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3/31/2003 Effects of Costume Props on Semantic Diversity of Preschool Children’s Story-Retelling Linda K. Crowe, Sherry J. Haar, Jennifer M. Agne, Kansas State University | |
| Author Note Linda K. Crowe, Ph.D., Program in Communication Sciences and Disorders, Kansas State University; Sherry J. Haar, Ph.D., Department of Apparel, Textiles, and Interior Design, Kansas State University; Jennifer M. Agne, B.S., Program in Communication Sciences and Disorders, Kansas State University. This research was supported in part by a Kansas State University Small Research Grant. Correspondence concerning this research should be addressed to Linda K. Crowe, Kansas State University, School of Family Studies and Human Services, 317 Justin Hall, Manhattan, Kansas, 66506-1403, phone (785) 532-1485, e-mail lcrowe@ksu.edu. Abstract A familiar classroom teacher read two unfamiliar stories to 10 preschool children (5 males and 5 females). The children then retold the stories to a naïve listener in two treatment conditions, with and without the use of costume props. The children’s retellings were transcribed and examined for semantic diversity, lexical abstraction, recall of specific details, total number of words, and number of different words. The results indicated that the use of costume props allowed children to produce longer stories that contained greater vocabulary diversity and increased use of contextualized language. Effects of Costume Props on Semantic Diversity of Preschool Children’s Story-Retelling A primary goal of early childhood educators is to promote language development, particularly the acquisition of new vocabulary through a variety of classroom activities and experiences. Learning new words is particularly important during the preschool years given the reciprocal relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading achievement (Chall, Jacobs, & Baldwin, 1990; McKeown & Curtis, 1987). Research shows that children learn many new vocabulary words, both directly and incidentally, during storybook reading (Ninio & Bruner, 1976; Robbins & Ehri, 1994; Wells, 1986; Whitehurst, Falco, Lonigan, Fischel, DeBaryshe, Valdez-Menchaca, & Caulfield, 1988). Actively engaging the child while reading or immediately following the storybook reading facilitates the child’s comprehension of the text and promotes language development, including word learning. Specifically, vocabulary and story comprehension are enhanced by asking children to label pictures during reading (Ninio & Bruner, 1976), answer questions about the story after reading (Kim, 1999), and retell stories (Kim, 1999; Senechal, Thomas, & Moniker, 1995). Story retelling, an oral narrative form, has been the focus of considerable research, as narrative ability appears to form a bridge between a child’s oral language and reading (Kaderavek & Sulzby, 2000; Kim, 1999; Peterson & McCabe 1994; Soundy & Geneisio, 1994; Westby, 1991). By definition a narrative is a type of discourse in which the speaker relates an episodic event, either real or imagined (McCabe, 1995). The narrative that is produced is thought to represent the speaker’s ability to make sense of experiences, including comprehension of stories read by others (Wells, 1985). Young children often experience difficulty in retelling an unfamiliar story (Brown, 1975; McCabe & Peterson, 1991; Westby, 1991). Piaget (1969) believed that young, preoperational children are unable to take another’s perspective, limiting their narratives to personal experience or self-reference. Mandler and Johnson (1977) agreed that egocentric thought influences young children’s retelling ability, but also contended that both children and adults possess internally created story schemata developed by listening to stories and through life experiences. Others have countered that underlying story comprehension difficulties are not the cause of limited oral narrative ability, but rather children at the peroperational stage of cognitive development have story sequencing difficulty due to limited opportunities to practice oral narratives (Brown, 1975). A fundamental and more basic cause for preschoolers’ limited narrative ability may be their difficulty in the use of decontextualized language (Westby, 1991). Decontextualized language is described as utterances occurring separately from the context and events to which the words refer (McLaughlin, 1998). Narratives and story retellings require a child to relate information separate from the context, such as a past event or something never personally experienced. Multiple sentences must be topic-focused, new vocabulary must be explained and referenced, and events must be sequentially ordered in such a way that listeners unfamiliar to the story can follow along (Peterson & McCabe, 1994). The ability to use both contextualized and decontextualized vocabulary provides indicators of a child’s developing semantic and pragmatic skills (Liles, 1993). Shared context allows children to use demonstrative pronouns, such as this, or third person pronouns, such as she, without first providing a specific noun referent. However, in the absence of contextual support, children must consider listener’s needs and provide the specific lexical referents to identify the agents, actions, and objects associated with the story being told. Morrow (1985) completed two story-retelling studies to determine if narrative practice would improve children’s recall and retelling ability. Fifty-nine kindergarten children participated in study one, and 82 kindergarten children participated in study two. In the first study all children listened to a story, then the experimental group of children retold the story, in contrast to the control group who was asked to draw a picture. Following the treatment and control activities, all the children answered comprehension questions about the story. In Morrow’s second study the same experimental and control activities were completed (i.e., retelling and drawing); however, the activities were repeated eight times prior to the posttest data collection. Children in the experimental group participated in eight practice retelling activities during which children were guided through the retellings. Assistance with retelling varied according to what the children were able to provide independently. Specific directions for guided retelling included simple prompts, "What comes next?" (p. 659), and step-by-step scaffolding through the story as follows: "Once upon a time, Who was in the story?, When did the story happen? (day or night, summer or winter?)"