Effects of the Books Aloud program on preschool children's narrative competence

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the Books Aloud intervention program on children's narrative competence. Specifically, the effects of the intervention on overall narrative competence and the components of local narrative structure and global narrative structure were explored. Intervention strategies were investigated regarding their usefulness for increasing children's narrative competence.;Subjects were 104 preschool children attending day care center programs in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. Subjects for the treatment group were sixty-one preschoolers who participated in the Books Aloud program. Subjects for the control group were forty-three preschoolers who received no intervention in addition to their regular day care program. Approximately half of the subjects were males and half were females. Most of the children were African American and from low socioeconomic backgrounds.;In order to obtain a measure of the subjects' narrative competence they were asked to read a wordless picture book. This measure was taken prior to the start of the Books Aloud program and subsequent to its completion. Transcriptions of the children's emergent readings were evaluated using a coding scheme. Local narrative structure proceeded from (a) labeling pictures to (b) describing actions to (c) including feelings and motivation of the characters. Global narrative structure proceeded from (a) depiction of isolated events to (b) demonstration of temporality to (c) indication of plot. Individual transcriptions received one code for local narrative structure and one code for global narrative structure. Overall narrative competence was calculated by adding together the codes for local and global narrative structure.;A Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted on the codes for local and global narrative structure and overall narrative competence for both pre and post transcriptions of subjects in the treatment and control groups. There were significant differences between the treatment and control groups on measures of local narrative structure and global narrative structure, as well as overall narrative competence. Results indicated the intervention strategies employed in the Books Aloud program served to increase children's overall narrative competence, as well as both local and global narrative structure.