Young Children's Thinking in Relation to Texts: A Comparison With Older Children

Abstract

This study investigated the thinking in which young children engage in relation to authentic literature as expressed in their unassisted retellings. Young children (ages 5 and 6) were read a narrative text and then engaged in an oral, dictated retelling. For comparison, a group of older children (grade 6) were also read a narrative and then engaged in a written retelling. Retellings were examined for evidence of thinking processes, which were tallied for both groups. There were no significant differences in the lengths of the retellings by older and younger children, and few significant differences in the amount or types of thinking. Older children tended to provide summaries of paragraphs and single sentences, while younger children provided more summaries of paragraphs and multiple paragraphs. Some differences in the types of thinking also were observed, such as the use of text illustrations and drawing inferences of text events and actions; these were used to a greater extent by younger, not older students. For the most part, both groups of children engaged in the same types, and to the same extent, of thinking. This research suggests that young children are capable of engaging in many types of thinking in relation to texts, and that retellings may be used as one means of evaluating this thinking.