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Oral Discourse in the Preschool Years and Later Literacy Skills

Manhattanville College

Lowry Hemphill

Wheelock College

Linda Camp

ReadBoston

Dennis Palmer Wolf

Brown University

This study investigated relationships between preschoolers’ oral discourse and their later skill at reading and writing. Thirty-two children participated in narrative and expository oral language tasks at age 5 years and reading comprehension and writing assessments at age 8 years. Children’s ability to mark the significance of narrated events through the use of evaluation at age 5 predicted reading comprehension skills at age 8. Children’s ability to represent informational content in expository talk at age 5 also predicted reading comprehension at age 8. Control of discourse macrostructures in both narrative and expository talk at age 5 was associated with written narrative skill at age 8. These findings point to a complex and differentiated role for oral language in supporting early literacy.

Key Words: Language development • literacy • longitudinal study • narrative

First Language, Vol. 24, No. 2, 123-147 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0142723704042369


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