The role of decontextualized narrative discourse in the development of general spoken language.

摘要

The development of language is an important milestone for young children. In addition to being an important skill for cognitive, social, and intrapersonal growth throughout life language development may facilitate the development of reading skills and academic achievement. A body of knowledge exists to suggest that certain types of language may be more important to the development of reading skills than others. This study examined the relation that two types of language, decontextualized narrative discourse and contextualized narrative discourse have to general oral language. Multiple measures of oral narrative discourse were investigated to see which measures best fit a theoretical model of oral language. The contribution that two types of oral language make to reading achievement was also examined.; Participants in this study were 184 second-grade students selected from two elementary schools in Oregon. All participating students were administered one measure of general language development, standardized measures of reading achievement, and six experimental measures of narrative discourse. Three of the experimental measures assessed decontextualized language and three measured contextualized language. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to compare the fit of three models of general spoken language to the data collected: (a) a unitary model where contextualized narrative discourse and decontextualized narrative discourse are not distinct, (b) a two-factor model of spoken language where contextualized and decontextualized narrative discourse are distinct and correlated, and (c) a two-factor model of spoken language where contextualized and decontextualized narrative discourse are distinct and not correlated. Results of the analysis indicated that a two-factor model of general spoken language where contextualized and decontextualized narrative discourse are distinct but correlated factors is the best fit for the data collected. In addition, results of regression analyses identified a small, linear relationship between reading achievement and decontextualized narrative discourse. No linear relation was found between reading achievement and contextualized narrative discourse. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.