Leap-frog to literacy: maternal narrative supports differentially relate to child oral language and later reading outcomes

Abstract

ABSTRACTYoung children’s oral narration typically progresses from telling disordered events to production of well-sequenced stories. To investigate how this development is supported and whether effects of support extend to literacy, 59 mother-child dyads from low-income family backgrounds were studied longitudinally. Maternal verbal input to narration was assessed when children were three, four, and five years old. Children’s personal narratives were assessed at age five, and reading outcomes were measured at first, second, third and sixth grades on a subsample. Maternal support was differentially related to oral narrative and reading outcomes. Mothers first provided orientation information and supported developing story actions and events with their three- and four-year-olds and focused on narrative evaluation with their five-year-olds. Although few distal relations were found between maternal input and children’s oral narrative abilities, several types of maternal support across the preschool years correlated with later decoding, including prompts for and contributions of evaluation.