An investigation of the relationship between reading ability and the development of story schema in adolescent written narratives

The development of story schema in written narratives was correlated with reading comprehension ability. One hundred and two grade eight subjects were given a standardized reading test and asked to write an original story based on a picture stimulus. The stories were analyzed for number of propositions and for frequency of story structure categories according to a story grammar. A nine-point rating scale was employed to rate the narratives for story schema quality. Significant correlations were found for reading ability scores with frequency of story structure categories (r =.24, p<.01), number of propositions (r =.32, p<.001), and ratings of schema quality (r =.45, p<.001). Further analyses included gender differences, frequency profiles of structural categories and of schema ratings, and a crosstabulation of reading ability by schema quality. Results were discussed in terms of the implications for narrative schema as an important component for both reading and writing.Education, Faculty ofLanguage and Literacy Education (LLED), Department ofGraduat