We examined the dimensionality of oral discourse skills (comprehension and retell of texts) and the relations of language and cognitive skills to the identified dimensions. Data were from 529 English-speaking second graders (M[subscript age] = 7.42; 46% female; 52.6% Whites, 33.8% African Americans, 4.9% Hispanics, 4.7% two or more races, 0.8%…

We examined the dimensionality of oral discourse skills (comprehension and retell of texts) and the relations of language and cognitive skills to the identified dimensions. Data were from 529 English-speaking second graders (M[subscript age] = 7.42; 46% female; 52.6% Whites, 33.8% African Americans, 4.9% Hispanics, 4.7% two or more races, 0.8%…

This paper contributes to the contemporary focus on literacy and digital stories in early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions. When a group of young children create an animated story together, they might collaborate, both with their peers and with their teacher. By drawing on social semiotic multimodal perspectives as the theoretical…

The research report describes the ability of Kazakh preschool children to tell narratives relating to mental states, and the connection with theory of mind tasks about false beliefs. Three groups of preschool children (N = 29; 3-, 4-, and 5- year-olds) from the city of Almaty were tested in the Kazakh language. The results show very high…

This article describes literacy competence in the narratives of toddlers and investigates how they make use of different modalities, like gestures, sounds and physical actions. The body phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty serves as a theoretical frame for the researcher's lens, which is an A/r/tographer's lens applied in multimodal narrative analysis.…

Background: Children in India are among the lowest performing students on international reading comprehension and writing assessments. Oral language instruction may improve these literacy outcomes. Aim: This pilot study investigated whether a multi-tiered system of language support (MTSLS) improved oral narrative language comprehension, reading…

Tender Shoots is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) for parents aimed at improving preschool children's oral language skills relevant for later reading. Parents of 72 preschool children (M = 50 months) were randomly assigned to either a Rich Reading and Reminiscing (RRR) condition, a Strengthening Sound Sensitivity (SSS) condition, or an…

Purpose: The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to examine the effects of a multitiered system of language support (MTSLS) on kindergarteners' narrative retelling, personal stories, writing, and expository language. Method: Participants were 686 kindergarten students from four school districts in the United States. Twenty-eight…

This qualitative study aims at exploring the internal structure of personal experience oral narrative in Arabic in terms of Woodbury (1987) rhetorical components and Labov (1972) approach of narrative structure, who claimed its presence in all well-formed narratives. Recordings of orally told narratives by five Saudi informants were elicited in…

Given the changing demographics of young children served by U.S. schools, educational equity practices must include ways of sustaining cultural heritage practices of children from ethno-linguistic, minoritized, and under-resourced communities. In the present study, we partnered with a bilingual Head Start serving mostly children of immigrant…

This research looks at the potential of peer interaction practices in improving narrative competence by analyzing the efficacy of peer learning on children's oral narrative productions. Gains on a macro-level (structure and coherence of the narrative) and a micro-level (cohesion of the narrative) were analyzed. Fifty-six primary school children…

This study explored the development of oral narrative retell proficiency among Mandarin Chinese-English dual language immersion (DLI) learners in Utah. The study compared the younger and the older DLI learners' oral narrative retelling production in order to provide information regarding the Mandarin narrative developmental trend of the DLI…

This study examined the validity of data collected from a novel online story retell task. The task was specifically designed for use by junior school teachers with the support of speech-language therapists or literacy specialists. The assessment task was developed to monitor children's oral language progress in their first year at school as part…

A story's space or setting often determines and constrains the actions of its characters. We report on an experiment with 106 children of 7-8 years old in which, using a novel enactment task, we measured children's representation of a story character's movement during story listening. We found that children were more likely to enact movements that…

This early-stage feasibility study investigated the effects of a multitiered oral narrative language intervention on oral language, reading comprehension, and writing. Twenty-eight second-grade students participated in this quasi-experimental control group study with assignment at the classroom level. The independent variable was large- and…