…and "How did the story end?" (p. 660). Posttest measures for both studies included analysis of child responses to comprehension questions and a story-retelling task. Results indicated that one retelling (Study One) had little effect on a child’s story comprehension. Repeated practice with retelling, however, (Study Two) resulted in significant differences in the length of the children’s story retelling and overall story comprehension. The authors concluded that children need practice retelling stories to improve understanding of story structure and capacity to recall larger units of story content. Although practice may aid in story retelling and story comprehension, working memory limitations also impact a young child’s ability to complete a narrative retelling task. Westby (1999) describes three types of knowledge that impact children’s comprehension of text. These include content, theme, and organization. Prior knowledge about a particular topic makes comprehension of the story structure and new vocabulary less demanding. Also, familiarity with story grammars or how stories are organized frees memory to focus on the narrative theme and novel vocabulary. Therefore, prior experience and existing background knowledge affect the child’s analysis, synthesis, and internalization of new information encountered in stories. Children’s retellings then reflect the interactions of their knowledge store and working memory limitations. External supports can further reduce the task demands of the retelling, allowing young children to recall a greater number of story details. Memory load during retelling can be facilitated through the use of story-related supports. Research has shown that memory aids assist children with story generation (Shapiro & Hudson, 1991) and story comprehension (Kim, 1999; Silvern, Taylor, Williamson, Surbeck, & Kelley, 1986). Story-related props have included pictures (Hough, Nurss, & Wood, 1987; Levin & Lesgold, 1978), puppets, and stuffed animals (Soundy, 1993). Silvern, Taylor, Williamson, Surbeck, and Kelley (1986) completed a study with 505 children ages 5 to 9 years examining the effects of play, story familiarity, and adult intervention on children’s story reconstruction and recall. Experimental and control groups each had the same number of exposures to the familiar and unfamiliar stories. In the experimental group children selected props and reenacted the stories following each reading. The researchers found that the children in the play condition retold better stories than did the control group children, but the younger children required more adult direction to reenact the unfamiliar versus the familiar story. Additionally, the researchers found an age effect, with younger children benefiting more from the play condition than the older children who were considered to have better metalinguistic knowledge about stories. Kaderavek and Sulzby (2000) compared emergent reading narratives to personal narratives of 10 typically developing preschoolers. The children ranged in age from 2;4 to 4;0 years. The investigators made six home visits in which each mother and child engaged in two activities, playing with a toy and reading a book. The interactions were video and audio recorded. During the third visit the children were asked to "read the book" (i.e., create a narrative about the pictures) to the investigator. To elicit the personal narratives, the investigator modeled a narrative and then asked the child to expand on the topic. The best narratives in the two different conditions were used for analysis. Results showed that narratives produced in the emergent reading condition (i.e., picture-supported) were longer (more utterances), more complex (more clauses), and had greater linguistic diversity (as measured by type/token ratio). The personal narratives, however, had better story structure, particularly the middle and end of the story. Additionally, there was an age effect, with the very young children producing more impoverished narratives than the older children. In a study by Kim (1999) dolls and pictures were used to facilitate 4- and 5-year-old children's story retelling and comprehension of an unfamiliar story. Thirty-two children participated in one of two conditions, a picture retelling condition and a play with doll props condition. After hearing an unfamiliar story children retold the story and answered comprehension questions immediately, and then one-week later retold and answered comprehension questions either using pictures or doll props. Examination of story structure and story comprehension in the two conditions showed that pretend play with props resulted in more elaborate narratives and better recall of specific story details. Overall these studies suggest that young children produce more elaborate story retellings and increased story detail when they reenact stories, practice retelling, manipulate story props, and look at pictures or books. Reenactment and practice, as well as availability of