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.? .-i::.: r.. :r:,:'iill.'l:,.:ir iil' : . riir':i:,rli ):::i:r'. . i::-.,::'-:i:'ril:lllri:-ilrr:ii,:i::::, : . jrr: i: ::llliirr:iii, lrl.lari:ra)l::r,1...,,..t:l,r'iir;-1.,:1, )r: :i:.r:...r,.,?:: i:).'|r-ii i..ti:t::il ir,::i;;:r:il,.r:.:a:.ru: :r i:r:' rt:irti:r

1., the first fewyears of life, children master the rudiments of their native language.This remarkable achievement appears to require little conscious effort, and it occurs ina wide varieqy of contexts. By their third birthday, children have acquired a large andvaried lexicon. They string together multiword utterances, participate appropriately inconversations, and make simple jokes. They even begin to talk about objects and evenrsthat are not present in their immediate conrext.

By the time children enter kindergarten, usually around age 5, they have acquireda relatively sophisticated command of language, an accomplishment that has some-times led researchers to believe that language development is essentially complete.However, major tasks still await the child, and developments that are as dramrli. asthose of the early years are yet to come (Nippold, 1998, 2000). This chapter describeschanges that occur during the school years. \(/e will pay particular artention to rwotrends that are qualitatively different from earlier developments. The first is children'sgrowing abiliry to produce connected mulri-utterance language, as seen, for example,in their personal narratives. The second is children's evolving knowledge of the lan-guage system itself; reflected in their expanding metalinguistic awareness and in theiracquisition of literacy.Our focus on extended discourse and metalinguistic awareness is not meant toimply that development in other domains has abated. Quite the contrary"children con-tinue to acquire greater expertise in the phonological (Hua & Dodd, 2006), semanric,syntactic (Tomasello, 2003), and pragmatic (Ninio 6c Snow, 1996) aspects oflanguage,

Lhnguolge otnd Literacyinthe SchoolYears

)1 t11-)Y I

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392 CHAPfER IEN Longuoge and Literacy in the School Yeorsas has been described in earlier chapters. Taking semantic development as an example'childrent vocabulary conrinues ro grow ", , trpid rate during the school years (Nagy& Scott, 2000), with approxi-"t.1i 3,000 newwords added to their lexicon each year(Just 6r carpenter, :DBh.pr...rti input continues ro be an important factor in chil-drens vocabulary growtlr, with the d..rsiry and context of sophisticated or rare wordslike uehicb, cholesterol, ^rd rurkrbeing a .tbrrr, predictor of future vocabulary growth(\(eizman & Snow, 2001). A significlant portio^ of new words also comes from read-i.,g 1N",io.,"1 Reading Panel, ZSOO)1i 1n+-g that illustrates the importance of liter-;;;'", well as the Lanner in which liteiacy interacts with ongoing languagedevelopment.Lexical development is also related to world knowledge (crais, 1990), knowl-.dg. ,hr, in most .hildr.., develops rapidly throughout the.school years. children whoknow more about a wide range oi,opi., acquire t.* *otdt more easily than children*hor. knowledge of the *orli i, ,nor.limited.'With the acquisition of newwords' their."dth a.rd d.ith of ,.**ti. knowledge also increases (Landauer & Dumais, 1997)'And bringing tire process full circle, the*addition of new words to the child's lexicon isfacilitated by the pr.r..r.. of an already rich lexicon (Nagy & scott, 2000)' The dra-;; ;..*'h of tir.lol.on throughout the school years should make it clear that theprogr.l. that was made in the earf years continues. This Progress s_erves as an impor-tant foundation for further growth and, in most instances, allows the child to acquirequalitatively new skills like reading and writing'

