First grade children's oral and written retellings

Abstract

This study addressed four questions about first graders' oral and written retellings. First, how did their retellings change over the period of one school year? Second, how did their own written and oral retellings of the same text compare and contrast? Third, did written retellings influence oral retellings? Fourth, did oral retellings influence written retellings? The retellings were scored using a holistic measure. Twelve students in the same first grade classroom participated in this study. The students were ranked based on teacher observation and were placed in experimental groups. The groups contained a heterogeneous mix of students, and were similar to each other. The first graders' oral and written retellings improved over the school year. Their oral retellings consistently scored higher than their written retellings. However, the evidence from this study does not indicate an influence of either written retellings on oral retellings or oral retellings on written retellings.