This study investigates the impact of storytelling on Jordanian university students' reading comprehension and word recall. It aims to explore the role of contextualized storytelling in enhancing reading skills and word recall, compare the efficacy of contextualized storytelling with dual-code and text-only approaches, and examine the influence of gender on the outcomes. The study employs a systematic approach involving a control group and an experimental group of first-year undergraduate students, using pre-test and post-test measures to assess changes in reading comprehension and word recall. The main findings reveal that contextualized storytelling, particularly with a dual-code approach, significantly improves students' reading comprehension and word recall compared to traditional text-only methods. The study also notes variations in effectiveness based on gender, with females generally performing better in storytelling tasks. The study contributes to the understanding of effective educational strategies in higher education and highlights the importance of contextualized, multimodal learning approaches for comprehensive language development. Key words: Dual-Code approach, Reading comprehension, storytelling, word recall.