Gigliana Melzi

The Development of Children's Oral Narratives Across Contexts

Research Findings: Children across cultures begin the process of becoming literate well before they begin formal schooling. The early narratives children share in conversation with others lay the foundation for various academic and nonacademic aspects of school readiness. Practice or Policy: The present review synthesizes the major work conducted on the development of oral narratives among children from diverse sociocultural backgrounds, especially those shared at home, at school, and with peers. Contemporary research is discussed in relation to the socialization practices across cultures and the role these practices might play in shaping childrens narrative discourse.

Being Brave, Being Nice: Themes of Agency and Communion in Children’s Narratives

Although much is known about the presence of themes of agency and communion in adults’ autobiographical stories, little is known about the presence of these themes in children’s autobiographical stories. In this paper we examine the extent to which children describe themselves and others as agentic and communal beings in ordinary conversational narratives. Subjects were 96 rural, working-class children between the ages of 4 and 9 years. Personal narratives were elicited in the course of informal conversations with an adult experimenter. Narratives were analyzed for the presence of storyworld participants, and for the presence of themes of agency and communion. For both genders, themes of agency were more common than were themes of communion. Girls, however, were more likely to describe themes of communion than were boys, and were more likely to include family members in their narratives than were boys. Finally, correlations between themes of agency and communion were generally low. The findings extend the age to which the concepts of agency and communion can be productively applied to personal narratives. Implications for future theoretical and empirical work are also discussed.

Spanish-language narration and literacy : culture, cognition, and emotion

1. Introduction Alison Bailey, Allyssa McCabe and Gigliana Melzi Part I. Parent-Child Interaction: 2. Cultural variations in mother-child narrative discourse style Margaret Caspe and Gigliana Melzi 3. Early socio-communicative narrative patterns during Costa Rican mother-infant interaction Pablo Stansbery 4. Lessons in mother-child and father-child personal narratives in Latino families Tonia N. Cristofaro and Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda 5. Evaluation in Spanish-speaking mother-child narratives: the social and sense-making function of internal state references Camila Fernandez and Gigliana Melzi 6. Love, diminutives, and gender socialization in Andean mother-child narrative conversations Kendall A. King and Colleen Gallagher Part II. Developing Independent Narration: 7. The intersection of language and culture among Mexican-heritage children three to seven years old Alison Wishard Guerra 8. Beyond chronicity: evaluation and temporality in Spanish-speaking childrens personal narratives Paola Uccelli 9. Narrative stance in Venezuelan childrens stories Martha Shiro 10. Mestizaje: Afro-Caribbean and indigenous Costa Rican childrens narratives and links with other traditions C. Nicholas Cuneo, Allyssa McCab, and Gigliana Melzi Part III. Links to Literacy and Other School Achievements: 11. Latino mothers and their preschool children talk about the past Alison Sparks 12. The contribution of Spanish-language narration to the assessment of early academic performance of Latino students Alison L. Bailey, Ani Moughamian and Mary Dingle 13. Cultural variation in narrative competence and its implications for childrens academic success Sarah W. Beck.

Validation of a culture-contextualized measure of family engagement in the early learning of low-income Latino children.

Given the increased numbers of Latino children entering the U.S. educational system, there is a need to develop culturally contextualized models to understand the ways Latino parents participate in and support their childrens school experiences. Current tools used to measure family engagement have been developed primarily with monolingual English-speaking European American families and thus might not accurately capture the engagement behaviors unique to other ethnic and linguistic groups. The present study builds upon prior mixed-methods research, involving a total of 763 Latino parents, which employed an emic approach to understand family engagement conceptualizations for a pan-Latino population and to develop a new measure for use with this heterogeneous group. In this follow-up study, we examined, with an additional 463 Latino caregivers, the construct validity of a revised 43-item measure across 2 language versions: Parental Engagement of Families from Latino Backgrounds (PEFL-English) and Participación Educativa de Familias Latinas (PEFL-Spanish). The 4 dimensions of family engagement empirically identified in the prior development study were confirmed with this multicity, independent sample of low-income Latino families. Family engagement dimensions demonstrated relations with recency of immigration, home language, employment, education, and caregiver age, as well as caregiver-reported levels of social support. Findings are discussed with respect to future directions for early childhood research and practice.

Intimacy, Imitation and Language Learning: Spanish Diminutives in Mother-Child Conversation

This paper explores how Spanish-speaking Peruvian mothers and their children use diminutives in everyday conversations, seeking to characterize the discourse forms and functions of diminutive imitation and to explore potential differences across speaker groups. More generally, we investigate how and why the use of diminutives may play an important role in facilitating conversational interaction and language learning. Findings illustrate the importance of examining languagelearning processes among non-English-speaking populations, as well as the role of cross-linguistic, cross-cultural analysis in understanding interactional and language socialization processes.