The chapter is organized to[ically. \7e lo"k fi,rst at how childrens interactionswith peers i.rfl.r..r.. t]iJ t"'g"'gt dtutlopt"tt't' 'We then.turn to a discussion ofchildrens use of a form of ,.r,rlti-.rtterance language termed decontextualizedlar.;G; ;r extended discourse. Extended discourie refers to multi-utterance languagethat focuses on phenomena rhat are not immediately Present (s.now, Tabors, & Dick-inson, 2001). Examples of extended discourse include persona] narratives and expla-nations.Next,weconsidermetalinguistics,knowledgeofth.languagesystemitself.Childrens ,*"r..r.rr-oirh. ,rr1.-g"overned nature of th. language system evolvesrapidly during the school y.r.r, "id-*e will describe some of the developments ofthis period. . rtt. ,_MetalinguisdcawarenessisanimportantcomPonentof,literacy,ournexttoPlc.Literacy impl[s fl...rr, *rr..ry of reading and writing.-\re:./ill describe how childrenacquire these important skills ",,d *h,t happens whe., they find reading difficult. Bothmetalinguistic awareness and literacy affe.t, "nd are affected by, childrent ongoing cog-nitive development. Finally, *. *iil examine childrent exPerience with bilingualismduring the school Years.The notion ,h", l,"gt"ge development is a life-span Process is a guiding princi-ple of this book. This .t *i .."*itt bri.rg,rs up to the threshold of adulthood' connect-i"g .t. early years ofl"rg*"g. dev.lopire.tt described in the preceding chapters to the.t?ng., th"t o..,r, duririg alulthood that are described in Chapter 1,

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lnteroctions with Peers 393INrrnncroNs wrTH eEERSOn Their OwnFor most children, early experiences with language occur with an adult, usually theirm_other or other primary caregiver. In the first years of life, the child has the advantageof interacting with a helpful and knowledgeable speaker. \Vhere the childt linguistlcskill is weak or incomplete, the parent can fill in, or scffild(Bruner, 19g3). Hoi"er.r,as children marure, they are more likely to find themselves in the company of otherchildren, where they must fend for themselves. Peer interactions represenr true testinggrounds for the young childt evolving communicarive competence (Blum-Kulka dSnow 2004; Nicolopoulo u,2002).In time, peer inreractions can become more impor-tant than parent-child interactions (Cazden & Beck, 2003;Harris, 199g; pellegrini,Mulhuish, Jones, Trojanowska, & Gilden, 2002).As children begin to ..rt., th. ii.g..world, their language skills play a very important role in theiisocial and .ognit"i,r.development.In addition, as children enter adolescence, rhey use language to ally themselveswith their peers, or in-group, and to exclude outsiders. G.r"g"r. mark their groupmembership through the use of the adolescent register. Adolescent registers .r.oirp"*avariety oflinguistic fearures, including distinct phonological, ,.-*.,ri., synractic, anddiscourse parterns (Beaumont, vasconcelos, & Ruggeri, 2001 ; Gee, Allen, ar cfinton,2001; Nippold, 1998,2000): For exampie, the "doler.ent register includes manyunique slang terms (e.g., chedda meaning money, da bomb -.".,i.rg the best, and. rii,meaning home). Many of these terms are initially specific to particular eras, geographicregions, social and cultural classes, and are sometimes drawn from regional diJ..L otimmigrant languages (Rampton, 1998). They are adopted more broadly by adoles-cents, change rapidly, and either fall out of fashion or become absorbed into rhe gen-eral lexicon (Romaine, l9B4). Another current mark of the adolescent register is-thenonstandard use of discourse markers such as lihe and,you know (Erman, 2001; Siegel,2002). For example, Erman (2001) found that adolescenrs, but not adults, "mploy youknow to comment on or emphasize discourse as in "youte so stupidl" you biow'(Lm-phasis in original, p.1347).Longuoge Ploy ond Verbol HumorOne aspect of language use that is particularly salient in children is the propensity to playwith language (Dunn, 19BB). In the early school years, play with language represenrs asizable portion of children's language. In one study, approximately o.r.-qur.."i of all ut-terances produced by kindergarten children contained some form of language play (Ely& Mccabe, 1994). children treat language as they would any other obj.it, as a richsource of material that can be playfully exploited (Garvey, 1977). AII components of

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394 CHAPTER TEN Longuoge and Literacy in the School Yeors

". . . They're icky. They're slimy. Theytregooey." Children moY emPloY Poetic-

devices lo express their feelings of

language are subject to manipulations, and sPonta-,r.or'r, *otd play and rhyming sometimes lead tothe invention of new, often nonsense words' In thefollowing example, a 5-year-old child who clearlydid notlike bananas used repetition and Partialrhyming to amplify her feelings of disgust:

