Creative Storytelling

We are born to love stories

We simply love stories. Stories are the key to the inner world of children. They are nutrients to growth – be you are a child or an adult. Story is a multi-dimension platform enables us to share our experiences, connect with one another and promote communication, listening, expression and creativity.

We understand the importance of a harmonious campus to the development of children. The directives from Education Bureau highlight also the needs of assisting schools in creating a caring environment, and in cultivating children’s positive behaviours, values, attitudes and interpersonal relationships. Prevention is the key. The “Harmonious Campus” service originated from our research on bullying prevention and intervention hence is evidence-based. Through programmes with different formats including group sessions, lectures and workshops for students and parents, children are enlightened to develop more effective self-control and communication skills, sot that they can establish good interpersonal relationships with peers in school, contributing to building a positive campus. The different programs in “Read to Change” series are the extension to our “Read to Change‘ research (please refer to section of “Special Programmes” also), and currently (2023-24) funded by SIE Fund and Impact Incubator, allows us to develop programmes on a fee-based model and promote sustainable social benefits.

About Read to Change

“Read to Change” (RTC) programme was an initiative in research of effective means to intervene bullying in school as we understand the profound impacts fo bullying on children and their development. Bullying symptoms can be observed in children from as early as 4 to 5 years old. Early intervention with emotion management help to reduce bullying or deviant behaviours hence reducing different social costs in long run. Partnering with Dr Annis Fung, Associate Professor of Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong from 2015-2023, with funding supported by The Community Chest 2020-23.

Based on the Social Information Processing Theory (SIP), a proven effective explanation on childrem’s deviant behaviours, where aggressions (bullying) are the results of deviation in children’s cognitive and emotion control, we developed, threw the research, the world’s first “Storytelling Intervention Therapy”. Using purposefully selected story books as a platform, we can effectively help children to not only recognize and regulate negative emotions, but reduce impulsive behaviours such as verbal or physical attacks; improving social communication and cultivating empathy, with ultimate aim to build a positive and harmonious campus.

Read to Change has been awarded the “Knowledge Transfer Excellence Award” by the City University of Hong Kong in 2022. In 2023, the related research “A qualitative method to examine the positive impact of a Storytelling intervention in reducing reactive and proactive aggression in young schoolchildren ” is featured in the highly regarded Applied Research in Quality of Life.

We begin our lifelong journey of learning upon birth. As suggested and recommended by many academic studies, we should promote the learning of life skills from early age. Storytelling becomes a very effective medium for delivering complicated concepts and life skllls when the capacity for language and cognition of young children have yet to be developed fully. The nature of storytelling helps encouraging and enhancing children’s ability to tackle problem-solving skills in a positive way.

Personal finance is a life skill that is often overlooked for children, considering them too young with such need. Academic researches show otherwise, that in the 21st century, the concept and mastery of personal financial management is one of the most important life skills, and that the educational process should start as early as pre-school age to help establishing good financial management practices. “Financial Smarty” workshops and talks for children and parents are extensions to our “Financial Smarty” special project (Please refer to section of “Special Project” also).

Emotional intelligence has proven to help children to cope with future with confidence and resilience. It is essential to help children to be aware of and to understand their emotions from early childhood. The earlier the children can come to recognize their own emotions, the better they can manage them as they grow up. “Read to Joy” series teaches both parents and children to improve their emotional management through the use of storytelling and extended activities.

Good parent-child relationship has an absolute impact on children’s developmemt. As part of our support to parent-teacher cooperation initiative, we provide “Storytelling & Parents” series encourages parents, (teachers and volunteers) to learn together different topics with their children through storytelling, building a deeper parent-child relationship in the process.

Values education plays a vital impact on children’s development in many aspects, from personality to attitude in life; from emotions to behavioral development; from understanding and fulfilling social and moral responsibilities to promoting social fairness and justice. Stories can effectively and vividly express these value concepts, allowing children to connect with the characters in the story hence more effectively understanding the core values presented. Stories can also be related to children’s daily life relatively easier, allowing them to have a better understanding of practicing these values day-to-day. The “Values Education” series is an extension of the teacher training workshops we conducted for the Education Bureau.

About “Financial Smarty”

The “Financial Smarty” project 2022-24 is funded by the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Charitable Fund and the Hong Kong Community Chest. Through the use of picture books, stories and experiential activities, children can easily grasp the knowledge and principles of financial management as foundation, helping them to develop good practices of making good use of money, promoting self-disciplinary spending acts and sharing with the needies.

We use stories to guide children to think, to learn to recognize the differences of “needs” and “wants”, and to set personal savings goals. The activities have also been extended to the family level so to include parents not only in learning how to assist their children but also to learn together with their young children the concepts of personal finance.

Stories and storytelling are very effective platforms for toddlers and young children when they have still under development language skills and cognition. Children resonate with stories creatiing a sense of involvement and creating 2-way communication. Reading of picture books and stories helps with mental and behavioral development of infants and children, to induce and enhance their expression and imagination. It is a good habit worth cultivating from an early age.

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