- Adjust the Volume of Your Voice
Voice has a volume control just like your television, home stereo system, or car radio. We turn the
volume up and down depending on the circumstances and the messages we want to communicate.
It is a useful exercise to observe how children use their voices spontaneously and then consider how
those volume adjustments can be utilized effectively to express your story. Children often whisper
when sharing a secret, shout when cheering for a sports team, speak in hushed tones when confess-
ing guilt, raise their voices when angry, and sound flat when sad. For adults, while there may be
cultural differences, speaking in soft tones to a lover implies a message of intimacy, a bonding of two
souls, and loud shouting is commonly seen as an expression of anger. A raised voice, generally, is
something people find uncomfortable and want to avoid, yet communicating quietly tends to trig-
ger a listener’s acuity—unless the volume is so low that the listener has difficulty tuning in.
As well as observing children’s adjustment of volume, notice how you tune in to or switch off
the volume of voice of other people in your life. Listen, too, to the way the volume of your voice
communicates the message of your story. How is it affecting your child listeners? Are they craning to
hear, or backing away? Is it facilitating an appropriate listening response from the child?
- Incorporate Affective Involvement
If you have the opportunity, observe how an infant reacts to a smiling face and a frowning face, per-
haps with a game of peek-a-boo. Developmentally, children express and relate to affect long before
they discriminate the sounds and meanings of words. Incorporating appropriate emotion into stories
for children taps into a natural childhood process of experience, contributes to the reality of the story,
involves the child, and effectively communicates the story’s message. If the story is set in summer, al-
low yourself to feel the heat and let your voice express it: “Phew, it is sohot.” If you are describing an
activity that you reallylove or feel passionate about doing, bring the passion into your voice. If your
story begins with stress and arousal, experiencing the arousal yourself will allow it to be reflected in
your voice. As you lead the content of the tale into a state of tranquility it will be heardand experi-
enced more by your listener if you are also experiencing and expressing it.
Your story will have greater reality for the child if he or she can really feelwhat is happening in-
stead of just hearing the words. Hearing the content is a cognitive experience, whereas feeling the
28 Effective Storytelling for Kids and Teens
EXERCISE 2.13
■ Audiotape yourself telling a story to a child, whether a client or not.
■ Listen to your own voice.
■ Make a note of the differences in your
■ rate of utterance,
■ modulation of intonation, and
■ adjustment of volume.
■ Where do you use these changes spontaneously?
■ How can you make use of them constructively to better communicate the story?