Associations between Latino kindergarteners’ decontextualized talk during personal narratives and their language and literacy skills

• In Event: Children’s decontextualized talk in ethnically and socioeconomically diverse communities in the U.S., China and Norway

Abstract

There is substantial variability in how much young children use decontextualized talk (i.e., talk that goes beyond the here-and-now; Snow, 1991; Rowe, 2012) and this variability relates to children’s language skills in preschool (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Demir et al., 2015) and adolescent academic language (Uccelli et al., 2017). Prior research has identified macro-structure features of decontextualized talk (e.g., future talk, explanations), showing that certain macro-structure features are more common than others (e.g., future talk during breakfast; Leech et al., 2018). Further, micro-structure features (i.e., syntactic, lexical) of decontextualized talk have also being identified (Demir et al., 2015). Here we examined the macro- and micro-structure features of children’s decontextualized talk within a particular context (personal narratives) and investigated associations with language and literacy skills. We focused on Latino children, as their families and communities have a strong tradition of oral storytelling (Luo et al., 2019). We asked: 1) How prevalent are macro- and micro-structure features of decontextualized talk in Latino kindergarteners’ narratives? 2) Does frequency of macro- and micro-structure features of decontextualized talk relate to Latino kindergarteners’ language and literacy skills?

Participants were 220 Latino kindergarteners (51% female; M age=67.15 months, SD=4.06, range=58-83). Children were recruited from 13 schools serving primarily students from low-income households in a southeast city in the U.S. (on average, 15 children per school). Assessments were conducted in the child’s preferred language. Children were asked to tell a story about a past positive and negative event. Their personal narratives were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim and coded for: a) macro-structure features (at the utterance level): future talk, explanations, talk about scripts and connections with present (Beals, 1993; Leech et al., 2018); and b) micro-structure features (at the word level): determiners, coordinating and subordinating conjunctions, adjectives, adverbs, and mental and linguistic terms (Curenton & Justice, 2004). Children’s language and literacy skills were assessed using the Woodcock-Munoz Language Survey subtests (WMLS-R; Woodcock & Munoz-Sandoval, 2005) and the expressive vocabulary items from IDELA (Save the Children, 2017).

Overall, we observed very low frequency and variation of macro-structure features, but high frequency and variation of micro-structure features (Table 1). Frequencies of micro-structure features (i.e., determiners, coordinating and subordinating conjunctions, adjectives and adverbs) were strongly correlated within and across events (rs ranged from .40 to. 70, all ps < .001); thus, we added micro-structure frequencies across events and used this sum score in subsequent analyses. Multilevel modeling accounting for clustering within schools yielded positive associations between micro-structure features and children’s language (vocabulary), but not literacy skills (letter-word knowledge, emergent writing; Table 2). These associations remained after controlling for relevant covariates, including volume of narrative and child’s age and gender. This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, it describes the extent to which Latino children use macro- and micro-structure features of decontextualized talk during personal narratives. Second, it identifies unique associations between macro- and micro-structure features of decontextualized talk during personal narratives and Latino children’s language skills. Results can inform the design of preventive interventions capitalizing on Latino communities’ oral-storytelling traditions.

Authors

• Diana Leyva, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Yarelin Rivera, Davidson College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ann Foxworth Bernhardt, Davidson College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathryn Anne Leech, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author