What the Berenstain Bears can tell us about school readiness: Maternal story grammar style and preschool narrative recall

Abstract

Forty middle-class American mothers and their preschool children were observed in a narrative activity which involved telling a story using the Berenstain Bears Play Set as a stimulus. The goal of the study was to examine the presence of story grammar elements in both maternal and preschool narratives. In addition, the study sought to explore the types of narrative eliciting strategies mothers employ to assist their children in recalling a story. Mothers were also queried about the school readiness and narrative activity that are available in their home environments. The results of the study indicate that there are distinct maternal story grammar styles and narrative eliciting styles which are at some level related to the preschoolers’ recall of stories and those styles enable preschoolers’ to practice school readiness skills. The findings also suggest that preschoolers’ in our study live in narrative rich environments, where mothers embed school readiness activities in narrative-like games. Suggestions for providing parents with strategies to increase their use of narratives as learning tools are discussed.