This bachelor's thesis examines the promotion of storytelling in early childhood education. Storytelling is one of the most significant activities during the preschool years, as it makes an important contribution to the development of children's language, thinking, imagination, creativity, and socio-emotional skills. The theoretical section presents the development of language and storytelling during the preschool period, the development of narrative competence, the importance of storytelling for children's holistic development, various approaches to fostering storytelling in preschool settings, and the role of wordless picturebooks as a stimulus for children's independent storytelling. The empirical section consists of two parts. The first part employed a questionnaire to investigate the frequency, approaches, and methods of promoting storytelling in preschool institutions, as well as preschool teachers' attitudes towards storytelling and the use of wordless picturebooks. The findings indicate that preschool teachers attach great importance to storytelling and regularly incorporate it into their everyday educational practice. The activities most frequently used to promote storytelling include storytelling based on picturebooks, discussions about children's personal experiences, and group circle-time discussions. Wordless picturebooks are used less frequently, although teachers recognise their value in supporting the development of children's narrative competence. The second part of the study involved a qualitative analysis of the storytelling of six preschool children using the wordless picturebook The Curious Little Rhinoceros and Help by Marko Godec. A comparison of the children's narratives before and after listening to the story revealed that, following the storytelling session, their narratives were richer in content, better organised, characterised by a more extensive vocabulary, and demonstrated more coherent connections between events. However, none of the children progressed to a higher developmental level of narrative competence. The findings confirm that high-quality storytelling activities and the use of wordless picturebooks play a significant role in the development of children's narrative competence and provide a valuable foundation for planning educational practice in preschool settings.
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