The effects of repeated story language and repeated story structure on five-year-old and seven-year-old children's story retelling

The repetition of story language and story structure found in predictable stories is thought to enhance children's story development. This study asked if the separate effects of repeated story language and repeated story structure affect fluency, verbatim accuracy, the amount, and completeness of story retelling. Four base stories were developed representing the repeated language and repeated structure typical of three-event-repeat predictable stories i.e., The Three Little Pigs. Repetition was created by repeating the language and order of story events of event one in events two and three. Four versions of each story were constructed to reflect the four story conditions, repeated language-nonrepeated structure, repeated structure-nonrepeated language, repeated language and structure, and a comparison story of nonrepeated language and structure. Synonyms and paraphrases in the second and third events were used to produce the nonrepeated language condition. Changes in the sequence of actions in the second and third events altered repeated structure. All versions were balanced for length, propositional content, and sentence structure.;Forty-eight children (24 five-year-old and 24 seven-year-old) listened to four audiotaped stories representing each of the story conditions. Following each presentation, children's retellings were quantified. Fluency (mazes) and verbatim accuracy were expected to vary with repeated language; amount and completeness (structure) of story recall with repeated story structure. A word-recognition test was also administered to gauge verbal development.;No differences were found for the effects of repeated language, repeated structure, nor the combination of repeated language and structure, either within the total group or in interaction with the age groups. Overall, the seven-year-old children recalled more story information, and told structurally more complete stories than five-year-old children. No differences were found for the amount of verbatim recall, nor for mazes when adjusted for word recognition. For both groups, the structural completeness of stories was influenced by children's ability to recall the initiating event, and word-recognition was predictive of the amount of story information recalled.;Differences between findings in this study and others reported in the literature are discussed.