The impact of children’s lexical and morphosyntactic knowledge on narrative competence development: A prospective cohort study

The authors investigate the contribution of children's early comprehension of relational terms and morphosyntactic knowledge to the development of narrative competence in kindergarten and Grade 1. Narrative competence was assessed through the cohesion, coherence, and structure of children’s productions. The participants in this study were 714 Italian children. The authors measured their oral narrative competence through a storytelling task at the beginning and end of the kindergarten year. A total of 115 children were randomly selected and followed through Grade 1, and their narrative competence was measured again. According to the path analysis model, early morphosyntactic knowledge contributes to explain narrative competence in Grade 1. Early comprehension of relational terms contributes to narrative competence at the end of the school year. These findings confirm the importance of exploring the influence of early language skills on narrative competence development and suggests early intervention at the level of language antecedents of narrative competence.     

Kindergarteners' Narrative Competence Across Tasks and Time

The authors investigated children's narrative competence by analyzing the development of the reciprocal relationship between storytelling and story retelling performances over a school year through a cross-lagged panel design. The participants in this study were 170 Italian kindergarten pupils (M age = 4.98 ± 0.31 years). Children were asked to produce oral narratives in two different tasks: a storytelling and a story retelling task. Narrative competence was assessed in terms of structure and coherence. The cross-lagged panel analyses showed that both storytelling and story retelling tasks are stable constructs, but they differ in the emphasis on coherence. Data confirmed the pivotal role played by storytelling as a task, and structure as a component in fostering the development of children's narrative competence. Overall, results from this study suggest that storytelling and story retelling are tasks that involve interrelated but not overlapping processes, and trigger different aspects of narrative competence.     

Philosophy for Children and the Reconstruction of Philosophy

In this paper I trace the dialogical and narrative dimensions of the philosophical tradition and explore how they are reconfigured in the notion of community of philosophical inquiry (CPI), the mainstay of the collection of novels and discussion plans known as Philosophy for Children. After considering the ontology and epistemology of dialogue, I argue that narrative has replaced exposition in our understanding of philosophical discourse and that CPI represents a narrative context in which truth comes to represent the best story, in a discursive location in which there are always multiple stories. Finally, I raise the issue of children's philosophical voice. Can children philosophize, and if they can, do they do so in a voice different from adults'? If so, what are the distinctive features of that voice? I assert that it is children's historical marginalization in the Western construction of rationality that now – as that rationality undergoes its crisis – makes of them, like women and other “natives,” privileged strangers to the tradition, who are, through CPI, enabled to enter it through dialogue and narrative.     

The Bonds that Remind Us: Maternal Reminiscing for Bonding Purposes in Relation to Children's Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance

The present study investigated the relation between characteristics of mother–child reminiscing and children's perceived competence and social acceptance. We focused specifically on conversations for bonding purposes (i.e., conversations that serve the function of maintaining or strengthening the relationship between the child and the mother) as bonding may be a particularly salient context for the development of self‐views. Fifty‐two mothers and their 4‐year‐old children engaged in a past‐talk conversation where mothers were instructed to try to bond with their children. Children's perceived cognitive and physical competence and maternal and peer acceptance, along with language, were measured. Our results indicated that characteristics of maternal talk, particularly maternal support of child's autonomy and child‐centred content, were strongly related to children's perceived social acceptance. Although weaker, there were also associations between maternal talk and children's perceived competence. Results are discussed in light of theories arguing in favour of parent–child discourse as a mechanism for self‐development. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring the longitudinal relationships between the use of grammar in text messaging and performance on grammatical tasks

Research has demonstrated that use of texting slang (textisms) when text messaging does not appear to impact negatively on children's literacy outcomes and may even benefit children's spelling attainment. However, less attention has been paid to the impact of text messaging on the development of children's and young people's understanding of grammar. This study therefore examined the interrelationships between children's and young adults’ tendency to make grammatical violations when texting and their performance on formal assessments of spoken and written grammatical understanding, orthographic processing and spelling ability over the course of 1 year. Zero‐order correlations showed patterns consistent with previous research on textism use and spelling, and there was no evidence of any negative associations between the development of the children's performance on the grammar tasks and their use of grammatical violations when texting. Adults’ tendency to use ungrammatical word forms (‘does you’) was positively related to performance on the test of written grammar. Grammatical violations were found to be positively associated with growth in spelling for secondary school children. However, not all forms of violation were observed to be consistently used in samples of text messages taken 12 months apart or were characteristic of typical text messages. The need to differentiate between genuine errors and deliberate violation of rules is discussed, as are the educational implications of these findings.     

