Spencer & Petersen, 2010

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May 2010 VOL. 32 NO. 4

THE UTAH SPECIAL

EDUCATOR

CelebrateWhat Works!


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Narrative

Intervention forPreschool ClassesTrina D. Spencer, Utah State University andDouglas B. Petersen, University of Wyoming

Narrative Intervention for Preschool Classrooms

A preponderance of evidence documents the importance of language skills for readingcomprehension (Catts, Adlof, &Weismer, 2006; Catts & Kamhi, 1986; Catts, Fey, Zhang,& Tomblin, 1999; Roth, Speece, & Cooper, 2002; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Rather thanwaiting until children begin to struggle with reading comprehension, interventions can bedelivered in preschool to enhance childrens oral language and story comprehension skills(Skarakis-Doyle & Dempsey, 2008). Narrative language (storytelling) is one type of orallanguage that is specifically linked to reading. Early narrative language has been identified asone of the best predictors of later reading comprehension performance (Catts, Fey, Tomblin,


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& Zhang 2002; Dickinson & McCabe, 2001; Griffin,Hemphill, Camp, & Wolf, 2004) and general academicsuccess (Bishop & Edmonson, 1987; Feagans &Applebaum, 1986). Not only does narrative languagesupport literacy development, but also adequate narrativeskills allow children to engage their peers socially(Johnston, 2008; McCabe & Marshall, 2006). Narrativelanguage is used whenever a child presents an accountof causally related events in temporal order (Hughes,

McGillivray, & Schmidek, 1997; Peterson, 1990). Thismeans that when children tell what they ate for dinner theprevious night, how they scraped their knee, or about thebirthday party they attended, they use narrative language.Children use narrative language to interact with parents,teachers, and peers, and 70% of their narrative interactionsconsist of personal stories (Preece, 1987).

The primary components of narrative interventioninclude instruction on the important parts of a story andfrequent practice telling and retelling stories. Although notexactly the same, different genres of stories (e.g., fictional

and personal) follow a similar structure. Most every storyincludes a setting, at least one character, an initiating eventsuch as a problem or the high point of the story, feelings,actions, and an ending (Hughes et al., 1997; Stein &Glenn, 1979; Peterson, 1990). In narrative intervention,many effective instructional practices such as modeling,prompting, shaping, frequent opportunities to respond, andpositive feedback are incorporated. For example, a teachermodels telling stories while identifying the main parts,then supports the children telling the same story usingpictures, icons, and verbal prompting. Once the teacherintroduces the narrative structure, she can support chil-drens personal stories as they naturally occur throughoutthe day or fictional stories in routine activities such asbook reading or in a writing center.

The research supporting early childhood narrativeintervention is mounting and specific efforts havebeen made to integrate procedures into classrooms.Traditionally, professionals and researchers have imple-mented narrative intervention with children with languageimpairments (Petersen, in press) and delivered it toindividuals (Petersen, Gillam, Spencer, & Gillam, in press)

or small groups of two or three children (Hayward &Schneider, 2000). However, recent interest in applyingthe Response to Intervention (RTI) framework to earlychildhood education has forced educators to seek evi-dence-based interventions appropriate for Tier II. To makenarrative intervention feasible as a multi-tiered strategy,we have adapted procedures from previous research onnarrative intervention (e.g., Gillam, McFadden, & vanKleek, 1995; Hayward & Schneider, 2000; Miller, Gillam,& Pea, 2001; Petersen et al., in press) to be suitable forclassrooms. The narrative intervention steps presentedhere are drawn from a program still in development called

Story Champs, which includes stories, correspondingpictures, icons, and games (Spencer, Petersen, & Slocum,2010; Spencer & Slocum, 2010). These steps can be usedas a general guide for delivering narrative interventionwithin a RTI framework. For more detailed information onnarrative assessment and treatment, see Gillam and Gillam(2010) and for early childhood narrative assessment andintervention tools visit www.languagedynamicsgroup.com.

Large Group Narrative InterventionStep 1: Model. Teacher displays five pictures (see Figure1) and models the story. As she presents the story, sheidentifies the main parts of the story and uses icons(see Figure 2) to represent them. After modeling the story,teacher asks the students, What are the parts of thestory? Teacher uses a signal to help students respondtogether, Character, problem, feeling, action, ending.

Step 2: Active Listening. Teacher models the storyagain while students listen to the story and make acorresponding gesture when the teacher tells each part(i.e., Character= hand on head, Problem = thumbs down,Feeling = finger touching near eye,Action = open handmoves across body, andEnding = thumbs up). StoryGestures is implemented in a game-like fashion toenhance active listening.

