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In:Narrative, Literacy and Other Skills: Studies in intervention
Edited by Edy Veneziano and Ageliki Nicolopoulou
[Studies in Narrative 25] 2019
► pp. 245–261

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Chapter 11
Investigating the effectiveness of the Our Story App to increase children’s narrative skills

Lessons learnt from one English preschool classroom

 | University of Stavanger
 | The Open University
 | The Open University
Published online: 6 May 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.25.12kuc
Abstract
This chapter outlines a classroom-based intervention which consisted of using the Our Story iPad app to improve children’s narrative skills with a group of 30 English preschoolers for a period of six months. Children’s narrative skills were measured using a story retelling task with the wordless picture book Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1992) and a personal story generation task. Children’s narrations were analyzed with a simplified version of the High Point Analysis framework that focused on the pragmatic features of children’s narratives, including orientation, evaluation and appendages. Results indicated that children’s narrative skills showed an increase in the number of words and an increase in the use of orienting and supplementary information. A range of qualitative observations showed changes in teachers’ plans and attitude towards the use of new technologies in the classroom setting. In addition, several issues were noted which were related to the challenges resulting from the practical implementation of a new technology in a busy classroom.
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Supporting children’s narrative skills
    • iPads and Apps for young children
  • The current study
  • Method
    • Setting and design
    • Participants
    • Implementation and operation of the intervention
    • Data for enabling and inhibiting factors
    • Pre-tests and post-tests
    • Coding
      • Reliability of coding
  • Results
  • Discussion
    • Enabling factors of the intervention
    • Inhibiting factors during intervention
    • Study limitations
  • Notes
  • References
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