Improving the quality of primary school children's narration of personal events

An intervention study on the use of evaluation strategies

Abstract

This study was aimed at analysing the effects of a 15-week instructional intervention with primary school children regarding the use of narrative functions and evaluative strategies in writing personal accounts. Eighty-one 4th graders from a primary school in a northern Italian town were divided into two groups: Labovian (N = 41) and traditional (N = 40). After the intervention, the children in the Labovian group, who were taught to use evaluation strategies, wrote longer and better narrations, and more personal and complete accounts than those in the traditional group. The improvement in writing ability was stable three months after the end of the intervention.