Impact of explicit whole class oral narrative intervention on oral and written language in Grade 1 students
Abstract
Oral language is one skill known to support written language development. Story-telling or narrative skills are important oral language skills that have been found to improve with explicit teaching and predict academic outcomes. This study investigated impact of the oral narrative intervention on the oral and written language skills of first-grade children. In a cross-over design with 63 participants from two schools, whole class intervention in one class per school was conducted in twelve 25–30-minute sessions over three weeks either during phase 1 or phase 2 of the study while the other class in each school completed their business-as-usual curriculum. Children completed oral language measures before and after each study phase and written language samples throughout the study. Results indicated no significant improvements in oral or written language measures that were specifically associated with intervention phases. The two schools differed at baseline and showed different patterns of increases across repeated testing times. The findings are not consistent with many previous studies showing positive oral and written responses to narrative intervention.