Oral Narrative Skills: Implications for the Reading Development of African American Children

Abstract

Abstract— This article reviews research concerning an area of strength for African American children: oral narrative skills. The article discusses the historical and cultural factors that have contributed to the rich tradition of oral narratives among African Americans and the implications of oral narrative skills for reading development. Although early research suggested that African American children have a limited narrative style, more recent research shows that, in fact, they can produce a range of narrative styles using sophisticated discourse techniques. Recent research also provides evidence that, compared to European American children, African American children produce narratives of higher quality and have greater narrative comprehension. The article discusses the implications of this research for education and offers directions for future research.

Assessment of Structure Dependent Narrative Features in Modeled Contexts: African American and European American Children

“…Fey et al, (2004) reported that for the general population, girls tended to produce longer more advanced narratives than boys. In contrast, Hester (2010) found that AA boys and girls produced similar narratives at fourth-grade. A study by Peterson and McCabe (1983) described similar findings to Hester (2010) for their 9-year-old EA participants.…”

“…In contrast, Hester (2010) found that AA boys and girls produced similar narratives at fourth-grade. A study by Peterson and McCabe (1983) described similar findings to Hester (2010) for their 9-year-old EA participants. These and other factors make the assessment of narrative structural integrity with respect to the use of macrostructure (story elements) and microstructure (literate language features), a complex process.…”

The Cultural Patterning of Cognitive Development

“…Indeed, research suggests that teaching oral expression skills could improve academic outcomes for all children since oral expression skills are moderately related to reading comprehension and written expression skills [Berninger, Abbott, Jones, Wolf, Gould, Anderson-Youngstrom, & Apel, 2006]. Moreover, for children from cultural groups with a preference for oral expression over written expression, including teaching curriculums grounded in the cultural patterning found in indigenous and African cultures throughout the world may help improve academic outcomes by promoting reading comprehension skills [Gardner-Neblett, Pungello, & Iruka, 2012].…”

Engineer of 2020 Attributes and the Black Male Future Engineer: A Review of Literature

“…Some unique characteristics of Black communication styles include oral narrative skills acquired through storytelling, excellence in narrative comprehension about story character's internal state, non-verbal communication, diverse forms of argumentation, expressive speech, circumlocution, call response, and narrativizing. [15,[24][25][26][27] Children from Black communities may experience different aspects of these diverse communication styles but not have mastered all aspects of these styles. Additionally, some African American youth are able to make judgements on which narrative style is best for the given situation (i.e.…”

“…codeswitching). [26] Children's interactions with adults develop narrative skills, develop ways of thinking, remembering, reasoning and solving problem. Although researchers initially believed that Black youth use mostly topic-centered narrative, it is now understood that children can also employ multiple types of narratives.…”