Abstract

Children’s narrative skills play an important role in academic achievement and literacy development. Research stresses the importance of adults promoting narrative skills by asking “Wh” questions including who, what, and why in order to elicit children’s conversations about past events. However, few studies have focused on the effects of adults prompting conversations about past events by becoming participants in these narratives. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of adult “participatory prompts” as effective ways of promoting children’s narrative skills in the home context. Two fathers, three mothers, two grandmothers, and six children (five girls and one boy; mean age = 7.16) participated in the study. The naturalistic interactions between adults and children were video-recorded, transcribed, and coded. The results suggest that when adults used “participatory prompts,” such as encouraging children to discuss shared experiences (e.g., “Remember when we…?”) and using first-person remarks (e.g., “I can’t believe it!”), children produced more complex narratives about past events than when adults used “Wh” questions without participatory prompts (e.g., “What did you do today?”). Implications for how teachers can foster children’s narrative skills are discussed.