What the Berenstain Bears can tell us about school readiness: Maternal story grammar style and preschool narrative recall

Abstract

Forty middle-class American mothers and their preschool children were observed in a narrative activity which involved telling a story using the Berenstain Bears Play Set as a stimulus. The goal of the study was to examine the presence of story grammar elements in both maternal and preschool narratives. In addition, the study sought to explore the types of narrative eliciting strategies mothers employ to assist their children in recalling a story. Mothers were also queried about the school readiness and narrative activity that are available in their home environments. The results of the study indicate that there are distinct maternal story grammar styles and narrative eliciting styles which are at some level related to the preschoolers’ recall of stories and those styles enable preschoolers’ to practice school readiness skills. The findings also suggest that preschoolers’ in our study live in narrative rich environments, where mothers embed school readiness activities in narrative-like games. Suggestions for providing parents with strategies to increase their use of narratives as learning tools are discussed.

The association between maternal strategies and preschoolers' memory for location of objects

“…Two, the findings from this study add substantially to our knowledge of the types of strategies mothers' use in the home environment to facilitate their children's development of memory skills. The present study confirms previous conclusions on the importance of querying mothers about cognitive activities in the home environment (Harris & Schroeder, 2012;Miller, 1988) and contributes additional evidence suggesting that maternal strategy use in the home environment may emerge as a predictor of children's memory performance.…”

“…It has long been recognized by researchers that the home environment is a rich resource and context for understanding the day-to-day cognitive and learning activities that children experience (Harris & Schroeder, 2012). Empirical evidence suggests that activities in the home environment serve to enhance preschooler rote, spatial and sequential memory skills (Harris, Terrel, & Allen, 1999), their school readiness skills (Harris & Schroeder, 2012), and their literacy skills (Saracho & Spodek, 2010). Furthermore, Miller (2007) recommends that observational social interaction designs be accompanied by a multimethod approach that involves obtaining converging information on the behaviour of interest.…”

Mother-Child Book-Sharing and Children's Storytelling Skills in Ethnically Diverse, Low-Income Families

“…Although mothers are shown to vary in the number of story components to which they refer during book-sharing interactions with their children (Harris & Schroeder, 2012), few researchers have examined differences among mothers from different cultural backgrounds. Although middle-class Chinese and Peruvian mothers did not differ from European American mothers in the provision of new information (not restricted to story components) during book-sharing (Melzi, Schick, & Kennedy, 2011;Wang, Leichtman, & Davies, 2000), cultural differences have been documented in reminiscing studies.…”

“…A second goal was to examine mothers' book-sharing styles in relation to children's contributions to book-sharing (within time) and independent storytelling skills (over time).Children of mothers who embellished aspects of the storyline narrated more story components during story retelling than did children of mothers who told skeletal stories (Harris & Schroeder, 2012). Understanding story components is also important for story comprehension and narrative skills (Aram, Fine, & Ziv, 2013;Green & Klecan-Aker, 2012;Stetter & Hughes, 2010).…”

Children's Literacy Experiences in Low‐Income Families: The Content of Books Matters

“…The content of books might also relate to the characteristics of parent–child book‐sharing interactions, which are in turn associated with child outcomes. Mothers’ elaborations on storylines have been found to support children's comprehension and memory of the story in interventions (Aram, Fine, & Ziv, ; Green & Klecan‐Aker, ) and correlational work (Harris & Schroeder, ). Further, mothers’ use of questions encourages child participation in book sharing and relates to children's narrative and language skills (Bus et al., ; Luo, Tamis‐LeMonda, Kuchirko, Ng, & Liang, ; Melzi, Schick, & Kennedy, ).…”