Abstract
This research investigated the link between oral narrative and reading skills in the first 3 years of reading instruction. Study 1 consisted of 61 children (M = 6:1 years) who had experienced 1 year of reading instruction on average. Children’s story retelling was scored for memory and narrative quality. The quality of children’s narratives correlated positively with their reading skill at this age, but narrative quality did not uniquely predict their reading skill 1 year later. Study 2 consisted of 39 children (M = 7:0 years) who had experienced 2 years of reading instruction on average. At this age, the quality of children’s narratives uniquely predicted their reading skill concurrently and 1 year later, even after controlling for their receptive vocabulary and early decoding. These findings have implications for theories of the oral language foundations of reading and for assessment in the early years of reading instruction.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bishop, D. V. M., & Adams, C. (1990). A prospective study of the relationship between specific language impairment, phonological disorders and reading retardation. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 31, 1027–1050.
Butler, S. R., Marsh, H. W., Sheppard, M. J., & Sheppard, J. L. (1985). Seven-year longitudinal study of the early prediction of reading achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 77, 349–361.
Caffrey, E., Fuchs, D., & Fuchs, L. S. (2008). The predictive validity of dynamic assessment: A review. The Journal of Special Education, 41, 254–270.
Catts, H., Fey, M., Zhang, X., & Tomblin, B. (1999). Language basis of reading and reading disabilities: Evidence from a longitudinal investigation. Scientific Studies of Reading, 3, 331–362.
Chall, J. S., Jacobs, V. A., & Baldwin, L. E. (1990). The reading crisis: Why poor children fall behind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
de Hamel, J. (1996). Hemi and the Shortie Pyjamas. Auckland: Puffin Books.
Devlin, K. (2000). The math gene: How mathematical thinking evolved and how numbers are like gossip. New York: Basic Books.
Dickinson, D. K., & Tabors, P. O. (2001). Beginning literacy with language. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
Dickinson, D., McCabe, A., Anastasopoulos, L., Peisner-Feinberg, E., & Poe, M. (2003). The comprehensive language approach to early literacy: The interrelationships among vocabulary, phonological sensitivity, and print knowledge among preschool-aged children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 465–481.
Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, D. M. (2007). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, fourth edition: Manual. Minneapolis, MN: Pearson Assessments.
Durkin, D. (1974–1975). A six-year study of children who learned to read in school at the age of four. Reading Research Quarterly, 10, 9–61.
Elley, W. B. (1992). How in the world do students read? IEA Study of Reading Literacy. The Hague: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.
Feagans, L., & Appelbaum, M. I. (1986). Validation of language subtypes in learning disabled children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 78, 308–364.
Griffin, T., Hemphill, L., Camp, L., & Wolf, D. (2004). Oral discourse in the preschool years and later literacy skills. First Language, 24, 123–147.
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
Hosp, M. K., & Fuchs, L. S. (2005). Using CBM as an indicator of decoding, word reading, and comprehension: Do the relations change with grade? School Psychology Review, 34, 9–26.
Hirsch, E. D. Jr. (2003). Reading comprehension requires knowledge—of words and the world. American Educator, Spring, 10–44.
Kame’enui, E. J., Fuchs, L., Francis, D. J., Good, R., O’Connor, R. E., Simmons, D. C., et al. (2006). The adequacy of tools for assessing reading competence: A framework and review. Educational Researcher, 35, 3–11.
Kame’enui, E., & Simmons, D. (2001). Introduction to this special issue. The DNA of reading fluency. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5, 203–210.
Kaminski, R. A., Cummings, K. D., Powell-Smith, K. A., & Good, R. H. (2008). Best practices in using dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills for formative assessment and evaluation. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (pp. 1181–1204). Bethesda: National Association of School Psychologists.
Labov, W., & Waletzky, J. (1967/1997). Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In J. Helm (Ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts (pp. 12–44). Seattle: University of Washington Press (Reprinted in Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7, 3–38).
Leach, J. M., Scarborough, H. S., & Rescorla, L. (2003). Late-emerging reading disabilities. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 211–224.
Metsala, J. L. (1999). Young children’s phonological awareness and non-word repetition as a function of vocabulary development. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 3–19.
Ministry of Education. (2006). How the decile is calculated. Available: retrieved June 20, 2007 from: http://www.minedu.govt.nz.
Nation, K., & Angell, P. (2006). Learning to read and learning to comprehend. London Review of Education, 4, 77–87.
Nation, K., & Snowling, M. J. (2004). Beyond phonological skills: Broader language skills contribute to the development of reading. Journal of Research in Reading, 27, 342–356.