Yuck I hate bananas.Theyre icky.They're slimY.Theyre gooey. (Ely & McCabe, 1994,p'26)The almost poetic qualiry of this sPonta-

neous utterance is echoed in children's more ex-plicit attempts at creating poery. Ann Dowker(Ual) asked young children to generate poems inresponse to pictures. One boy, aged 5'1, producedthe following lines in response to a picture of asnowy day:

dieeust ' llHliTi"Fi::i:And there's a woP,AweeP,A stoP.And Yes. No'Sledge.Fledge' (Dowker, L989, P' 192)

Theseexcerptsshowthatchildrenhaveapropensitytoplaywiththephonolog-ical features of language. Recent work suggests .it".1ttit early verbal play sharpens chil-^lr.ir lirrg,,rirtl. rfilhirrd leads to gr.r,.i awareness of the phonological Properties ofIanguage, an emergent literary skill"(National Reading Panel, 2000)' For

example, chil-drent early exposure to ..rt*in playful forms of language like nursery rhymes correlatespori,i ray *ith th.ir later development of literacy (Bryant, Bradley, Maclean, 6r Cross-land, 1989). Classroom instructional practic.i take advantage of children's naturalOirr*, disposition by incorporadng games,als a way of teaching phonemic awareness^1rilrrnr, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler, L997)'

School-age children allo display a great interest in riddles and other interactivelanguage pl*y. i;ddt", are word g*.r, "L"tty structured as questions, that are depen-j,i. ; ihor,ologi.rl, morphjogical, lexical, or syntactic ambiguity (Pepicello 6c\Teisberg, 1983). 1o ,ot . ,. iiddl.".orrectly, children must have some insight into the

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lnteroctions with Peers 39'7years, gender differences in some domains become more noticeable (Berko Gleason &F,ly,2002). The self-segregation by gender that begins in the preschool years oftencontinues through adolescence, and researchers have noted differences berween girls'social groups and boys'social groups (Maccoby, 1998). There are also some differ-ences in the language of boys and girls, although researchers are not in agreementabout the possible origins of gender differences.'With several notable exceprions, thereis little evidence that there are major biological differences underlying boys' and girls'rypical language differences. Since differences berrveen boys and girls in basic verbalabilities are small (Hyde & Linn, 1988), differential ability is unlikely to be responsi-ble for the kinds of gender differences in language use that have been observed. Mostof the gender differences that do exist in boys' and girls' language are more likely tobe the product of socialization and context than the result of innate biologicaldifferences.Adults have a strong influence on childrent development of genderlects.Parents, especially fathers, may play an especially important role in the early years(Fagot 8r Hagan, 1991; Perlmann & Berko Gleason,1994). However, during theschool years, other adults, including teachers, begin to shape childrent acquisition ofgenderlects. For example, teachers may (unknowingly) react in gender-specific waysto classroom rule violations by responding positively to boys who call out (interrupt)without raising their hands but criticizing girls for the same behavior (Sadker &Sadker, 1994).

Beyond the pervasive influence of linguistic socialization by adults, children in-fluence one another, and this peer socialization becomes more important during theschool years. Furthermore, because ofself-segregation by gender, peer socialization islikely to occur within same-sex groups, where, according to some theorists, boys andgirls have different interactional goals: Girls seek affiliation and boys pursue power andautonomy (Ely, Melzi, Hadge, & McCabe, 1998; Thorne & Mclean,2002).There isevidence that in same-sex friendships, middle-class adolescent girls do show a strongpreference for sharing conversation (Aukett, Ritchie, & Mill, 1988), and in these con-versations adolescent girls are more likely than boys to talk about emotions and feelings(Martin, 1997).However, in analyses of conversations betrneen teenagers, Goodwin(1990) found that urban African American girls were as likely to compete as they wereto cooperate and were as interested in justice and rights (supposedly male concerns) asthey were in care and responsibiliry.

