Using a narrative-and play-based activity to promote low-income preschoolers’ oral language, emergent literacy, and social competence. [Storytelling and story-acting vs. business as usual (Creative Curriculum)]
Nicolopoulou, A., Cortina, K. S., Ilgaz, H., Cates, C. B., & de Sá, A. B. (2015). Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 31, 147–162.
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examining137Students, grades3-5
Practice Guide
Review Details
Reviewed: April 2022
- Practice Guide (findings for Storytelling and story-acting)
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards with reservations because it is a compromised cluster randomized controlled trial, but it satisfies the baseline equivalence requirement for the individuals in the analytic intervention and comparison groups.
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Expressive Vocabulary Test |
Storytelling and story-acting vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
44.78 |
44.73 |
No |
-- | |
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Adaptation of Test of Narrative Language |
Storytelling and story-acting vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
24.00 |
22.84 |
No |
-- |
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Peer Play Assessment: Interaction |
Storytelling and story-acting vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
3.85 |
2.85 |
No |
-- | |
|
Peer Play Assessment: Play Disruption |
Storytelling and story-acting vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
1.53 |
2.02 |
No |
-- | |
|
Peer Play Assessment: Play Disconnection |
Storytelling and story-acting vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
0.97 |
0.64 |
No |
-- |
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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Female: 50%
Male: 50% -
Urban
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Northeast
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Race Black 23% Other or unknown 31% White 46% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 23% Not Hispanic or Latino 77%
Study Details
Setting
The study took place in ten classrooms of six preschool centers that were part of a child care/preschool organization serving low-income children from diverse ethnic backgrounds in a medium-sized urban area in the northeastern United States.
Study sample
The two hundred sixteen participating children ranged from three to five years old (though almost all were three and four year-olds) with a mean age of roughly fifty months. Roughly half were male, forty-six percent were White (non-Hispanic), twenty-three percent were Black, and thirty-one percent were another race. Twenty-three percent identified as Hispanic and eight percent were bilingual (English and Spanish). More than half (fifty-five percent) were eligible for free Head Start tuition.
Intervention Group
All participating classrooms provided full-time, full-year, preschool education and care for a minimum of six and a half hours per day, five days per week, fifty-two weeks per year. Throughout the entire school year, the intervention classrooms implemented storytelling and story-acting practice (STSA), a structured preschool practice exemplifying child-centered, play-based, and constructivist approaches in early childhood education that can operate as a curriculum module in conjunction with a variety of different preschool curricula, which was the scope and focus of the intervention as implemented in the study. Specifically, the STSA curriculum module implemented in the study’s intervention classrooms consisted of an activity that combines storytelling and story-acting (also described as story dictation and dramatization) developed by the teacher and writer Vivian Paley (1990). The storytelling part of the STSA took place during “choice time” when children were free to engage in different activities. The teacher or a research assistant wrote down verbatim the stories dictated by each child in a single class “storybook” with minimal intervention (clarification questions were allowed). Each child was allowed to dictate the story of their choosing though there was a limit of one page per story to allow as many children as possible to be accommodated each day. After completing the story, the child first chose which character they wanted to play and then picked other children in the classroom to act in other roles for the story-acting portion of the STSA. The story-acting portion of the STSA took place during group time and was always led by the classroom teacher. During this time, all stories dictated by children during that day were read aloud and enacted in the order dictated. All children in the intervention classrooms participated in the storytelling and story-acting parts of the implemented STSA curriculum module.
Comparison Group
All participating classrooms provided full-time, full-year, preschool education and care for a minimum of six and a half hours per day, five days per week, fifty-two weeks per year. The classrooms in the comparison group followed their business-as usual curriculum, Teaching Strategies Creative Curriculum.
Support for implementation
Prior to the introduction of the intervention, teachers and their aides in intervention classrooms were trained as a group for two hours in carrying out the intervention and received a detailed guidance manual. Classrooms in both study conditions received visits twice a week by teams of two trained research assistants (typically a graduate and undergraduate student in psychology) who assisted carrying out the intervention in the intervention classrooms, or normal classroom activities in the comparison classrooms. The research assistants took field notes during their visits to monitor classroom activities to provide further input and training as needed to maintain implementation fidelity of the intervention.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
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A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
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Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).