Developing a Storytelling Package Based on Ancient Tales and Examining Its Effect on the Verbal Cognitive and Social Skills of Slow-Learning Children
Keywords:
storytelling package, ancient Persian tales, verbal skills, social skills, slow-learning childrenAbstract
This study aimed to develop and validate a storytelling package grounded in ancient Persian tales and to examine its effectiveness in improving the verbal cognitive and social skills of slow-learning children in the first grade of elementary school. A sequential mixed-methods design was employed; in the qualitative phase, semi-structured interviews with purposive sampling were conducted with 10 experts in educational psychology and children’s literature until theoretical saturation, and the data were analyzed using thematic analysis; in the quantitative phase, 30 slow-learning students were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups, with the experimental group receiving a 30-session (45-minute) storytelling intervention based on selected tales from Kalila wa Dimna; instruments included the Test of Language Development-Primary:3 (TOLD-P:3), the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-V), and the Gresham and Elliott Social Skills Questionnaire (1990), and data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance. MANCOVA results indicated that the storytelling package produced significant improvements in verbal skill components (picture vocabulary, relational vocabulary, oral vocabulary, grammatical comprehension, sentence imitation, and grammatical completion) and social skill components (self-control, empathy, assertiveness, and cooperation) in the experimental group compared with the control group (p<0.05), with moderate to relatively large effect sizes. A culturally grounded storytelling package based on ancient Persian tales constitutes an effective and feasible educational intervention for enhancing verbal and social competencies among slow-learning children.
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