Personal stories and narrative abilities of mainstream six-year-old children

This study was undertaken in an effort to learn what the favorite personal stories and narrative abilities are among a small group of mainstream, six-year-old children. Previous research has not singled out this group in order to explore the range of story patterns and narrative abilities they possess. The study also addresses a lack of naturally gathered data on the topics, themes, and affective stances of the stories children like to tell about themselves. Twelve participants met with me in their homes for to data gathering, open-ended interviews. Transcripts of the stories were qualitatively analyzed and compared to an oral narrative taxonomy and to story patterns found by previous researchers. Participants produced 123 personal stories which fell into two categories, narratives and non-narratives. There were eight narrative patterns, including two found in this analysis, and seven previously unidentified non-narrative patterns. Comparisons of story patterns and narrative strategies led me to conclude that this group of boys had a higher level of narrative development and a greater awareness of narrative strategies than the girls of this study. Also, findings address the topics, themes, and affective stances of the stories. Although a previous study found that children favored negative affect stories, the stories of this study were largely positive.