Children learning with playtime

Beyond the Rainbow is a story-playgroup program for parents and children aged 0-6 years which aims to develop a child's sense of story comprehension, learning and reading readiness by school age.

One of the things that attract children to pretend play is the chance to tell stories. Play offers an especially rich source of stories and ideas that can develop into storytelling. Pretend play (also called creative or imaginative play) where children make up increasingly complex stories and act them out strengthens their ability as storytellers, and as future readers and writers.  All this aids the development of narrative skills which enhances overall intellectual performance and the generation of creative ideas, memory and language competence and assists children to become actively involved in a story.  For younger children both spontaneous story-play and adult guided story-play help children's literacy skills emerge and develop.  Engaging in story-play between adult and child brings stories to life, enhances memory, imagination and emergent reading, encourages creative use of language and gives children opportunities to problem solve and makes the transition from oral to written language less difficult (Bert & Winsler, 1995).