High point narrative structure in mother-child conversations about the past and children’s emergent literacy skills in Costa Rica

Abstract

Abstract.The relationship between narrative coherence in mother-child conversations about past events and children's concurrent emergent literacy was examined in a sample of 32 Spanish-speaking, middle-class, Costa Rican mothers and their preschoolers. Coherence, as expressed in the constituents of high point narrative structure, was measured in reminiscing conversations about everyday events. Our purposes were twofold: 1) to see whether their co-constructed narratives in talk about the past could be meaningfully examined for the constituents of high point narrative structure and 2) to explore the links between coherence in these narratives and children's language and literacy skills. We found a full range of the constituents of high point structure in these conversations, with more advanced forms of narrative structure produced in conversations about the child's misbehavior. Conversations about misbehavior events were most frequently in the form of classic, high point narratives. In addition, a rich set of relationships between coherence in reminiscing conversations and children's language and literacy skills were observed. The results revealed similarities in the narrative practices found in this middle-class sample in Costa Rica to both middle-class families in other parts of the world and to conversation and cultural practices unique to Latino communities.Key words: Parent-child conversations, reminiscing, autobiographical memory, narrative, culture, elaborations.Resumen. Este estudio examina la relación entre el nivel de coherencia narrativa observado en conversaciones madrehijo sobre eventos pasados y el desarrollo de la alfabetización emergente de niños y niñas en una muestra constituida por 32 díadas costarricenses, de clase media, que utilizan el español como su lengua materna. Se determinó el nivel de coherencia presente en estas conversaciones sobre eventos pasados para lograr dos propósitos: 1) identifi car si los elementos que caracterizan las narraciones con estructura de punto álgido estaban o no presentes en dichas conversaciones, y 2) explorar la relación entre el nivel de coherencia en dichas narraciones co-construidas y el desarrollo del lenguaje y la alfabetización de los niños y las niñas de la muestra. Nuestros resultados señalan la presencia de un rango importante de elementos de la narración con estructura de punto álgido en las conversaciones analizadas, encontrándose las formas más avanzadas en las conversaciones sobre eventos pasados en las cuales el niño o la niña presentó un mal comportamiento. La mayor parte de las conversaciones sobre mal comportamiento presentaron la estructura narrativa de punto álgido. Además, se encontraron múltiples correlaciones entre los niveles de coherencia narrativa de las reminiscencias y el nivel de desarrollo del lenguaje y la alfabetización de los niños y las niñas. Como tal, los resultados apuntan tanto a similitudes entre las prácticas narrativas encontradas en la muestra participante y las prácticas de familias de clase media en otras latitudes, as...

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