The study compared the effectiveness of providing elementary students with learning disabilities with either (1) instruction in both story structure and self-questioning techniques or (2) just training in story structure identification. The combined self-questioning and story structure group demonstrated the greatest gains in reading…

Examines an approach (story squares) to teaching Spanish pronunciation utilizing contextual supports and extralinguistic aids to comprehension. (11 references) (GLR)

Looks at the features of teacher-guided discussions of literature that led elementary students toward constructing a theme for a story. Shows how students can profitably explore theme in the literature they are reading and provides an alternative to the directed reading activity format that has become typical of small group reading instruction.…

Describes the intermediate forms of children's informational and story composition across the elementary grades. Finds that even the youngest children differentiated between the genres with over half of all kindergartners and first graders producing texts classified at some level of organizational complexity above labels and statement, and by…

This study investigated the premise that action, manifested here through pretend play, is a semiotic arena that can enhance narrative development. It was hypothesized that children would produce structurally more complex narratives in play-prompted elicitation than in direct elicitation conditions, and that this competence would increase with age.…

This study examined the use of story-mapping to improve the reading comprehension of six third- and fourth-grade students with specific learning disabilities who exhibited reading deficits. Also of interest was whether the effects would maintain once the intervention was discontinued. Using a descriptive, three-phased, single-subject design, the…

In information systems and end-user computer research, "using" appears to encapsulate a range of activities, such as reading, writing, viewing and so on. And yet it is a grossly inadequate descriptor for any of these activities, failing to account for the fact that texts--digital or otherwise--are produced and engaged by humans for a variety of…

The article explores the development of children's understanding of causality, its effect on narrative development and organization; and the development of intentional, goal directed behavior. (Author/DB)

Respectively, three experiments indicate that (1) people can identify all the terminal units in stories as well as different kinds of episodic structure; (2) when attention was focused on the intermediate units, the Goal Path emerged in the judgments; and (3) the same judgments about terminal units were made even when the number of sentences per…

Describes how the author used many versions of the Cinderella story as a springboard for a variety of activities in her sixth-grade class, including discussion of fairy tale elements, aspects of story structure, summarizing, and problem-solving activities. (SR)

Presents an activity designed to help students begin to see connections between traditional print and electronic communication environments. Aims also to introduce students to collaborative writing and sharpen narrative writing skills. Gives a step-by-step progression of the activity which begins with groups creating a character sketch. (PA)

Comparison of 14 verbally gifted 6-year olds with equal numbers of chronological-age and mental-age controls using a structural-developmental analysis found that the gifted children organized story plots in ways typical of children 2 years older, elaborated on basic plot structures more than control groups, and demonstrated advanced language…

Comparison of the written stories of 96 learning-disabled and 96 non-learning-disabled students found significant differences at grades 3, 4, and 5 in students' inclusion of a complete story grammar. No differences were found at grade 6. (Author/DB)

Third graders produced narrative or descriptive passages in response to prompt words. Results supported the domain-specific view of production, in which content elaboration occurs across repeated productions when there is a connection between the earlier and the later production and that connection is based on semantic similarity. (ME)

Twenty learning-disabled students (grades 5 and 6) who received procedural facilitation for narrative composition, including story grammar cue cards and a metacognitive check-off procedure, produced better quality stories than a control group of 10 students. Including verbal reminders to develop characters did not affect story quality. (Author/JDD)