How to Improve Speaking Skills for Kids Through Storytelling

If your child is learning English and you would like them to have more opportunities to practise speaking, you might feel unsure about how to help at home or perhaps not confident enough to do so, especially if English is not your first language.

Storytelling is an effective and enjoyable way to support children’s spoken English at home and you don’t need to be a fluent English speaker to facilitate it. Enthusiasm and encouragement are far more important than perfect English grammar. Storytelling gives children a meaningful reason to speak, helps them practise vocabulary and sentence patterns, and can also support later writing development.

Four storytelling activities to build spoken English for kids

1. Tell stories together using wordless picture books

Sitting with your child and building a story from picture books together is one of the most powerful speaking activities you can do at home. There are no words to read aloud. You simply look at the pictures together and talk about what you see, in English.

Ask questions like "What do you think is happening here?" or "How does she feel?" You do not need to correct every mistake. Speaking confidence comes first.

A few wordless picture books to get you started:

There are of course, many picture books available for younger children but if you’re looking for something for children aged 7 to 11, here are a few beautifully illustrated options to get you started:

Book	Author	About
Flotsam	David Wiesner	A boy finds a camera washed up on a beach. The photos inside reveal an extraordinary mystery.
Journey	Aaron Becker	A girl draws a door and steps into a magical world. Rich illustrations with lots to spot and describe.
Tuesday	David Wiesner	Frogs float through a sleeping town on lily pads. Funny, surprising, and full of detail.

No book to hand? No problem. Pobble 365 and Once Upon a Picture are websites that  share beautiful, imaginative images that make great story prompts.

2. Draw your own story

Ask your child to draw the pictures for their story first. They could draw three simple pictures showing a beginning, a middle, and an end, create it in the style of a comic or create their own mini book. If they’re stuck for ideas click here for some wonderful story starters.

Once they’ve drawn their pictures, ask them to tell you the story using their pictures as a guide. This works well because your child will have already had time to think through their story and they will know it well so now they can just focus on telling it.

3. Story starters: take it in turns

Short on time? This one is perfect for a car journey or a walk. Give your child a sentence to begin with, then take it in turns to add the next line. My students get so excited to share the next part of the story that any worries about speaking English are quickly forgotten. Try the story starter machine or one of these ideas for inspiration:

1. "One morning, you find a golden key on your way to school. You pick it up and suddenly the craziest thing happens.”

   
   

2. "The spaceship landed in the school playground at exactly 8:47am. Nobody seemed to notice except Mia."

   
   

3. "Every night at midnight, all the cats in the city disappeared. Tonight, Sam decided to find out where they went."

   
   

4. "One day, a letter arrived addressed to nobody. Then it began to read itself aloud."

4. Change a story you already know

Twist the Tale involves choosing a story your child already knows well and changing one or two details such as the main character or where the story is set.

Let’s take Goldilocks and the Three Bears as an example. You could change this to a story about an astronaut and the three aliens. This approach works so well because your child already has the story structure in their head. They just need to swap a few details and tell it again.

A note on speaking and writing

Parents often ask how to learn English speaking alongside writing skills. The good news is that storytelling can build both. Verbal storytelling can help support writing development. It can help children internalise story structure, vocabulary, and sentence patterns, all of which feed directly into their writing. So every time your child tells you a story in English, they are not only building their speaking skills, they are laying the foundations for stronger writing too.

Remember, there's no need to worry too much about accuracy with this task, just keep the story moving and allow confidence to grow. If a language point needs addressing, instead of telling them it’s wrong, simply repeat it back to them correctly: "Oh, so he went to the market? That sounds exciting!" Start small, keep it fun, and know that every story you tell together helps.

Have a question, or interested in working with an English tutor online? Feel free to get in touch. I'd love to help.