ERIC Number: EJ1255373
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Jun
Pages: 26
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-7237
EISSN: N/A
Promoting Narrative Skills in 5- to 8-Year-Old French-Speaking Children: The Effects of a Short Conversational Intervention
Veneziano, Edy; Le Normand, Marie-Thérèse; Plumet, Marie-Helène; Elie-Deschamps, Juliette
First Language, v40 n3 p225-250 Jun 2020
Previous studies of narrative development based on wordless picture stories indicate that before 7-8 years most children provide descriptive narratives with little inferential content such as explanations and attribution of mental states to the story characters. These components find greater expression in studies where children participated in conversations focused on the causes of the events. In the present study, 84 French-speaking children, from kindergarten to second grade, narrated the "Stone story" (a wordless five-picture story whose plot is based on a misunderstanding between two characters) before and after a short conversational intervention (SCI) focused on the causes of the events, as well as one week later when they also narrated a new story. Thirty additional children served as the Control group: instead of the SCI they played a "Memory" game with a set of cards containing the pictures of the "Stone story." Children in the SCI group increased the inferential content of the narrative produced after the SCI, thus confirming with a larger sample findings obtained in previous studies. Moreover, results provide new evidence that the immediate improvements in inferential content were still present after a week's delay and could also be applied to a new story. All narratives produced after the SCI were also longer and contained more markers of causality. The effect was stronger in first and second graders than in kindergarten children. By contrast, no significant improvements were found in the children of the Control group on any of the measures. Such results highlight the effectiveness of the SCI in promoting children's narrative skills, its usefulness in their assessment, and have important implications for a better understanding of narrative development.
Descriptors: French, Language Skills, Young Children, Primary Education, Elementary School Students, Intervention, Narration, Inferences, Program Effectiveness, Age Differences, Foreign Countries, Story Telling, Pictorial Stimuli
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education; Elementary Education; Primary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: France
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A