Inventing a “Mid Level” to Make Ends Meet: Reasoning between the Levels of Complexity

Abstract

This study provided 5 weeks of direct strategy instruction about narrative elements and relations in 4 first-grade classrooms (n = 83), all with materials that made minimal decoding demands on children's reading. Two comparison classrooms (n = 40) received comparable instruction on language development and poetry. A battery of assessments given at pretest and posttest showed that the intervention benefited children's comprehension of narratives in the picture-viewing modality as well as narrative meaning-making in listening comprehension and oral production modalities. Understanding and recall of main narrative elements improved, as did inference-making skills and understanding the psychological aspects of stories. Implications for enhancing beginning readers’ emerging narrative knowledge in primary grade classrooms are discussed.     

TV as storyteller: How exposure to television narratives impacts at‐risk preschoolers' story knowledge and narrative skills

Educational media serve as informal educators within the home by supplementing young children's development. Substantial evidence documents the contributions of educational television to preschoolers' acquisition of a variety of skills; however, television's natural capacity as storyteller and the role it plays in preschoolers' early literacy development has been largely overlooked. This study examined the effects of viewing different TV program types on 311 at‐risk preschoolers' story knowledge and narrative skills. Children were assigned to one of 4 viewing conditions (i.e. watching up to 40 episodes of a particular program type): no viewing; expository; embedded narrative; or traditional narrative. Story knowledge scores were higher for those viewing either narrative type. In contrast, viewing specific narrative types differentially affected the component skills of narrative competence. Story retelling and identification of explicit story events were higher after repeat viewing of embedded narratives while generating implicit story content was higher after repeat viewing of traditional narratives.     

Parent–child career construction: A narrative study from a gender perspective

Nine families composed of mother and father, one son and one daughter were involved in this study to examine the role played by parents on children's career development from a gender perspective. In particular, this paper addresses the questions of how the parent–child dyad constructs stories about the child's career and the role played in it by the parent, and how same-sex dyads versus opposite-sex shape these stories. The narrative method was used as it lends itself to capturing family members storytelling about children's career. A narrative interview was administered to thirty-six participants with the data being analyzed using the adaptation of a tried-and-tested narrative analysis procedure. The findings show the importance of same-sex dyads in constructing career stories, plotted around themes of father–son educational and occupational transmission and mother–daughter alliance in facilitating girls' self-making. The study shows how storytelling helps family members to accommodate disruptions experienced during career transitions and to motivate choices that make vocational identity more stable. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

A Seven‐Year Follow‐Up Study on Parents' Expectations of Their Children's Further Education

This study examined the role of parents' perceptions of their children's competencies and their educational optimism in forming expectations of their children's further education. A group of parents (N = 352) were asked to estimate the probability of their children's entering gymnasium or vocational school and to assess the child's competencies in the course of primary school years. Parents had crystallized anticipations of their children's further education as early as preschool, and the differences bound to parents' education and child's gender were well established in their expectations. By the end of the 7^th school year, the relationships between the expectations and the competence assessments strengthened and became more uniform among parents, although there were also group‐specific profiles.     

