The Comparative Study of Narrative Comprehension in Children according to Interactive Reading Strategies with Adults

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of adult’s three reading strategies, eliciting questions, non-eliciting questions, and comments, on the narrative comprehension of typically developing children (TD) compared to vocabulary delayed children (VD) in order to find out the most effective reading strategy for children’s narrative comprehension. Methods: A total of 39 TD and 14 VD children aged 4-to 6-years old were randomly placed in groups using one of three reading strategies and then given two types of narrative comprehension tasks (literal comprehension, inferential comprehension) after a storybook reading session. Results: First, for literal comprehension, the main effects were found to be statistically significant in both the VD and TD children’s groups and reading strategies. And the interaction of reading strategies between child groups was found to be statistically significant. For the literal comprehension task, eliciting questions were found to be the most effective reading strategy for TD children, whereas non-eliciting was found to be the most effective for VD children. Secondly, for the inferential comprehension task, neither the main effect nor the interaction of the reading strategies between child groups was found to be statistically significant. Conclusion: The results suggest that the three reading strategies are effective in literal comprehension in both child groups. Among three strategies, eliciting questions will be the most helpful for TD children, while non-eliciting questions will be the most helpful for VD children. The study can further provide essential information for developing book reading intervention protocols that can enhance children’s narrative comprehension.