Leap-frog to literacy: maternal narrative supports differentially relate to child oral language and later reading outcomes

Young children’s oral narration typically progresses from telling disordered events to production of well-sequenced stories. To investigate how this development is supported and whether effects of support extend to literacy, 59 mother-child dyads from low-income family backgrounds were studied longitudinally. Maternal verbal input to narration was assessed when children were three, four, and five years old. Children’s personal narratives were...