Narrative Ability Of 4-to 8-Year-Old Children And Its Relationship To Home Literacy Environment

Narrative is fundamental to children’s language development.The ability to construct narratives is not only a key aspect of children’s oral language competence,but also reflects how children make sense of the world.Narrative provides a rich context for evaluating multiple aspects of linguistic development in children and it can be taken as an effective measure to intervene children’s language development.The level of children’s narrative refinement and syntactic variety gradually increases with age.Among the multitude of factors that influence this development,the home literacy environment(HLE)emerges as the most direct contributor to shaping early narrative abilities in children.By creating a nurturing home literacy environment,caregivers can effectively facilitate children’s narrative development.To investigate the trajectory of children’s narrative development and the influence of the home literacy environment on their narrative abilities,we selected children aged 4 to 8 years and their families as participants for this study.The primary objectives of this research are to address the following three questions:1)What are the developmental characteristics of 4-to 8-year-old Chinese-speaking children’s narrative ability in terms of narrative macrostructure?2)What are the developmental characteristics of 4-to 8-year-old Chinese-speaking children’s narrative ability in terms of narrative microstructure?3)How does the home literacy environment influence children’s narrative abilities?The study was conducted with a sample of 134 Chinese-speaking children aged 4-8 years from the middle class of kindergarten to the second grade in a county-level city of Shandong province.Language samples were collected through their narration of the wordless book Frog,Where Are You?.Children’s narrative abilities are evaluated in terms of both macrostructure and microstructure.Macrostructure assessment included plot line(PL),theme references(TR),and Protagonists’misadventures according to Myers and Chapman’s scoring scheme.Microstructure evaluation comprised six indicators:total number of words(TNW),total number of utterances(TNU),mean length of utterances(MLU),vocabulary diversity(VOCD),number of different words(NDW)and type-token ratio(TTR).The language samples were analyzed using the CHAT and CLAN program within the CHILDES.Additionally,the home literacy environment was examined through a questionnaire designed by Nicholas and Schneider,focusing on parent reading instruction,home reading resources,and home entertainment activities.The data were input into SPSS.26 for descriptive statistical analysis,correlation analysis,analysis of variance,and hierarchical regression analysis.There are three major findings in the present study.First,children’s narrative abilities in macrostructure exhibit age-related development,with notable differences observed between each consecutive age group.Story coherence,extended descriptions,and content complexity all demonstrate improvement with age.Second,children’s performance in terms of microstructure generally shows positive development as they grow older.MLU,VOCD and NDW show an upward trend with age,while TTR remains relatively stable.TNW and TNU display an increasing tendency during the kindergarten years but a decreasing trend in primary school,Third,the home literacy environment exerts an influence on children’s narrative abilities.Parent reading instruction and home reading resources exhibit positive relationships with children’s macrostructure narrative ability and contribute to their overall narrative skills.However,parent reading instruction displays a negative relationship with MLU,and home entertainment activities demonstrate a negative relationship with VOCD.No significant correlations were found between the home literacy environment and other microstructure indicators.This study holds both theoretical and practical implications.Empirical data on narrative macrostructure and microstructure in children aged 4 to 8 years provide a foundation for future comparative research.Additionally,the study suggests that educators should employ scaffolding techniques and provide timely feedback to guide children’s active thinking.Moreover,practical methods and ideas for creating a better home literacy environment are provided for parents to promote the development of children’s narrative abilities in the future.