A SOCIAL INTERACTIONIST ACCOUNT OF DEVELOPING DECONTEXTUALIZED NARRATIVE SKILL

The ability to produce decontextualized language is a crucial skill un derlying literacy acquisition. This study investigated the role of par ental interaction styles on children's developing skill at providing c ontextual orientation in one type of decontextualized discourse, perso nal experience narratives. A researcher elicited narratives monthly fo r 18 months from 10 children age 26-43 months. At intervals, mothers w ere asked to tape record ''talk about past events'' with their childre n. The children's increasing skill at independently providing context about when and where was correlated with mothers' frequencies of using specific types of prompts in their narrative elicitations. Cross-lagg ed correlations showed that parents who frequently prompted for contex t orientation had children who most frequently provided subsequent ori entation to when and where in their stand-alone narratives when they w ere over 3 years of age. Results were interpreted in terms of Vygotski an theory.