Understanding story read-alouds: the influence of story goal structure and event knowledge on pre-readers' inferencing abilities

This study examines how pre-readers' comprehension of story read-alouds is affected when story goal structure deviates from the canonical event. Forty children (30-59 months) were read stories in which there was either a match or mismatch between story and event goal structure. Children's content comprehension scores for the matched story (M = 5.59,SD = 2.22) were slightly higher (t(38) = 2.26,p = .04,d = .35) than for the mismatched story (M = 4.79SD = 2.32). There was not a statistically significant difference (chi(2)(1) = .004,p = .95,phi = .07) in the proportion of children who inferred the protagonist's goal in each story; however, a significantly smaller proportion of children (chi(2)(1) = 17.61,p = .0001,phi = .67) made goal-action inferences when there was a mismatch. Findings suggest that pre-readers benefit when there is compatibility in the goal structures of story and canonical event.