A group of children sitting on a mat in front of the teacher, who has another child on her lap.

There is no book in evidence, so we can assume that the teacher is telling a story: the children watch her enthralled. Without the distraction of a book before them, the children are concentrating on the teacher's face and voice. By interacting with her in this way they learn about the value of words and the ability of words alone to tell the story. Story telling stimulates the child's imagination as reading from an illustrated book would not.

This photograph is from a collection of lantern slides which belonged to Lydia Longmore, the first woman inspector of infant schools in South Australia.

Bauer, Caroline Feller. Handbook for storytellers, Chicago: American Library Association, 1977

Fox, Mem. Thereby hangs a tale, [Bedford Park, S. Aust.]: Sturt College of Advanced Education, 1980

Wajnryb, Ruth. Stories: narrative activities for the language classroom, Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003