Penggunaan Media Boneka Tangan dalam Meningkatkan Kemampuan Bercerita Anak

Abstract

Abstract

This study examines the use of hand puppets as a medium to enhance storytelling skills in early childhood. Storytelling ability is a crucial aspect of children’s language, cognitive, creative, and socio-emotional development. Storytelling activities not only foster vocabulary acquisition and sentence structure, but also stimulate imagination, logical thinking, empathy, and interpersonal skills. Hand puppets were selected because they integrate visual, kinesthetic, and auditory stimuli, thereby capturing children’s attention and encouraging active participation. This research employed a qualitative approach using a literature study method, reviewing various scholarly sources, books, and journals related to storytelling, creative learning media, and the development of children’s narrative skills. The findings indicate that using hand puppets in storytelling has multidimensional positive effects, including improvements in vocabulary, verbal expression, creativity in generating new stories, fine motor coordination, basic problem-solving skills, and socio-emotional competence. The effectiveness of this medium largely depends on the teacher’s creativity in designing story sequences, providing interactive demonstrations, and managing children’s participation. Therefore, hand puppets have proven to be an effective, enjoyable, and holistic strategy to support early childhood development.

Keywords: early childhood storytelling, hand puppet media, narrative skills, creativity, socio-emotional development