Although there are many types of genres, the most complex genre is narrative. The production of a narrative is more cognitively and linguistically demanding than participation in a conversation. Research repeatedly reports that narrative programs positively impact overall reading comprehension and written expression ability. Hence once skills are developed in this area, there is a flow on effect to all other forms of comprehension and written work.

Within Connecting Oral and Written Language – Step 1 the initial oral stage is incredibly important. From a Speech Pathology perspective, oral expression ability is the precursor to written expression ability. Too often students are required to generate narratives before solid foundation skills are established. Remember students need to be provided with multiple opportunities to analyse and orally retell familiar narratives. In this way, they are rehearsing and practicing their oral language skills and simultaneously developing a solid understanding of narrative structure. Remember do not underestimate the value of the initial oral stages of narrative skills development.

This program, designed by Speech Pathologists for 6 to 8 year olds features:

• Narrative tasks are presented in an order of ascending complexity (i.e. pre-narrative, oral narrative retells, written narrative retells and finally narrative generation).
• The manual outlines how to instruct 6 to 8 year old narrative ability and recommends over 45 suitable picture books.
• The classroom pack includes explicit narrative structure cards and display posters

The programs within the range include:

Early Years Programs:

• Picture Book Retelling – Step 1
• Developing News Telling and Narrative Skills for 4 Year Olds

Foundation Programs:

• Picture Book Retelling – Step 2
• Developing News Telling and Narrative Skills for 5 Year Olds

Year 1 & 2 Program:

• Connecting Oral and Written Language – Step 1

Year 3, 4, 5 & 6 Program

• Connecting Oral and Written Language – Step 2

This product is mentioned in the Year 1 & 2 Teaching Sequence Manual on page 20.