lesson. Many stories claim to do both. Fewer manage it for a pupil who reads slowly in a second language. This article sets out what to check before you choose a moral story, what research found about children and the lessons in stories, and a routine for teaching one. It does not print full stories. For three short stories you can use tomorrow, see Short Moral Stories to Teach Honesty, Kindness & Courage.
What makes a moral story work for English learners?
A moral story works for a learner when two things are true. The language is within the pupil's reach, so the plot is understood. And the lesson sits in a choice a character makes and in what follows from it. A story that fails the first test teaches no value, because the pupil is still decoding. A story that fails the second leaves the value in a closing sentence, which is the part readers skip.
Both tests weigh more in a foreign language. A sentence such as 'honesty is the best policy' uses words an A2 reader may not know. A girl who hands back a purse she found uses words they do know. That is practical reasoning, not a research finding.
A third thing is not in the story at all. Someone has to ask the pupils what the story taught. The research below explains why.
What research found about children and story morals
One caution first. These studies were done with children in their first language. We found none with pupils reading in a foreign language.
Narvaez (2002) reviewed the research behind a common assumption: that children build moral literacy by reading or hearing moral stories. She challenged it. Readers do not understand a text in the same way, because they differ in reading skill and background knowledge. And children do not extract the theme of a moral story as the writer intended.
Narvaez, Gleason, Mitchell and Bentley (1999) tested this directly. Pupils in third and fifth grade, and university students, read several moral stories. They picked each story's theme from a list of messages, and chose which of four short vignettes shared it.
Understanding of the theme differed between the age groups. The difference was still significant after the researchers accounted for reading comprehension. So following the events is not the same as getting the point. A pupil can pass a plot quiz and still miss the moral.
Explaining helps
Walker and Lombrozo (2017) looked at what helps. They note that the ability to draw out a story's moral without prompting develops relatively late. Young children tend to hold a story at a concrete level, by its surface details.
In two experiments with children aged 5 and 6, prompts to explain parts of a story made a difference. The children were better able to look past surface details, state the underlying moral and apply it to a new situation. In some cases, explaining worked better than being told the moral directly.
These children were younger than most EFL pupils. The finding still suits a classroom: ask 'why?' before you tell.
Which kind of story changed behaviour?
The studies above measured understanding. One well-known experiment measured behaviour. Lee, Talwar, McCarthy, Ross, Evans and Arruda (2014) compared four classic moral stories with children aged 3 to 7. They tested whether the stories promoted honesty.
'Pinocchio' and 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' failed to reduce lying. 'George Washington and the Cherry Tree' significantly increased truth-telling. The authors traced the difference to what each story stresses. The George Washington story stresses the good consequences of honesty. The other two stress the bad consequences of lying.
The researchers then altered the George Washington story so that it focused on the bad consequences of dishonesty. In that form, it too failed to promote honesty.
Treat this with care. It is one experiment, on honesty only, with children younger than most EFL classes. It still gives a working rule for choosing. Prefer stories in which the value turns out well for the character over stories in which a fault is punished.
What to check in a moral story before you use it
The table turns these findings into questions you can ask of any story. It is a working checklist built from the research above, not a tested instrument.
| What to check | Why |
|---|---|
| Can pupils read it without stopping at every line? | A pupil who cannot follow the plot cannot discuss the moral. Hu and Nation (2000) estimated that unassisted reading needs about 98% of the words to be known. |
| Is there one clear choice? | The value lives in what a character decides. Without a choice, there is nothing to discuss. |
| Does the character have a reason to choose wrongly? | A choice that costs nothing shows no honesty and no courage. |
| Does the ending show what the good choice brings? | In Lee and colleagues (2014), the story that stressed good consequences was the one that increased truth-telling. |
| Is there one main value? | Narvaez (2002) concluded that children do not extract a story's theme as the writer intended. Our inference is that two themes make it harder. |
| Does the story leave the moral for the reader to name? | A printed moral leaves nothing to explain. In Walker and Lombrozo (2017), explaining helped children find it. |
How to choose stories by level and by value
Level comes first
Hu and Nation (2000) studied how the share of unknown words in a text affects comprehension. Their estimate was that learners need to know about 98% of the words to read without help. That is about one unknown word in fifty.
Hold the figure loosely. It rests on 66 university students. Kremmel, Indrarathne, Kormos and Suzuki (2023) repeated the study with 104 adult learners and could not fully reproduce the result. Neither study tested school pupils. Our reading is modest: when many words are unknown, the moral is unlikely to get through.
A quick check needs no software. Give a pupil the first hundred words and ask them to underline every word they do not know. If more than a few are underlined, keep the story for later or read it together. How to Match Students to the Right Graded Readers covers placement in more detail. What Can an A2 Reader Actually Read? shows what a text at that level looks like.
Then choose by value
A reading list ordered only by level meets values by accident. The points below are planning advice from practice, not research findings.
- Start from the values your school already names in its mission, its assemblies or its behaviour policy, such as honesty, kindness or fairness.
- Give each value two or three weeks and more than one story.
- Come back to the same value later in the year with a longer story and a harder choice.
- Treat level and value as separate decisions. A story has to pass both.
Building a Values-Based English Curriculum shows how to set values against the term calendar while the language level keeps its own progression.
Traditional tales or modern stories?
