Becoming fictional storytellers: African American children's oral narrative development in early elementary school

• DOI: 10.1111/cdev.14075
• Publication Date: 2024-02-21T14:23:34Z
• Authors: Nicole Gardner‐Ne...
• Keywords: Story telling; Child Development; Childhood development

Oral storytelling skills are a complex oral discourse competency with implications for children's academic and social well-being, yet few studies have investigated the development of these among typically developing African American children. The current study used longitudinal data, collected between 2012 2013, from 130 children (59-95 months old; 66 girls) to explore fictional narrative skills. Results showed growth in macrostructure (i.e., story grammar) microstructure productivity number total words; different words) over school year. There was no evidence complexity. Nonverbal cognitive emerged as an individual difference predicting production. This contributes increasing knowledge base needed support language development.