Sex differences in the relation of children's height and weight to academic performance and others' attributions of competence

The purposes of the present study were to examine the relation of elementary-school girls' and boys' height and weight to (a) teachers' and peers' perceptions of the children's independence and academic, athletic, and social competence; and (b) children's achievement test scores and grades. Teachers rated kindergarteners' through fourth graders' competence both at the beginning of the school year and four months later; first and third graders rated their peers' competence once midyear. In general, size and/or bulk were positively related to teachers' attributions of competence, grades, and achievement test scores for boys, especially for the older boys. Heaviness was negatively related to teachers' ratings of females' competence (especially athletic competence and especially for older girls). Moreover, large size (height not controlling for weight) was positively related to younger but not older children's nominations of males for athletic ability. The results are discussed in terms cultural stereotypes and their implications for the development of children's competence.     

Elaboration and Autonomy Support in Low-Income Mothers' Reminiscing: Links to Children's Autobiographical Narratives

Maternal elaboration and autonomy support during reminiscing facilitate middle-class children's autobiographical narrative skills. In this study, low-income Hispanic, White, and Black mothers' elaboration and autonomy support in reminiscing were examined in relation to children's joint and independent autobiographical narratives and engagement. Sixty preschool children discussed three past events with their mothers and one past event with a researcher. Maternal elaboration was related to children's joint and independent autobiographical narratives, and autonomy support was related to children's joint and independent engagement. Hispanic mothers used a less elaborative style during conversations about misbehavior, and Hispanic children tended to have less advanced independent autobiographical narratives. Maternal elaboration and autonomy support appear to play different roles in children's autobiographical narratives. Further, reminiscing may serve different purposes in different racial/ethnic groups.     

Gains in teacher-child interaction quality and children's school readiness skills: Does it matter where teachers start?

Teachers' initial level of interactional quality at the beginning of a school year (baseline) was examined as a potential moderating factor in the relation between change in interactional quality and change in children's school readiness skills throughout an academic year. Participants were 269 preschool teachers and 1179 children from low-income backgrounds. Teacher-child interactions and children's school readiness skills were measured in the fall and spring of the preschool year. Overall, improvements in the quality of teacher-child interactions across the year were not significantly related to children's skill development. Three important findings emerged; two main effects and one interaction effect. Gains in teachers' instructional support across the year were related to children's literacy and inhibitory control development. Additionally, the relation between gains in teachers' emotional support and gains in children's inhibitory control was moderated by teachers' initial level of emotional support at the beginning of the year. These findings provide limited evidence for the need to consider teachers' initial level of quality and how much they change across the year in understanding the relation between quality of teacher-child interactions and children's skill development.     

Parents' Appraisals,Reflected Appraisals,and Children's Self-Appraisals of Sport Competence: A Yearlong Study

This study investigated the contribution of the reflected appraisal process to the ontogeny of children's self-perceptions of physical competence. Emanating from symbolic interactionist thought, reflected appraisals refer to individuals' perceptions of others' evaluations of their abilities. The influence of parents' appraisals of their child's competence on the child's self-appraisals was hypothesized to be mediated by parents' reflected appraisals. Data were collected from a sample of 147 sixth graders and their parents in three waves over one school year. Structural equation modeling revealed that 1) parents' appraisals at Wave 1 influenced children's reflected appraisals of parents at Wave 2; 2) reflected appraisals at Wave 2 influenced children's self-appraisals at Wave 3, controlling for both the child's actual level in sport (as assessed by the child's grade in physical education) and the child's self-appraisals at Wave 1; and 3) the influence of parents' appraisals on their child's self-appraisals was nonsignificant when reflected appraisals were controlled for. This study supported the mediational role of the reflected appraisal process. The findings from this study provide a unique contribution to the sport socialization knowledge base by highlighting the role of the reflected appraisal process in the formation of children's self-appraisals of ability.     

A Comparison Between Homeschooled and Formally Schooled Kindergartners: Children's Early Literacy,Mothers’ Beliefs,and Writing Mediation

The study characterized children's literacy, mothers’ beliefs, and writing mediation of homeschooled compared to formally schooled kindergartners. Participants were 60 children (ages 4–6) and their mothers (30 in homeschooling). At the children's home, we assessed children's literacy, maternal beliefs, and video-recorded mother–child joint writing of a birthday invitation. Results showed that homeschooled children had lower literacy levels than those formally schooled. Homeschooling mothers reported lower levels of belief in learning activities and demands from their children and showed lower levels of writing mediation. Maternal writing mediation predicted children's writing, beyond the child's phonological awareness and schooling (home vs. formal).     

