An analysis of story comprehension through spoken and written summaries in school-age children

This paper discusses the ability of children in third (about 8-years-old) and fifth (about 10-years-old) grade to produce spoken and written summaries. Two main measurement types were distinguished: micropropositional analysis and story grammar analysis, In micropropositional analysis, the results showed significant differences between both summary conditions (spoken/written); while the spoken condition provided the use of inferences and macrorules, the written condition increased the literal recall ('copy-delete' strategy). In contrast, in the story grammar analysis, the findings showed that both the structural organization and the type of propositions recall were very similar in both types of summaries. Finally, our results showed that the older children appeared to have some qualitative advantage in the use of the story schema; and the effects of the summary type seemed to be less significant.