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The effects of retelling stories on the language development of pre-school children
Author
Bungar, Marie-Valencia
Supervisor
Rose, Dennis
Abstract
Stories have been described as conforming to a structure called story grammar. Children learn this structure when they hear stories read aloud to them and use this as a basis to recall stories. The purpose of this study was to determine whether repeated readings of the same stories would increase children's expressive skills and understanding of story structure. The subjects comprised of 5 boys with intellectual disabilities in a preschool classroom. Expressive skills were measured using Mean Length of Utterance scores taken at each retelling while comprehension of story structure was measured by using an oral retelling procedure that parsed the stories into elements of setting, problem, plot, resolution and inference. A pretest-posttest design was also used to assess growth in language acquisition skills.
Eight books were chosen and were read to the children daily, over a period of eight weeks. The overall results demonstrated little change in the subjects' expressive skills. While results obtained were nominal for story elements, it demonstrated that children with intellectual disabilities were able to retell stories that consisted of setting, problem plot and resolution elements.
Eight books were chosen and were read to the children daily, over a period of eight weeks. The overall results demonstrated little change in the subjects' expressive skills. While results obtained were nominal for story elements, it demonstrated that children with intellectual disabilities were able to retell stories that consisted of setting, problem plot and resolution elements.
Date Issued
2002
Call Number
LB1042 Bun
Date Submitted
2002