Tell me a make-believe story: Coherence and cohesion in young children's picture-elicited narratives.

Abstract

The effects of 2 factors, previewing and inclusion of a problem-resolution structure, on children's ability to construct stories from picture sequences of familiar events were examined. Preschoolers only produced coherent and cohesive stories when provided with pictures that corresponded to a well-formed story structure. Children provided causally sequenced plots, referred to characters' internal responses, and used a thematic subject pronoun strategy when constructing stories with pictures containing embedded problem sequences. In contrast, children focused on actions, used simple connectives, and a less sophisticated pronoun strategy in stories when pictures portrayed typical but uneventful sequences of the same events. Thus, children were constrained by the stimulus materials provided and could only produce narratives that were representative of good stories when the information contained in picture sequences was explicit. The finding that first graders produced structurally more complex stories containing goals and plots and used more complex language, past tense, and temporal connectives than preschoolers suggests that they may have a more elaborate story concept. Previewing event-based pictures encouraged children to make narratives more storylike. This study indicates that providing episodic support reduces task demands in children's storytelling.Children must contend with two main tasks, coherence and cohesion, in constructing stories. Coherence and cohesion, although related, can be theoretically distinguished (Karmiloff-Smith, 1985). In establishing coherence, children must draw on culturally shared knowledge to temporally and causally organize a narrative into a sequence that is meaningful to themselves and their listeners. That is, all the parts of the story must be structured so that the entire sequence of events is interrelated in a meaningful way. This may be accomplished by accessing schematic information that defines a set of rules governing the organization of categories and content of a story as denned by

The Home Literacy Environment and the English Narrative Development of Spanish–English Bilingual Children

“…It is helpful for clinicians to support parents' current book-reading efforts and build on what parents are already doing at home. The early childhood years are a key time for narrative development, given the contribution that early narrative abilities make to later literacy outcomes (e.g., Berman & Slobin, 1994;Shapiro & Hudson, 1991). Therefore, book reading is an activity that clinicians can support among parents from low-income homes and parents who use varying levels of English in the home in order to strengthen children's macrostructure development and subsequent literacy skills.…”

Early narrative skills in Chilean preschool: Questions scaffold the production of coherent narratives

“…Second, the ability to structure a fictional story provides a transition to literacy because those narratives use a higher degree of decontextualized language, of the sort found in books (PurcellGates, 1988;Shapiro & Hudson, 1991). Fictional stories are less dependent on the context, and children get more familiar with them when entering formal education.…”

“…An additional limitation stems from our focus on coherence. As outlined in the introduction, narrative structure can be analysed in terms of coherence and cohesion (Cain, 2003;Shapiro & Hudson, 1991). Further, coherence can be analysed by the type of link between events (Stein, 1988).…”

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