Assessment of Preschool Narrative Skills: Prerequisite for Literacy.

This paper provides information concerning preschool narrative development in typically developing North American children, stressing previously documented links between early narrative skills and literacy development. Methods are provided for assessing narrative skills of language-impaired children. The methods involve eliciting from the children personal narratives about real past events. A protocol for eliciting personal event narratives, called the conversational map, is described. The protocol suggests using a story prompt, collecting at least three narratives from each child, using contentless subprompts in response to the child's narration, and minimizing the child's self-consciousness. Scoring procedures are also provided. Transcripts of narratives from specific language-impaired, learning-disabled, and normal cbildren are presented, along with recommendations for evaluating the narratives. In addition, information about cultural differences in narrative development is provided. This information distinguishes between jumbled and incomplete event sequences told by children who have problems with language in general and narrative in particular, and the kind of alternative storytelling styles of children from other cultures. (46 references) (JDD) **********************************************************************# * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can Le made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** U.s OSPARTIONIT OF staXATION Othce d Ettacataati Resartis oho anprestenehl EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORNIATIoN CENTER IERIC1 pofgcs document has teen reproduced as ,eCe,vee tra) the Dessah es argarsiattOh ohlrhattng r Mo'o, chrWjeS have Men made tv rmcgove earcydechoh Wiens Povrs o v,eil 0, 00'0.006 SflifIKI ty, INgs dOC 'NOM CIO not necessancy reotesent othoal CAW 00sekoh pC/hCv Assessment of Preschool Narrative Skills: Prsrequisits for Litsracy bY Allyssa McCabe, Ph.D. Harvard Graduate School of Education Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study Medford, Massachusetts 02155 and Pamela Ronenthal Rollins, M.S. CCC-SLP Harvard Graduate School of Education Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 Braintree Hospital Pediatric Center Braintree, Massachusetts PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)