O’Neill, D. K., Pearce, M. J., & Pick, J. L. (2004). Preschool children’s narratives and performance on the peabody individualized achievement test-revised: Evidence of a relation between early narrative and later mathematical ability. First Language, 24, 149–183.
Peterson, C., & McCabe, A. (1983). Developmental psycholinguistics: Three ways of looking at a child’s narrative. New York: Plenum.
Reese, E. (1995). Predicting children’s literacy from mother-child conversations. Cognitive Development, 10, 381–405.
Reese, E., Haden, C. A., Baker-Ward, L., Bauer, P. J., Fivush, R., & Ornstein, P. O. (2008). Coherence of personal narratives across the lifespan: A multidimensional model (manuscript under review).
Reese, E., Sparks, A., Kalia, V., Long, J., Suggate, S., & Schaughency, E. (2008). Oral narrative skills and reading: Implications for assessment. Paper to be presented in Narrative assessment with preschoolers: Significance and best practices (A. Nicolopoulou, Chair) at the International Association of Child Language, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Renfrew, C. (1969). The bus story: A test of continuous speech. North Place, Old Headington: Oxford.
Ricketts, J., Nation, K., & Bishop, D. V. M. (2007). Vocabulary is important for some, but not all reading skills. Scientific Studies of Reading, 11, 235–257.
Roth, F., Speece, D., & Cooper, D. (2002). A longitudinal analysis of the connection between oral language and early reading. Journal of Educational Research, 95, 259–273.
Scarborough, H. (2001). Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice. In S. B. Neuman & D. K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 97–110). New York: Guilford Press.
Schaughency, E. & Suggate, S. (2007). Evaluation of DIBELS for assessing literacy growth in New Zealand. Paper presented at the 115th Annual Conference of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA.
Schaughency, E., & Suggate, S. (2008). Measuring basic early literacy skills amongst year 1 students in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 43, 85–106.
Sénéchal, M. (2006). Testing the home literacy model: Parent involvement in kindergarten is differentially related to Grade 4 reading comprehension, fluency, spelling, and reading for pleasure. Scientific Studies of Reading, 10, 59–87.
Sénéchal, M., & LeFevre, J. (2002). Parental involvement in the development of children’s reading skill: A five-year longitudinal study. Child Development, 73, 446–490.
Share, D. L., Jorm, A. F., Maclean, R., & Matthews, R. (1984). Sources of individual differences in reading acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 1309–1324.
Snow, C. E. (1983). Literacy and language: Relationships during the preschool years. Harvard Educational Review, 53, 165–189.
Snow, C. E., Burns, M. S., & Griffin, P. (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Storch, S., & Whitehurst, G. (2002). Oral language and code-related precursors to reading: Evidence from a longitudinal structural model. Developmental Psychology, 38, 934–947.
Suggate, S. P., Schaughency, E. A., & Reese, E. (2008). Age of beginning formal reading instruction and later literacy: Evidence from longitudinal research. Paper presented at the 28th International Congress of Psychology, Berlin.
Tabors, P. O., Snow, C. E., & Dickinson, D. K. (2001). Homes and schools together: Supporting language and literacy development. In D. K. Dickinson & P. O. Tabors (Eds.), Beginning literacy with language (pp. 313–334). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
US Department of Health and Human Services. (2002). Early childhood education and school readiness: Conceptual models, constructs, and measures. Washington, DC: Workshop summary.
Vellutino, F. R., Tunmer, W. E., Jaccard, J. J., & Chen, R. (2007). Components of reading ability: Multivariate evidence for a convergent skills model of reading development. Scientific Studies of Reading, 11, 3–32.
Whitehurst, G. J., & Lonigan, C. J. (2001). Emergent literacy: Development from pre-readers to readers. In S. B. Neuman & D. K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 11–29). New York: Guilford Press.
Williams, K. T. (2007). Expressive vocabulary test (2nd ed.). Circle Pines, MN: AGS Publishing.
Acknowledgments
We thank the teachers and pupils at primary schools in Dunedin, New Zealand for their participation. Part of this research was funded with a grant from the Division of Sciences at the University of Otago to the fourth author. Thank you also to Donna Anderson, Amelia Gill, Anna Hamlin, Jillian Hayhurst, Fiona Jack, Amy Meffan, Alana Roughan, and Clark Sim for their help with data collection, transcribing, and coding.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Reese, E., Suggate, S., Long, J. et al. Children’s oral narrative and reading skills in the first 3 years of reading instruction. Read Writ 23, 627–644 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-009-9175-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-009-9175-9