Ecocultural Patterns of Family Engagement Among Low-Income Latino Families of Preschool Children

For the 5 million low-income Latino children in the United States who are disproportionately impacted by the numerous risk factors associated with poverty, it is essential to identify proximal protective factors that mitigate these risks and bolster the academic and social skills that are foundational to a successful transition into formal schooling. Using ecocultural theory as a lens to guide this work, the present study: (a) described patterns of culture-contextualized family engagement among a low-income, Latino sample, and (b) examined relations between these patterns, family demographic factors, and childrens language and social skills in preschool. Across Spanish and English language subsamples, we found evidence that there is heterogeneity in patterns of family engagement within and across language groups, such that different forms of family engagement defined the high engagement profiles in particular. We also found that demographic factors (such as child gender, family structure, and parental education and employment) predicted these patterns differentially across language groups, and that these patterns related to childrens social and language skills in meaningful ways. Findings provide directions for future research, theory, and practice with this heterogeneous cultural group. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Influence of Ethnic Match on Latino School-Based Family Engagement

Research has shown that the school-based engagement of Latino families is lower compared with other racial and ethnic groups. One possible barrier to school-based engagement of this heterogeneous group of families might be the lack of cultural match between families and schools. Addressing this under-researched area, the current study examined ethnic match between Latino caregivers and teachers at seven Head Start centers in a large urban area in the Northeast. Participants were 294 Latino caregivers with children enrolled in Head Start programs and 37 Head Start teachers. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), findings indicated that ethnic match (defined by whether a caregiver and the Head Start teacher both identified as Latino) was significantly associated with teacher-rated family engagement. Having a Latino teacher explained a significant amount of the variance in school-based family engagement, beyond that accounted for by caregiver and teacher education. Implications for Head Start’s recruitment and training of teachers are discussed.

Print-related practices in low-income Latino homes and preschoolers’ school-readiness outcomes

This study examined literacy practices in the homes of 127 low-income Latino preschoolers enrolled in bilingual preschool classrooms. Specifically, we investigated the print-related practices that Latino primary caregivers engaged in with their preschool-aged children at the start of the school year and explored the relation between these practices and children’s language, literacy, and social–emotional school-readiness outcomes at the end of the preschool year. The results demonstrate the importance of print – including books and non-book-related environmental print – for Latino preschool children’s development of early literacy and self-regulation skills. In addition, the results highlight that when sharing picture books with their children, low-income Latino caregivers provided the majority of the information to their children, and ask few questions of them, thereby adopting a sole-narrator participatory role. Interestingly, the manner in which caregivers shared the books with their children was not related to child outcomes. The results are discussed in relation to the importance of enhancing Latino caregivers’ culturally preferred print-related practices as a means of fostering their preschoolers’ language, literacy, and social–emotional development.

The Bidirectional Nature of Narrative Scaffolding: Latino Caregivers' Elaboration While Creating Stories from a Picture Book.

Although caregiver narrative elaboration is seen as a critical dimension for children’s development of narrative skills, research has yet to show a predictive relation between caregiver elaboration and child outcomes for low-income Latino children. The present study explored whether specific types of narrative elaboration were predicted by and predictive of Latino children’s language and storytelling skills. Results showed that, whereas provision of new elaboration was negatively predictive of children’s language skills, provision of embellished elaboration predicted more advanced language skills six months later. Moreover, caregivers whose children had more developed language and storytelling skills included fewer new elaborations, but more embellished elaborations. The findings highlight Latino caregivers’ responsiveness and sensitivity to children’s abilities and further our understanding of the nuanced ways in which narrative elaboration is used by Latino caregivers.

Culturally Embedded Measurement of Latino Caregivers' Engagement in Head Start: A Tale of Two Forms of Engagement.

ABSTRACT Practice and Policy: The preschool years represent a critical time to foster family engagement in education for children growing up in poverty. Yet the ways in which Latino families with lower levels of income engage with their children’s education at home and at school might look different from how middle-income parents from the dominant U.S. culture do, depending on cultural values and beliefs about best ways to support children’s learning as well as on socioeconomic realities that present barriers for traditional forms of engagement. This study sought to examine further the psychometric functioning of a promising new measure of family engagement, developed with and for Latino Head Start families. Research Findings: Results of this study supported continued use of this measure, with clear caveats and directions for future research. Findings suggested that the ways Latino Head Start parents engage with children’s learning and development at home (e.g., supporting children’s social awareness and behavior, connection to cultural heritage, academic skills) might be a more culturally nuanced and salient form of engagement, while school-based engagement (e.g., volunteering at school, communicating with teachers) might be a more universal form. Findings contribute to understandings of Latino family engagement as well as to methodological considerations for culture-specific measurement development efforts, with relevance for early education researchers and professionals.