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Assessing Children's Oral Storytelling in their first year of School

Burrell, A; Riley, J; (2007) Assessing Children's Oral Storytelling in their first year of School. International Journal of Early Years Education , 15 (2) pp. 181-196. 10.1080/09669760701289136. Green open access

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Abstract

This paper discusses some findings from a small-scale investigation of the assessment of young children's oral narrative skills that was conducted in three primary schools in London, UK. Effective early language and literacy teaching with children from diverse backgrounds such as those in London depends on having articulated knowledge about children?s skills (McNaughton 1995). A particularly important area is that of narrative skills since the ability to narrate and report is a vital skill for future academic success and is highly correlated to later fluency in reading (Beals and DeTemple 1993; Dickenson and Snow 1987). Teachers need to have sufficiently detailed descriptions of their pupils? language skills and this is especially important where populations are diverse. A procedure, developed and used extensively in New Zealand, exists for increasing teachers? knowledge of their pupils? language skills on entry to school. This story retelling activity (Tell Me) lends itself to use in the normal course of classroom teaching and is the focus of the present study.

Type: Article
Title: Assessing Children's Oral Storytelling in their first year of School
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1080/09669760701289136
Additional information: This article was based on the findings of a small-scale research project funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation (�20,000). This intervention project was conducted in four multi-cultural primary schools serving inner?city deprived communities which aimed to enhance the reception children? language skills. The language skills of the children in the intervention group were assessed pre- and post intervention as were those in a comparison group in the same schools and a neighbouring school. The results indicated that an enrichment programme can have a positive effect on language development over and above what might be expected to occur due to maturation. It was rigorously conducted, all reception children (120 children) in 4 primary schools were assessed at the beginning and end of the year of the intervention using the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF), a comprehensive, well- known standardised assessment . This article focused on the additional use of a New Zealand language assessment instrument designed for use by class teachers and compared it with the use of the CELF an assessment instrumant intended for use by psychologists and researchers. The article formed the basis on a talk given in November 2006 to the ICan international conference. I was the director of the project and main author. This is an electronic version of an article published in Burrell, Andrew and Riley, Jeni (2007) Assessing Children's Oral Storytelling in their first year of School. International Journal of Early Years Education, 15 (2). pp. 181-196. International Journal of Early Years Education is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669760701289136
UCL classification: UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1536899
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