Inferencing and story retelling abilities in a first grade population

Includes bibliographical references.Narrative abilities have been shown to be highly correlated with academic success in children. Inferencing, one form of narration, has not been researched in children under the age of six. Information about inferencing abilities in children is important because is could help with the early identification of a language deficiency. This study was designed to help determine at what age children begin to infer information. Fifteen first grade children were presented with line drawings and prompted to infer what happened between the pictures. The children were also asked to retell a story after it was presented to them to assess story retelling abilities. Data was collected and analyzed for the mean, range, and standard deviation. On the story retelling task, the mean score was 27 (scale of a to 54) with a standard deviation of five. On the inferencing task, the mean score was three (scale of a to 6). Results indicated that most first grade children do not have the ability to inference. However, most children at this age are able to retell a story.B.S. (Bachelor of Science