The Effects of Daycare Intervention in the Preschool Years on the Narrative Skills of Poverty Children in Kindergarten

Abstract

The following study examined narrative skills in 89 poverty children, half of whom had received an infant daycare intervention (experimental) and half whom had not (control). At school entry these groups were split again with half of each group receiving school-age intervention. For each child in the sample, a child of the same sex in their classroom was chosen to form a local population sample (LPS). Children were read stories of varying thematic cohesiveness and asked both to comprehend and paraphrase the narratives in the fall and spring of the kindergarten year. The results indicated that the preschool experimental group performed better than the preschool control group on the comprehension and paraphrase of the stories in the fall but not in the spring. The LPS group was especially better able to paraphrase stories in comparison to the poverty groups. Discussion is centred on reasons for the convergence of the two poverty groups over kindergarten and the possible cultural differences that led to their poorer performance with respect to the LPS group.

Teacher (mis)perceptions of preschoolers’ academic skills: Predictors and associations with longitudinal outcomes.

“…Teachers responded to items such as “recalls and communicates personal experiences he/she has had to teachers in a logical way” on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “well below average” to “well above average.” Adequate reliability (Feagans & Farran, 1994) and concurrent validity have been reported for this measure (Feagans, Fendt, & Farran, 1995). In this sample, alpha was .93.…”

“…Teachers’ perceptions of children’s language skills were assessed using an abbreviated version of the Adaptive Language Inventory (ALI; Feagans & Farran, 1994), a 7-item teacher-report inventory consisting of items designed to assess children’s verbal abilities as evidenced in the classroom. Teachers responded to items such as “recalls and communicates personal experiences he/she has had to teachers in a logical way” on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “well below average” to “well above average.” Adequate reliability (Feagans & Farran, 1994) and concurrent validity have been reported for this measure (Feagans, Fendt, & Farran, 1995).…”

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

“…Producing oral narratives requires cognitive and linguistic skills to organize multiple sentences (Peterson & McCabe, 1994) and sociocognitive skills such as emotion recognition and perspective taking (Curenton, 2006;Schick & Melzi, 2010). Early skill in oral narrative has been linked with later reading comprehension (e.g., Feagans & Farran, 1994;Griffin, Hemphill, Camp, & Wolf, 2004;Hester, 2010;Klecan-Aker & Caraway, 1997), reading fluency (e.g., Reese, Suggate, et al 2010), and vocabulary and emergent literacy skills, such as print concepts and phonological awareness (e.g., Tabors, Roach, & Snow, 2001). These associations suggest that the ability to share coherent, well-developed narratives is important for reading development (Boudreau, 2008;Curenton, 2006;Curenton & Justice, 2004;Dickinson & McCabe, 2001).…”

Étude corrélationnelle de la production narrative chez des enfants du primaire pour mieux intervenir au préscolaire

“…Seules quelques équipes de chercheurs se sont intéressées aux programmes d'intervention en microstructure durant les dernières décennies (Feagans et Farran, 1994 ;George-Remy, 1991 ;Morrow, 1985 ;Morrow, 1986 ;Stadler et Ward, 2010) ou à son aspect développemental (Eisenberg, Ulkrainetz, Hsu, Kaderavek, Justice et Gillam, 2008). Pourtant, les habiletés langagières, observables sur le plan de la microstructure, développées lors des activités de narration sont celles qui sont communément identifiées comme ayant un impact sur le développement ultérieur de la littératie.…”