STORYTELLING!

Storytelling has all the benefits of read aloud. It improves language skills such as vocabulary, prediction, sequencing, comprehension, story structure and recall. These skills will also help children become better writers. Just as is the case with read-aloud, children who engage in the activity learn about history and culture, develop emotionally and have better self-esteem. Storytelling stimulates imagination, also storytelling creates a love of story that translates into a potentially life-long love of books the same way read-aloud does.

The difference between read aloud and storytelling (or story re-telling, as is the case here, since we are working from children's trade literature and less from original work or family history) is that the act of storytelling is always active and inventive. The child needs to synthesize all sorts of cognitive operations (brain stuff) with gross motor skills (body stuff) and emotional interpretations (feeling stuff) to execute this performance, and because of this synthesis, every performance is unique to the teller. The other difference is the connection with the audience. The eye contact alone makes storytelling a different animal than read-aloud. When you try it, you'll see.

Bibliography: http://www.planetesme.com/storytelling.html