In order to investigate the factors that affect the ability of children to decode and elaborate television information, a study was conducted in which verbal ability, spatial ability, and amount of home television viewing were examined, along with viewer attention and three levels of instruction, for their direct and interactive effects on…

The double issue of the journal, "Bilingual Resources," presents nine articles pertaining to American Indian education in various perspectives, poetry by four American Indian poets, and identifies 27 publications about American Indians. Subjects of articles include: evaluation and recognition of narrative competence within peer group…

The task of unscrambling and reordering the sentences for six stories was completed by 455 third, sixth, and ninth grade students from three cultural groups (black, Anglo, and Hispanic) in a study of how sociocultural differences in story schemata affect reading comprehension. The results showed that the greatest effects were for grade level and…

A study is presented that considers the narrator's knowledge of conventional schemata for stories and the cognitive factors which seem to be affecting the selection and organization of material for narration. Children ranging in age from 3 years 10 months to 7 years 4 months were asked to watch a video tape cartoon and recount the story to a…

The compositions of sixth, tenth, and twelfth grade students were used to determine whether narrations or arguments of high syntactic complexity were rated higher than narrations or arguments of low syntactic complexity. Selection of the compositions was made in pairs--one of high syntactic complexity and one of low syntactic complexity--each…

The interaction of children and stories is examined in this book, with particular attention to the way in which children's language usage indicates the development of their concept of story. The first two chapters of the book discuss the topic from a broad perspective, seeking a theoretical framework for organizing children's language usage.…

This narrative comprises the stories, opinions, and beliefs of the following people: Dona Lola--an octogenarian who still remembers her childhood; Minnie Roses--daughter of the owner of a once flourishing coffee plantation; Noberto Cedeno--a sculptor of popular artifacts; Castor Ayala--in his sixties, he is Loiza Aldea's most famous mask-maker and…

By identifying literary devices found in adult literature and then analyzing children's writing for these same devices, it was hoped that new insight would be gained into the elements of children's writings. Five stories per grade level were selected from grades two through six from seven Memphis elementary schools. The children's stories were…

This paper presents a rationale for a disclosure approach to value analysis and describes the components of this approach, which involves student construction of value profiles of his own mythic thought, or mental framework, vis a vis a specified concept. The rationale is discussed in terms of the relationship between value study and mythic…

This study was undertaken to investigate approaches fifth grade children of similar mental ability follow when writing narrative compositions, to identify procedures unique to good and poor writers, and to observe sex differences relative to quality of written expression and ability to verbalize concerning the writing process. A sample of 230…

Analysis of the development of realization of story structure in the written productions of fifth-, eighth-, and twelfth-graders revealed development by age in the degree of realization of an "ideal form" of story schema, with the development rate depending on whether stories are true or invented. (Author/CB)

Analyzes four informal reading inventories to determine the text type of each passage, whether narrative passages are well formed, and whether expository passages are well organized. Finds almost half the narratives poorly formed. Concludes that the lack of continuity in text type and organization could result in children's comprehension scores…

During qualitative empirical research on the biographical learning processes of women due to transitions in their work situation, this theoretical, methodological theme arose that was intriguing to the researcher: the relationship between the learning processes of the women interviewed and of the researcher on one hand and the stories that were…

Study examined the effect of mode of discourse (narration and argument) on the syntactic complexity of compositions written by sixth, tenth, and twelfth graders. At each level, syntactic complexity was greater in argument. Findings suggested that while syntactic complexity increases with age, increases tend to level off earlier in narrative…

Discusses the role of narration in the adapted verbal interactions between child and adult that help children acquire and master language, from birth on. Notes that, when a child attempts to retell stories read aloud, he or she can progressively master the kind of syntactically structured and decontextualized language necessary for access to…