story-related props, help children internalize story elements and free memory to access story details. Most research in this area focuses on the syntactic elements of narration, including clause structures and story grammar elements. Although these particular components are recognized as important aspects for discourse analysis, the investigators were interested in examining the semantic aspects of the children’s stories, specifically the influence of props on the children’s lexical choices, recall of specific details, and use of contextualized and decontextualized vocabulary. No research to date has examined the effects of story-related costume props on the frequency and variety of words used during a child’s recount of an unfamiliar story. Additionally, few studies examine the semantic-pragmatic aspects of children’s narratives, particularly the children’s ability to adjust the language of their stories to the contextual demands. Therefore this pilot investigation examined how the use of costume props affected preschool children’s vocabulary choices, the semantic relationships expressed, and the use of contextualized and decontextulaized language while retelling an unfamiliar story. Method Participants Participants included 10 preschool children from a childhood laboratory school on a Midwestern university campus. Children were from middle income homes whose parents were primarily university professors and professionals in the community. The participants (five females and five males) were chosen from a pool of 12 children who ranged in age from 3;5 to 5;6 years (M = 4;7 years). The children were all typically developing and had normal language skills, as verified through administration of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III (PPVT-III) (Dunn & Dunn, 1997) and the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test-2000 Edition (EOWPVT) (Brownell, 2000). Of the 12 children initially recruited for the study, two were excluded after obtaining standard scores below 85 on the EOWPVT. The 10 children who comprised the final participant pool in the study had mean scores of 116.5 on the PPVT-III (range = 102 - 126) and 109.7 on the EOWPVT (range = 92 - 132). (See Table 1 for participant characteristics).  Materials Two books with clothing items central to the stories were chosen for this study. The two books were Shoes from Grandpa (Fox, 1989) and Something From Nothing (Gilman, 1992). The classroom teachers reported that both books were unfamiliar to the children and had not been used in their classrooms. To control for book effects the two books were matched for realistic content, repeating story line, and picture support for text. To maintain equivalent clothing items and similar overall story length, one story, Shoes from Grandpa, was shortened by clipping together two pages of text. Six costume items were created for each book to serve as props central to each story’s theme. The costume props included the following: Shoes from Grandpa used boots, socks, coat, hat, mittens, and scarf; Something from Nothing used blanket, coat, vest, tie, handkerchief, and button. A Sony Digital 8 video camcorder was used to record all story retellings. Design A repeated measures treatment comparison design was used. Participants were assigned to dyads, which included one male and one female of similar age. Each child participated in two experimental conditions. In Treatment 1 (T1) the children used no costume props in retelling the story. In Treatment 2 (T2) the children used costume props to retell the story Procedure An instructor well known to the participants, individually read the stories to each dyad. The instructor was told to limit interactions with the children, answering only those questions presented by the children. After the first book was read, the two participants of the dyad were then randomly assigned to T1 and T2 conditions. The child assigned to T1 retold the story to an unfamiliar naïve listener while the second child was allowed to explore the costumes associated with the book. Length of the costume exploration was left up to the children’s discretion. None of the explorations lasted more than five minutes. Then the child who explored the costume props retold the story in the T2 condition to the same unfamiliar naïve listener as in T1. Books also were counterbalanced in their order of presentation. Some children listened to Something from Nothing first, and others heard Shoes from Grandpa first. To elicit the retellings in both treatment conditions, the naïve listener used simple verbal instructions as follows: "Your teacher just read you a story, but I didn’t get to hear it. Tell me about the story you just heard." Additional instructions for the T2 condition included, "You may use these (pointing to a bag containing the costume items) to tell the story if you want." Minimal verbal prompts also were used and included: "Is there anything else you want to tell me about the story?" and "Is that the end of your story?" No other prompts or cues were given to the children in either treatment condition to aid in the story retelling. After two to three days the second story was read to the children. The treatment conditions were reversed for the dyad participants, with the retellings told to the same unfamiliar, naïve listener. Procedures were the same for all five dyads. All story retellings were video recorded in their entirety Results Data Preparation and Analysis All intelligible, story-related utterances from the video-recorded retellings were transcribed for coding and analysis. After the transcriptions were completed, all pertinent utterances were coded for semantic roles and grammatical categories (i.e., agents, actions, objects, entities, etc.) using procedures outlined by Retherford, Schwartz, and