Speech is the basic means by which people communicate with each other. Also, speech is necessary so that we can narrate and talk. We need to pay great attention to the development of speech during the child's first years of life, because that is when the foundations for later development are created. Speech development is a complex process that is influenced by many factors. In order, for a child to successfully develop their potentials, including speech, it is important that they grow up in a stimulating environment. Parents, but also educators, as the most important persons from children's environment, play an important role in encouraging the development of speech in children of early and preschool age. Some of the ways they can achieve this are by reading, narrating, and telling stories. Stories are an indispensable part of the life of every person, including children. People have used stories since ancient times to convey interesting content to each other, and they aroused curiosity, but also joy in people. Likewise, parents and educators need to be a good speech model for children and adapt the environment to children in order to encourage speech development in children. By reading, narration, and telling stories, a child’s development, as well as the world, is greatly enriched. Likewise, all of these actions and activities affect a child’s overall development. The aim of this paper was to examine the importance of narrating, talking and reading to children and to determine how these actions influence a child's speech development. The survey, conducted online through a questionnaire, involved 85 educators from different parts of Croatia. From the results of the research it can be concluded that most educators read to children every day and tell them several times a week, that storytelling and reading stories have a positive effect on children's speech development and that children play an important role when reading or telling stories.