The Storytelling Project

According to a 2021 World Bank report, 9 out of 10 Filipino kids aged 10 and below are unable to read and understand simple text. With roughly 27 million students in the Philippines deprived of in-person schooling at the height of the pandemic and less than 30% of the student population having internet access, the learning gap has grown exponentially. As the Philippines is slowly reopening schools, we are now faced with the challenge of ensuring the effectiveness of hybrid learning by engaging and supporting parents, teachers, and community members as partners in the teaching process. Our proposed solution: happy learning through storytelling.

The Storytelling Project (TSP) is a nonprofit that aims to foster love of reading through storytelling to cultivate imagination, inspiration, and hope in Filipino families. TSP believes there are two factors that can hinder children from being able to read⁠—low interest in the activity and low confidence in their ability. Thus, TSP strives to set a warm and fun environment where kids from Grades 1 to 3 will see reading as an interesting and valuable activity. Since our inception in 2012, TSP has collaborated with seven communities in developing a culture of reading through our three core projects, specifically Project Imagine.

Project Imagine is where we develop kids’ imagination by conducting regular storytelling sessions (in-person and/or online) in a span of at least three to four intensive weeks, with monthly follow-up sessions. Each child receives one storybook each day, allowing them to spark an interest in reading every day and start a reading habit. We also incorporate games and other recreational activities to help children create a positive attitude towards reading. Moreover, TSP aims to involve and empower the community to support the program implementation by conducting seminars, house visits, and workshops for teachers, parents, and other community members. Older students are even encouraged to act as mentors or “little helpers” that are trained as storytellers or to write stories themselves.

Through Project Imagine, TSP aims to help them overcome kids’ fears and poor perceptions of themselves. In our work for the past ten years, we have seen shifts in the reading attitudes and confidence of children. Data from TSP’s reading survey and focus group discussions showed us that our reading program has helped young people discover themselves in a way that enables them to develop their skills in other aspects, such as educational proficiency. Project Imagine also promotes a conducive learning environment that enables children to develop meaningful relationships with teachers and students which contribute to greater social, emotional, and educational outcomes. 

By cultivating the imagination and creativity of Filipino children, TSP sets them off on a life-changing path of personal learning and growth.

TSP conducts site visits, focus group discussions, and interviews with our partner communities before we implement our program. Using the data we gather from our pre-program interactions, we tailor the program to match the specific environment, culture and needs of our participants. For instance, the list of storybooks we use is customized to the context of the community.

TSP also holds orientations with parents and guardians before we conduct any program activities to emphasize that they have a significant role to play in the attainment of the program goals.

In one of our communities in Masbate, we have also formed a book club where older kids or “mentors” take part in our cause. We asked them what program they would want to implement for their fellow learners. They proposed teaching earlier grades in reading, a subject that they feel students in their neighborhood is lacking in.

Since TSP aspires to develop a habit of reading, building routines with our learners is critical.   

• We start with songs and dances to energize the kids and help set a fun mood.
• Afterwards, we will unlock uncommon words to enrich their vocabulary and then ask a question that kids will need to discover from listening to the story.
• We tell stories twice. For the first round, we ask kids to close their eyes and imagine the story in their heads. After the story, we ask them to draw what they have recalled or imagined from the story. This part aims to develop their noting details skills, creativity and comprehension. We have seen how drawings of some kids have developed throughout the program from simple drawings of stick figures to more elaborate drawings that have more details from the story.
• For the second round, we tell the stories again now with their eyes open. We conduct post-storytelling activities to deepen their appreciation of the story and develop their creativity or build confidence that they can do good things. For example, for the story “Araw sa Palengke,” we give kids budget to shop in  a ‘mini-market’ we set-up.
• Given the pandemic experience, we have acknowledged the growing need to offer a safe space where kids can freely express their feelings and thoughts. Thus, we also allot time for check-in or ask kids to share their feelings for the day or recent days. We believe that learners can better thrive in a nurturing environment.
• We also conduct storytelling workshops with the teachers and form book clubs among older kids which will assist or lead other activities promoting reading. All these components of the program aim to capacitate the community so they can continue building the habit of reading even without TSP.

We try to collect evidence through focused group discussions and surveys to kids (pre and post) However, we are still on the ongoing process of understanding further  what our impact is. Our preliminary results generally show positive impact in reading attitudes of the students, but we need to understand more which of the stories and activities we conduct have the most impact among the kids and which are least effective. We have also not been consistent in doing evaluations in all communities.

Since the program is purely run by volunteers, the organization also faces challenges in doing documentations and evaluations. The focus was often on implementation, but since last year we are working towards strengthening our documentations and evaluations processes.

We try to gather evidence of our impact through post-program focused group discussions with guardians and teachers, and pre and post survey/interviews.  In our FGDs, we take note of changes in the attitudes and behavior of kids towards reading and learning.

One of our core volunteers has also used our program as a case study for his thesis. He conducted pre- and post program survey among kids. The study concluded significant difference in the reading attitude and confidence in reading between a group of kids undergoing the 21-day program and a control group not receiving the intervention.

Another group of researchers has tried to understand how the program changes the perception of kids towards reading. Before the program, a volunteer shows a picture of the book and ask his/her thoughts and feelings about books. This is asked again after the program.

The Storytelling Project conducts fun storytelling sessions to underserved Filipino children to build their confidence and help them enjoy reading.

More efficient use of resources. The original program of TSP runs for 21-straight days and giving each kid a set of 21 books. The basis for the number of days is a research that concludes that it takes 21 days to build a habit. After the 21-day straight program, we conduct monthly follow-up sessions for at least a year. The program requires quite a lot of resources both in terms of finances and manpower. We are particularly interested to know if decreasing the number of sessions by certain percentage does not necessarily affect the program’s impact. Saving resources would allow the organization to scale and reach more communities.

Link between love of reading with the ability to read. TSP would like to better evaluate if getting the kids more interested to read really leads to higher chances that kids were able to read and comprehend faster. We also want to know better how our storytelling activities,pre and post storytelling activities, and provision of books help prepare the kids to better read.

Evaluation tool kit. We would also need help expert advice on how to improve our current evaluation tools and data gathering. We also need to develop a tool kit that we can easily deploy amid limited resources to help us continuously monitor and evaluate our projects.