Chapman (1981) (see Appendix for sample coding). All words were categorized according to parts of speech (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.). The frequency of the semantic roles, grammatical categories, and parts of speech were tabulated. The total number of words, number of different words, and number of story details (i.e., characters and objects) were calculated using the frequency counts for parts of speech. Analysis of the summarized data included the application of the nonparametric Sign Test, descriptive statistics, and qualitative measures. Two independent judges transcribed retellings and coded the stories for analysis. The first author trained both judges in transcription and coding procedures. Five of the 20 total transcripts were randomly selected and compared for agreement. Percent agreement was calculated by dividing the number of agreements by the total number of agreements and disagreements. Percent agreement for transcription and coding was as follows: overall transcription = 84% (range of 79 – 94%), semantic roles = 78% (range of 71 – 85%), and parts of speech = 98% (range of 68 – 100%). Treatment Comparisons Mean frequencies and obtained z statistics for semantic roles and grammatical categories are summarized in Table 2. Only those semantic roles or grammatical categories in which at least one mean was greater than 1.5 were examined.  Nonparametric Sign Tests were completed for each dependent measure to identify differences between No Costume (T1) and Costume (T2) conditions in the use of semantic roles, grammatical categories, total number of words, number of different words, and number of story details. The children’s story retellings in the T1 condition contained significantly more entities (z= 2.53, p < .01 two-tail), demonstratives (z = 3.00, p < .002 two-tail), and total number of words (z = 1.90, p < .05 two-tail) than retellings in the T1 condition. None of the other measures of semantic diversity reached levels of significance. However, story retelling in the Costume condition resulted in greater mean frequencies for all semantic roles and grammatical categories examined. The Costume condition also resulted in a higher mean frequency for number of different words (T1 M = 30.6; T2 M = 34.8) compared to story retelling in the No Costume (T1) condition (see Figure 1).  Examination of children’s references to specific story details (i.e., characters and objects) resulted in significantly more story objects mentioned (z = 2.33, p < .05 two-tail) in the T2 (Costume) condition. There was not a significant difference in the number of story characters referenced (z = 0, p > .05 two-tail). The average number of characters mentioned in the two conditions was as follows: T1 mean = 1.8, range of 1-4; T2 mean = 1.6, range of 0-6. The average number of objects referenced in the two retelling conditions was as follows: T1 mean = 2.8; range of 0-5; T2 mean = 5.6, range of 1-10. A further examination of the semantic roles and grammatical categories indicated a difference in the children’s use of decontextualized and contextualized vocabulary during story retelling. It should be noted that contextualized language was only pragmatically appropriate in the Costume condition, as the No Costume condition provided no mutual or physical frame of reference for a contextualized response. Contextualized language was identified as use of experiencers, demonstratives, states, and entities (Liles, 1993). "This was her scarf," (i.e., demonstrative-state-possessor-entity) would be an example of a contextualized statement, showing that the individual was referring to something in his or her immediate proximity. Decontextualized language was identified by the use of agents, actions, and objects. "Grandpa gave her the scarf," (i.e., agent-action-recipient-object) would be an example of decontextualized language referring to something that was not in the immediate environment. Percentage of use was calculated for the seven semantic roles of interest (see Figure 2). In T1 the retellings contained a greater percentage of agents (T1 = 7.5%; T2 = 6.8%) than in the T2 condition. There was no difference in percentage of actions produced (T1 and T2 = 8.4%), but T2 stories included a higher percentage of objects than in T1 (T1 = 5%; T2 = 6.2%). In T2 the children’s stories contained a higher percentage of experiencers (T1 = 2.9%; T2 = 3.7%), demonstratives (T1 = 2.0%; T2 = 8.3%), states (T1 = 4.7%; T2 = 7.5%), and entities (T1 = 4.7%; T2 = 8.4%), suggesting that the children were referring to the available costume props.  In summary, results indicated that the T2 condition produced longer stories, containing more specific references to objects and greater overall semantic diversity in the children’s retellings. Children also used more contextualized and decontextualized language in the presence of the costume props than in the No Costume condition. Discussion This investigation examined whether the use of costume props during retelling of an unfamiliar story served as a memory aid and reduced the comprehension demands of the story-retelling task. The results indicate that the use of story-related costumes acted as memory supports. When costume props were used, the children told longer stories with greater detail, and the vocabulary diversity was richer than in the No Costume condition. As would be expected, contextualized language was used more frequently to refer to objects in the immediate environment in the Costume condition. An example of this contextualized language used by one of the children was, "This her aunt gave," while holding up a costume prop. One might argue that the use of the props allowed for the child to recall more decontextualized information (i.e., the aunt) than if the props were not used. This would