Narratives as Learning Tools to Promote School Readiness

Abstract

This special issue presents quantitative and qualitative research on how narratives can be used as learning tools to promote school readiness. The articles focus on interventions investigating how families' oral narrating style impacts children's school readiness and how schools introduce children to narratives via teacher instruction, books, and testing assessments. The sample populations in the studies range in diversity from migrant Head Start families to Midwestern European American kindergartens to rural South African children living in Kwazulu-Natal. The issue contributes to the literature on children's narratives by sharing the work from researchers around the world who describe the implications of their studies in terms of family cultural traditions and early childhood education policies, practices, and intervention programs in various countries.