Introduces a multistate probabilistic causal chain notation for describing the knowledge structures implicitly represented by the subjective conditional probability distribution. Proposes a psychological process model of how story comprehension and recall processes operate using causal chain representations. Compares the model's story-recall…

Respectively, three experiments indicate that (1) people can identify all the terminal units in stories as well as different kinds of episodic structure; (2) when attention was focused on the intermediate units, the Goal Path emerged in the judgments; and (3) the same judgments about terminal units were made even when the number of sentences per…

Investigates fifth-grade children's expectations for stories in relation to knowledge of literature/reading ability. Shows "high readers" included more high-level story propositions and structurally important story information than did low readers; students who included structurally important story information scored higher on knowledge…

Reviews several theoretical perspectives and presents data pertinent to what makes a story likable. Examines the contribution of two story characteristics to adults' and elementary students' ratings of story liking and storyhood: the importance of the goal the protagonist pursues and the difficulty of attaining that goal. (JAD)

Summarizes the benefits and limitations of the use of story grammars in the elementary reading classroom. Provides suggestions for implementation in the classroom. (ARH)

An example of reader, writer, and text transaction and interaction may be seen in a study that examined story grammar and applied propositional analysis, cohesive analysis, and miscue analysis to one reader and one text to determine comprehension. A third grade boy read and then retold the story "The Accident." The miscues were marked,…

Educators suggest that children whose families have read to them during their preschool years acquire lexical and syntactic knowledge of sentence-level features typical of written narrative before they begin formal literacy instruction. To test this claim, to discern growth in this knowledge over time and experience, and to describe the lexical…