ABSTRACT

This study explored young children’s story-making from a postmodern perspective. Over a ten-month period, the researcher engaged with 27 children aged four to five during free-play sessions, observing and participating in self-initiated story-making expressed through talk, drawing, dramatic play, and occasional use of digital images. Story-making refers to children’s emergent practices of inventing and sharing narratives with peers and teachers while interacting with materials, spaces, and cultural resources. Rather than evaluating stories as finished products, the analysis focused on how stories emerge, shift, and transform through interaction. Data were generated through real-time transcription of children’s storytelling using a tablet PC, video recordings of story-making and sharing episodes to capture verbal and nonverbal expressions and peer responses, and a reflective journal documenting contextual details during and immediately after observations. The findings indicate that children’s story-making involved: (a) engagement with ever-changing materials, (b) collaborative encounters with peers, (c) the creation of imaginative functions and roles, and (d) movement into spaces where boundaries are fluid and dissolved. Overall, the study suggests that story-making for young children is not simply a means of conveying knowledge but a generative practice through which learning is actively explored and expanded.

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