An investigation of the impact of young children's self‐knowledge of trustworthiness on school adjustment: A test of the realistic self‐knowledge and positive illusion models

The study aimed to examine the relationship between self‐knowledge of trustworthiness and young children's school adjustment. One hundred and seventy‐three (84 male and 89 female) children from school years 1 and 2 in the United Kingdom (mean age 6 years 2 months) were tested twice over 1‐year. Children's trustworthiness was assessed using: (a) self‐report at Time 1 and Time 2; (b) peers' reports at Time 1 and Time 2; and (c) teacher‐reports at Time 2. School adjustment was assessed by child‐rated school‐liking and the Short‐Form Teacher Rating Scale of School Adjustment (Short‐Form TRSSA). Longitudinal quadratic relationships were found between school adjustment and children's self‐knowledge, using peer‐reported trustworthiness as a reference: more accurate self‐knowledge of trustworthiness predicted increases in school adjustment. Comparable concurrent quadratic relationships were found between teacher‐rated school adjustment and children's self‐knowledge, using teacher‐reported trustworthiness as a reference, at Time 2. The findings support the conclusion that young children's psychosocial adjustment is best accounted for by the realistic self‐knowledge model ( Colvin & Block, 1994 ).     

Children's active play imagery

ObjectiveThe purpose of the present study was to examine how children's use of imagery in their active play can facilitate Deci and Ryan's (2002) three basic psychological needs (i.e., competence, relatedness, and autonomy) in their active play. A secondary purpose was to examine the content of children's mental images associated with their active play.DesignFocus Groups.MethodOne hundred and four participants (male and female) aged 7–14 years old were recruited from various summer camps.ResultsThe results indicated children use active play imagery and their use of imagery facilitates the satisfaction of the three basic needs (i.e., imagery → behaviour → need satisfaction). With respect to autonomy, children imaged activities that are their favourite, enjoyable, and they do often. For relatedness they imaged friends, family, and others (e.g., professional athletes), while for competence they imaged themselves being good at the activity. Age and gender differences emerged for relatedness and competence. Furthermore, the content of children's images included when participants imaged as well as the speed of their images (i.e., slow motion, real time, or fast).ConclusionThese findings may enable the development of imagery interventions to increase children's motivation to be physically active.     

Pre‐school children's understanding of the emotional consequences for failures to act prosocially

This study compares 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children's assessment of the emotional consequences of failures to act prosocially with their assessment of the emotional consequences for prosocial and victimization situations. After listening to stories illustrating each of the socio‐moral situations, children rated the emotional consequences for an actor, recipient and observing teacher and justified their ratings. Findings show that pre‐school children's emotion ratings for failures to act prosocially differed from their emotion ratings for prosocial and victimization behaviours. Preschool children's ratings of an actor's emotions depended on the presence or absence of an observing teacher in prosocial and victimization situations, but not in failures to act prosocially. This study illustrates the complexity of young children's reasoning about failures to act prosocially and highlights the importance of contextual influences on children's understanding of socio‐moral emotions.     

Assessment of Children's Fantasies With the Make a Picture Story: Validity and Norms

One purpose of this study was to examine the validity of the Make A Picture Story (MAPS) for assessment of children's fantasies. Children from a university laboratory school who were exhibiting good adjustment comprised our first sample. The second sample was composed of children from special education classes who were experiencing behavioral and/or academic difficulties. Children told stories to seven MAPS backgrounds. Stories created by special education children contained more dysphoric and fanciful fantasies than did nonproblem children's stories. Behavior disordered children had more aggressive fantasies in their stories than did nonproblem and learning disabled children. Another purpose of this study was to provide norms for children's choice of figures, number of figures used, moving and adding figures, story length, and choice of backgrounds. These norms should facilitate clinicians' interpretations of children's responses to the MAPS.