Step 3: Co-Telling. Teacher asks the students to thinkabout the parts of the story beginning with character andproceeding through the other parts of the story. After all

students have covertly formed an answer, the teacher callson an individual student to tell a part of the story. Teacherprovides support if necessary, then restates or rephrasesstudents answer and models it for the group. Teacher usesa signal to help students respond together to repeat the partof the story. When the group has told all parts of the story,the teacher summarizes the story to provide a cohesivemodel.

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Step 4: Independent Retelling. Students separate into pairsto practice retelling to each other. First one child tells thestory while the partner monitors and/or helps the narrator tell

the complete story. Then, the partners switch roles. Whenall the students have retold the story, the students gather inthe group area. Teacher encourages everyone to clap forthemselves and their friends who are all story champs.

Small Group Narrative Intervention

Step 1: Modeling. Teacher displays five pictures on a tablein front of students and models the story. While telling thestory, the teacher identifies the parts of the story and laysout icons that correspond to each part.

Step 2: Co-Telling. Each of the children and the teacherare assigned a part of the story to tell and in sequence telltheir part. After the group has retold the story, the teachersummarizes it to present an additional cohesive modelbefore students retell the story independently.

Step 3: Retelling and Active Listening. Each child takes aturn retelling the story. With each retell, an element of visualsupport can be withdrawn. For example, the first studenttells the story with the pictures and the icons available andthe next student retells the story with only the icons to serveas prompts. The icons can be removed for subsequent re-

tells to promote increasingly independent narration. Duringstudents individual retells, the others play story gestures(described above) to promote active listening. The teacherprovides individualized support to the narrator. As childrenretell individually, the teacher may choose to prompt theinclusion of language targets other than the parts of thestory such as correct pronoun usage, specific vocabulary,or complex language that focuses on causal and temporalterms. In this manner, small group narrative instructionprovides a more intense program in which teachers tailorit to fit the needs of the students.

In order to facilitate generalization to childrens personal

stories, modeled stories should be about events familiar tothe children such as looking for lost articles of clothing,playing a game, or visiting the doctor. Following the retell

steps of large or small group intervention, the teacher canask if the children have experienced something similar andthen support their telling of personal stories. Throughout thday, teachers can reinforce the narrative structure andencourage other activities that will further develop theirlanguage skills. Below are a number of suggestions forintegrating narrative activities into preschool classrooms.

Encourage picture stories, where children or the teacherdraw a picture to correspond to each part of the story.Children can narrate the story while the teachertranscribes it onto their pictures.

Provide opportunities for story sequencing usingpictures. The teacher can tell a story and have thestudents arrange the pictures in order. Pictures can alsobe available in the classroom for children to sequence otheir own or with a friend.

Integrate story structure into social skills lessons. Forexample, the teacher can ask the students to make up anappropriate action and ending to a story about Harry whis mad because Michael is playing with one of his toys.

Ask the students to make up a story using the icons to

guide the inclusion of all the parts. The teacher can drawstick figure pictures to go along with the student-generated stories (Ukrainetz, 1998).

When reading books, teachers can ask factual questionssuch as Who is the character in this book? and Whatis his problem? Teachers can also ask inferentialquestions such as How do you think he feels?

Use puppets and role-playing to engage the students inthe stories.

Narrative Intervention forPreschool Classes

Narrative language is important for social and academicdevelopment and can be addressed prior to kindergarten.

Along with other emergent literacy skills, narration can helpbuild a foundation for later reading comprehension and can

easily be embedded into the preschool day.


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Cover the words to a simple picture book and ask thestudents to make up the story to go with the pictures.

Use snack time as an opportunity to tell personal stories.The teacher can tell a personal story about something thathappened that morning and ask the students to tell abouttheir morning.

Use recent experiences the whole class shared such asfield trips, a class visitor, or a special group project tofacilitate story retells. When the teacher has also sharedthe experience, it will be easier for her to support studentretells of the event.

Prepare the students to tell their parents about an eventthat occurred at school that day. Have them practice withyou before they leave for home. Send home pictures of astory used in class for students to practice retelling it totheir parents.

Narrative language is important for social and academicdevelopment and can be addressed prior to kindergarten.Along with other emergent literacy skills, narration can helpbuild a foundation for later reading comprehension and caneasily be embedded into the preschool day. Additionally, thetargeted large group or small group formats described hereare suitable for Tier II instruction within an RTI model. Inaddition to a growing body of research support, we haveobserved that young children enjoy the game-like proceduresand independently seek occasions to tell stories, draw stories,and listen to stories. A brief introduction to narrative struc-ture, via narrative intervention, seems to expose numerousopportunities for practice and further literacy development.We believe that narrative language is a valuable emergentliteracy skill that, if addressed in preschool, can preparechildren for successful reading experiences.

References available upon request from the UtahPersonnel Development Center

Graphics copyright 2010, Spencer and Petersen. n


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