also suggest the child was aware of the listener’s need for a specific character referent. The increased use of demonstratives and entities in the Costume condition was attributed to the contextual support provided by the clothing items. Most children upon exploring the costume props and beginning their story retelling brought out all of the props and listed them. An example of this occurred with one child’s retelling of Shoes from Grandpa. One child began with, "Grandpa made Joseph some….," and proceeded to list the objects in the bag (i.e., this coat, this vest, this tie, etc.). Another child simply labeled each item as it was removed from the bag, "A scarf. Socks and shoes. A coat. An alligator hat. Bunny rabbits. Gloves." This outcome could be considered a disadvantage for using props, as the children listed the costume items rather than facilitating their recall of the story events. Having the props at hand also proved advantageous in increasing the children’s recall of both contextualized and decontextualized story details (i.e., characters and objects). All 10 children used specific vocabulary or referential pronouns for the six costume props when present, but none of the children referred to all six props in the No Costume condition. Eight of the 10 children remembered more than the six objects in the costume condition, but similar numbers of characters were identified in both conditions. Because there were only 6 costume props available to the children, we concluded that children who provided more than 6 object details also were including decontextualized information about the story. Thus one could further argue that the presence of the costume props freed memory to recall additional decontextualized information, characters and objects associated with the story. The costume prop condition also elicited recall of unusual lexical items and novel vocabulary. Three children in the Costume condition recalled the word handkerchief, with one child referring to it as a "napkin." Only one child referenced the handkerchief in the No Costume condition. The Costume condition further promoted production of novel words, such as "dinosaur head" and "crockagator" in reference to the alligator hat. None of the children produced similar novel vocabulary in the No Costume condition. We noted that one child in the study (Child 8) did not seem to benefit from the use of props. In both T1 and T2 conditions the child produced little to no information about the story. This participant also was the youngest of the 10 enlisted for the study. This finding would be consistent with previous research that shows age effects on narrative abilities (Applebee, 1978; Kaderavek & Sulzby, 2000). The current investigation suggests that until one reaches a certain age or level in development, recalling an entire story, whether with the use of props or without, may be a task beyond the capability of a very young child. A child at the labeling stage of emergent literacy (Sulzby, 1985) or a child with limited language ability also may produce impoverished stories. For another child (Child 10) the costume props seemed more of a distraction in the retelling process than an aid. In the T1 condition this child had greater language diversity and a longer story than in the T2 condition. In the T2 condition the child seemed more interested in taking off and putting on all the costume props than using them to help retell the story. This behavior has been described by Soundy (1993) in which she also found that some children became distracted by the props, causing the children to want to play with the props rather than use the props as a tool in the recall process. Morrow (1990) also found that without teacher-guidance in the use of thematic play materials, some children used the materials randomly or in a free-play manner. Previous research has documented that when faced with the task of retelling an entire story, many young children are not successful due to the memory demands of the task (Morrow, 1985). This study has shown that using costumes as a memory aid when retelling an unfamiliar story increased the amount of information recalled (i.e., total number of words and number of story details), allowed for greater lexical diversity (i.e., number of different words), and supported the use of contextualized (i.e., experiencers, states,and entities) and decontextualized vocabulary (i.e., characters and objects). Because this study was a pilot investigation examining the effects of costume props on story recall, there are some cautions in generalization of the findings. One limitation was the sample size. Given the sample size consisted of only 10 children, the implications of this study are limited to the present participant sample. Also, there was a notable age range across the participants, with more than two years difference between the youngest and oldest participant. Considerations for future studies may include allowing the children to retell the story in the presence of a more familiar adult and eliminating the costume exploration. Instead each costume item could be introduced as the story is read. Other modifications might include repeated reading of the story over two to three days and allowing opportunities to explore the costumes in the preschool dress-up area. These modifications would provide more typical preschool classroom use of the book and props. The alterations in costume prop presentation may also reduce distractions associated with initial exploration of the items. Despite the limitations, this pilot investigation adds to the research base examining factors that facilitate preschool children’s vocabulary production during story retelling and warrants further study. References Applebee, A. N. 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