Abstract
In this 1-year longitudinal study, the authors explored the development of narrative skills between the oral and written form. The authors aimed to assess the predictive power of textual narrative competence on early narrative text writing skills taking into account the impact of spelling ability. Eighty children (M age = 5.3 years, age range = 4.9–5.7 years; SD = 0.29) were followed longitudinally until entering the first grade of primary school. During kindergarten, they were tested with an oral story production task and in first grade with a written story production task. Narratives were evaluated in terms of structure, cohesion and consistency. In the first grade, children were also submitted to a dictation task to evaluate their spelling competence. Repeated measures ANOVAs were performed in order to examine narrative competence development, also considering gender differences, and regression analyses were implemented to evaluate the predictive capability of textual abilities expressed by oral narratives on textual abilities expressed by writing. The results showed some significant differences when scores in kindergarten were compared to scores in primary school. Moreover, the ability to tell well-structured, cohesive and consistent stories predicts the ability to write stories with the same qualities in the sample of participants without spelling difficulty. Instead, the predictive link is not apparent considering those children with difficulties in orthographic ability. This research allows us to reflect about how the medium of writing might interfere, on the basis of the level of mastery, with the opportunity to express narrative skills in the transition from the oral to written code. The central role of writing instrument functionality opens the way to practical implications.
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Lucia Bigozzi. Department of Education and Psychology, University of Florence, via di San Salvi 12, Complesso di San Salvi Padiglione 26, 50135 Florence, Italy. E-mail: lbigozzi@unifi.it, lucia.bigozzi@unifi.it, Tel.: +39 055 2755010
Current themes of research:
Development of metacognition and theory of mind. Communicative and linguistic development, with special interest in lexical competence development and its relations with reading comprehension. Learning disabilities: dyslexia’s and disorthography’s predictors. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): psychodiagnosis, educative treatment and school integration interventions. Teaching and learning processes: effectiveness of teaching methods. School integration of disabled children.
Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:
Pezzica, S., Pinto, G., Bigozzi, L., & Vezzani, C. (2015). Where is my attention? Children’s metaknowledge expressed through drawings. Educational Psychology. doi:10.1080/01443410.2014.1003035.
Bigozzi, L., Tarchi, C., Pinto, G., & Accorti Gamannossi B. (2015). Predicting dyslexia in a transparent orthography from grade-one literacy skills: a prospective cohort study. Reading & Writing Quarterly, ISSN:1057-3569.
Pinto, G., Tarchi, C., & Bigozzi, L. (2015). The relationship between oral and written narratives: A three-year longitudinal study of narrative cohesion, coherence, and structure. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 551–569. doi:10.1111/bjep.12091.
Bigozzi, L., Tarchi, C., Pezzica, S., & Pinto G. (2014). Evaluating the predictive impact of an emergent literacy model on dyslexia in Italian children: a four-year prospective cohort study. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 3, 1–14. doi:10.1177/0022219414522708.
Pinto, G., Bigozzi, G., Accorti Gamannossi, B., & Vezzani, C. (2012). Emergent literacy and early writing skills. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 173(3), 330–354.
Pinto, G., Bigozzi, L., Accorti Gamannossi, B., & Vezzani, C. (2009). Emergent literacy and learning to write: a predictive model for Italian language. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 24(1), 725–742.
Bigozzi, L., Biggeri, A., Boschi, F., Conti, C., & Fiorentini, C. (2002). Children “scientists” know the reason why and they are “poets” too. Non-randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a strategy aimed at improving the learning of scientific concepts. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 17, 343–362.
Giulia Vettori. Department of Education and Psychology, University of Florence, via di San Salvi 12, Complesso di San Salvi Padiglione 26, 50135 Florence, Italy. E-mail: gvettori@live.it
Current themes of research:
Emergent literacy processes in preschool children and their development during alphabetisation processed, with special interests in textual competence. Acquisition of writing and its relations with narrative competence.
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Bigozzi, L., Vettori, G. To tell a story, to write it: developmental patterns of narrative skills from preschool to first grade. Eur J Psychol Educ 31, 461–477 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-015-0273-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-015-0273-6