The Effects of Daycare Intervention in the Preschool Years on the Narrative Skills of Poverty Children in Kindergarten

Abstract

The following study examined narrative skills in 89 poverty children, half of whom had received an infant daycare intervention (experimental) and half whom had not (control). At school entry these groups were split again with half of each group receiving school-age intervention. For each child in the sample, a child of the same sex in their classroom was chosen to form a local population sample (LPS). Children were read stories of varying thematic cohesiveness and asked both to comprehend and paraphrase the narratives in the fall and spring of the kindergarten year. The results indicated that the preschool experimental group performed better than the preschool control group on the comprehension and paraphrase of the stories in the fall but not in the spring. The LPS group was especially better able to paraphrase stories in comparison to the poverty groups. Discussion is centred on reasons for the convergence of the two poverty groups over kindergarten and the possible cultural differences that led to their poorer performance with respect to the LPS group.