Examining the Effects of Multitiered Oral Narrative Language Instruction on Reading Comprehension and Writing

This early-stage feasibility study investigated the effects of a multitiered oral narrative language intervention on oral language, reading comprehension, and writing. Twenty-eight second-grade students participated in this quasi-experimental control group study with assignment at the classroom level. The independent variable was large- and small-group oral narrative language intervention that required students to retell increasingly complex stories that were strategically crafted to include academic language typically found in grade-level reading material. Story grammar, causal adverbial subordinate clauses, elaborated noun phrases, adverbs, and the acquisition of word meanings through context were explicitly taught. Students' performance on proximal measures of oral narrative retells, as well as distal measures of reading comprehension and writing, was assessed at pretest and posttest. Statistically significant differences between the treatment and control groups were found on all outcome measures using nonparametric analyses. Large- and small-group multitiered oral narrative instruction improved not only oral narrative language but also reading comprehension and written composition.