Oral Narrative Performance of African American Prekindergartners Who Speak Nonmainstream American English

Purpose: This study had 4 primary purposes: (a) to describe the oral narrative performance of typically developing African American prekindergarten children with commonly used macro- and microstructure measures; (b) to examine the concurrent and (c) predictive relations between narrative performance, spoken dialect use, vocabulary, and story comprehension; and (d) to explore change in narrative performance during the school year. Method: Children provided story retells of Frog Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969) at the beginning (n = 76) and end (n = 146) of the school year. Retells were analyzed using the narrative assessment protocol (Pence, Justice, & Gosse, 2007), the narrative scoring scheme (Heilmann, Miller, & Nockerts, 2010; Heilmann, Miller, Nockerts, & Dunaway, 2010), high point analysis (McCabe, Bliss, Barra, & Bennett, 2008), and other common indices of narrative ability (e.g., number of different words). Children also completed spoken dialect use, oral vocabulary, and story comprehension measures. Results: Comparisons with data reported in the literature suggest that, on average, the children in this study performed within age-appropriate expectations on each narrative measure. In general, narrative performance was correlated with and predicted by complex syntax and vocabulary skills and was not associated with spoken dialect use. Finally, the children's narrative assessment protocol and high point analysis scores changed significantly during the school year. Conclusion: The results are useful in interpreting the performance of African American children during the prekindergarten school year.