Both have a place. Traditional tales, such as fables and folk tales, are short and built around one event. Every culture has its own, and pupils may know a version in their first language. A plot that is already known leaves more attention for the English. That is our reasoning, drawn from the point Narvaez (2002) makes about background knowledge.
They also have three drawbacks for a learner. The old wording was not written for an A2 reader. Many tales print the moral as a last line. And some of the best-known tales teach by punishment. 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' is one, and in Lee and colleagues (2014) it failed to reduce lying.
Modern stories set at school or at home offer choices that pupils recognise, and they can be written to a level. Their weakness is the narrator who explains the lesson.
If you use a traditional tale, adapt it. Lee and colleagues (2014) changed the emphasis of one story and changed its effect. The telling matters as well as the tale.
- Retell the tale at your class's level, in words the pupils know.
- Leave off the line that states the moral, and ask the class for it.
- Check the ending. If the tale only punishes a fault, pair it with a story in which the good choice turns out well.
A routine for teaching one moral story
Day and Park (2005) describe six types of comprehension that questions can target. They include literal comprehension, inference, evaluation and personal response. The authors note that teachers often check literal comprehension first, to make sure pupils have the surface meaning. The routine below keeps that order.
- Before reading. Teach the three or four words the plot depends on. Do not name the value.
- Read. Pupils read the story once, with audio if you have it.
- Check the plot. Ask two or three literal questions. If pupils cannot answer them, stop and reread.
- Ask why. Ask about the character's reasons. This is the step where pupils explain, as in Walker and Lombrozo (2017).
- Name the moral. Each pupil finishes the sentence 'This story shows that ...'. Take several answers before you give your own.
- Bring it home. Ask one question about the pupils' own world.
Classroom example: a story outlined in four lines, and the questions for it
Line 1: Omar finds a phone on the school bus. It is newer than his own.
Line 2: His friend says, 'Keep it. Nobody saw you.'
Line 3: Omar gives the phone to the driver.
Line 4: The next day an older girl thanks him. The phone holds the only photos she has of her grandfather.
Check the plot: 'Where did Omar find the phone? Who did he give it to?'
Ask why: 'Was it easy for Omar to give the phone back? How do you know?'
A different ending: 'What if Omar had kept the phone? What would the girl do that evening?'
Name the moral: 'Finish the sentence: This story shows that ...'
Bring it home: 'Have you ever found something that was not yours? What did you do?'
The outline passes the checklist. It has one choice, two reasons to choose wrongly, and an ending that shows what honesty brings. Nobody states the moral.
A pupil's sentence may differ from yours. Ask what in the story led them to it. Discussion Questions to Draw the Moral From a Story gives more questions of each kind. Reading Comprehension Question Types, With Examples shows how to ask them at A1 and A2.
How iRead handles this
Every story in iRead is levelled to the CEFR, and stories carry a moral, such as honesty, kindness, courage or perseverance. Stories in global packs are tagged with the values they teach, so a school picks a pack by level, theme and values. Dedicated quiz questions ask what the story taught.
The core principle: Choose a story the pupil can read, in which a good choice turns out well. Then ask what it taught, and listen to the answer.
See it in iRead: Stories in iRead are levelled to the CEFR and carry a moral. Dedicated quiz questions ask what the story taught.
See values through storiesKey takeaway
A moral story does two jobs only if the pupil can read it and has to work out the lesson. Choose by level and by value, and plan your questions before the lesson.
Frequently asked questions
What age are moral stories suitable for?
Any school age, if the language and the situation fit the reader. Narvaez and colleagues (1999) found that understanding of a story's theme differed between age groups, so younger pupils need more help. Let them choose the moral from three options before they write their own.
Should the moral be stated at the end of the story?
Better to ask for it. Walker and Lombrozo (2017) found that prompting 5- and 6-year-olds to explain parts of a story helped them state its moral. In some cases this worked better than telling them. Ask pupils what the story taught before you offer your own view.
Are fables good for English learners?
They can be, with care. Fables are short and often familiar from the first language. Many use old wording and end with a punishment or a printed moral. Retell them at the class's level, leave the moral unstated, and add stories in which the good choice turns out well.
Can one story teach more than one value?
A story may hold several themes, but teach one at a time. Narvaez (2002) concluded that children do not extract even one theme as the writer intended. You can return to a familiar story later in the term for a second value, when the plot is already understood.
Sources
- Narvaez, D. (2002). Does reading moral stories build character?. Educational Psychology Review, 14(2), 155-171. doi.org/10.1023/A:1014674621501
- Narvaez, D., Gleason, T., Mitchell, C., & Bentley, J. (1999). Moral theme comprehension in children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(3), 477-487. doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.91.3.477
- Lee, K., Talwar, V., McCarthy, A., Ross, I., Evans, A., & Arruda, C. (2014). Can classic moral stories promote honesty in children?. Psychological Science, 25(8), 1630-1636. doi.org/10.1177/0956797614536401
- Walker, C. M., & Lombrozo, T. (2017). Explaining the moral of the story. Cognition, 167, 266-281. doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.11.007
- Hu, M. H.-C., & Nation, P. (2000). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), 403-430. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66973
- Kremmel, B., Indrarathne, B., Kormos, J., & Suzuki, S. (2023). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension: Replicating Hu and Nation (2000). Language Learning, 73(4), 1127-1163. doi.org/10.1111/lang.12622
- Day, R. R., & Park, J.-s. (2005). Developing reading comprehension questions. Reading in a Foreign Language, 17(1), 60-73. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66599