Children naturally love and are inclined towards stories. What are the benefits of a storytelling approach in teaching and how does Robo Wunderkind apply this method in our STEM curriculum?

What is a story-based learning approach?

Growing up, children listen to fairy-tales which provide an accessible way to communicate important messages to children in a playful, simple manner. Younger minds make connections between the fairy-tale world and real-life situations, which helps them develop problem-solving skills. Put another way, stories make it easier for children to receive and process information. Storytelling as a teaching method is thus a highly effective tool for building up new knowledge and learning a variety of 21st-century skills.

A story-based learning approach moves children into the world of imagination while acquiring new skills, which simplifies the educational process and makes it more effortless. 

Storytelling is a teaching method which helps young learners solve given problems and tasks in a playful way and creates constructive and creative comprehension of the given matter.

Presented with a storyline, children perceive the learning process more easily and effortlessly. In this way, the acquisition of new knowledge and skills is veiled in a game, making it attractive to children who don’t even realize they’re learning.

Benefits of story-based lessons

The storytelling technique is known to be one of the most effective teaching strategies. The main benefits of the storytelling technique are: high motivation and active participation, a boost of creativity, cooperation between children, deepening the understanding of a subject, and an increase in attention span.

Storytelling motivates children to be active participants in the construction of the meaning of the story. Thus they feel that they can have a greater impact on the process and on the results of the assignment, and therefore are more motivated in its execution.

Furthermore, the storytelling learning approach helps children develop literacy, imagination, creation and critical thinking skills more effectively.

Robo Wunderkind’s way of teaching through stories 

Robo Wunderkind uses the storytelling approach for teaching and learning programming and coding. All lessons begin with a story-centered problem, mission or task. The lessons presented in our curriculum are designed to introduce various problematic situations and challenges that need to be solved by students during guided and independent activities. Take a look at Project 2: Robo is a Flashlight and Project 2: Robo is a Traffic Light.

This approach supports the development of children’s metacognitive skills, awareness, and also promotes self-regulated learning and a positive attitude towards making mistakes and self-critique. We have a curriculum full of educational and exciting lessons with various levels of complexity for different age groups.

A story-based approach helps to engage young learners with the content, boost their motivation and introduce them to the concepts of robotics and coding in a playful way. The storytelling technique involved in each lesson is an important activity for children for multiple reasons: it helps increase motivation, enhances language use, and boosts memory and attentiveness. Storytelling in learning also builds personal emotional attachment, creates positive associations, and durable, long-term learning benefits.  

Additionally, this way of forming tasks makes what might be a difficult subject such as programming more digestible. Learning something via storytelling helps children remember outcomes and the process of execution better, as well as having an in-depth understanding.  

All the stories in our curriculum correspond to everyday experiences and real-world problems, which helps build parallels to real-life problems and encourages students to research deeper into a given topic. Having a visible connection to the real world ensures Robo Wunderkind lessons provide more meaningful learning.

Finally, Robo Wunderkind is a likeable character and there is no more fun way of programming than with the help of your friend. Children see Robo as their helper and fellow companion, which makes completing difficult programming and coding tasks effortless and enjoyable. 

Take a look at our educational materials to get a better idea of how we use storytelling in our curriculum.