Gender differences have been found in seyeral other domains of language duringthe school years. For example, boys swear more than girls (Jay, 1992; Martin, 1997)and are more verbally aggressive (McCabe & Lipscomb, 1988). Although it long hadbeen believed that boys use more slang than girls, recent evidence reveals that girls areas proficient in their use oftaboo or pejorative language as are boys (de Klerk, 1992).In their personal narratives, girls are more likely than boys to quote the speech ofothers (Ely 8c McCabe, 1993). This attention to language itself appears to carrF oyerto achievements in literacy. Girls on average score higher than boys in measures of

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398 CHAPIER IEN Languoge ond Literocy in the School Yeorsreading, writing, and spelling, and these differences persist-tt'roiSll^iph school (Allred'1990; Grigg, Daane, Ui.,, Sct"*pbell' 2003; Hedgls er NSwell, 1995; Mullis' Martin'Gonzalez,Bc Kennedy, 2003). It ii important to recog.tize that these.gender differences;;;r;;-".. r.,ryi. i,r.'i., p"r, to g*d., differences in attitudes toward literacy.For example, some boysvit* ""di"g 'Id writing as quiet' qassi.vl activities with littleintrinsic appeal. So*.-boy, also cJ.rsider the i=ontent and subject matter of manyreading and writing trsLs in school to be more suitable for girls than for boys (swann'1992).There are two gender differences that do have strong biological ties' First' withp,rb.r[,th. rir. of f,oyr'vocal tracts.undergoes

rapid change, leading to characteris-tic uoice cracking. porJp,rb.r..nt males have longer vocal cords than postpubescentfemales, giving "dot.r.|. " "tti "aU' males the abiliry to speak at lower fundamentalfrequencies (Tanner, ilggl' However' biology "PP:1tt to play a lesser role in sexdifferencesinvoicepirchthanwouldb.p..di.t.dbytheanatomicaldifferencesalone. Matt i"gly 1;e:it f"""a that diffeiences in pitch were as much stylistic'reflectinglinguisticconvention,astheywerebasedondifferencesinvocal-tractsize.As anyone who has .,o ,*t..,, voice l.sso.'s knows, individuals have some control overwhere they ,.place,, their voice. In our gender-dimorphic society, males place theirvoices low and f.*"1., place theiilLi.., high, thus exaggerating biologicallydetermined diffbrences.The second rr.;; which a gender difference appears to have a strong biologicalbasis is in the incide.r.. of t""g.,"g". diro.d.rr, particJarlydcveloPmental dyslexia (im-pairment in learning to read; L. I\trh.r, L.rrrring to Read Is Difficult")' The reportedincidence of dyslexia i;;;.i greater in,boys than in girls, with ratios varying between2:1 and 5,1; how.ver, ;";. #this difference may be due to referral bias (Shaywitz'Shap,vitz, Fletcher, 6r Escobar, 1990)' Possible biological reasons for sex differencesin the incidence of ;;;;t;uiu.io include differences in brain lateralization andorganization (see Chapters 1 and 11)'

Extended DiscourseMuch of children's earliest speech is embedded in the immediate conversational con-text; it revolves around tt'. .r,itat needs and wants' Conversation for the sake of con-versation is uncommon, as is talk about people, objects, and events that are not part ofthe current context. However, as children g.t older, they increasingly find themselvesin situations ir, *hi.h th.y are speaking to .io.rrr.rrrtional partners (e'g', peers' teachers)who may l*.k rh"r.Jf.r"*f.ag.. In"these settings, childr.n.nttd to learn to talkabout themselves and th.ir .xpeii.nces in ways that are comprehensible and meaning-fu1. In school r.*irg, lfrifar.i-r r.. asked to describe phengm.ela.that are not immedi-ately present, lik. *h", they did while. on vacation' ot *hy birds migrate' In sharingpersonal narratives "U""t ti" past and in providing.e-xnlanatiol;' children are usingextend.ed. d.iscourse or d.econtextualized. laruguage. Thi; is language that refers to people,

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lnteractions with peers 399events, and experiences that are not part of the immediate context (Snow, Thbors, &Dickinson, 2001).Extended discourse can express two quite distinct modes of thought, theparadigmatic mode and the narrative mode (Bruner, 1986). The paradigmatic modeis scientific and logical, and the language of paradigmatic thought is consistent andnoncontradictory. Many upper-grade classroom assignments, such as presentations inscience courses, require children to think and write paradigmatically. In contrast, thenarrative mode of thought focuses on human intentions. The language of narrativethought can be more varied, reflecting both the content of the story and also the sryleof the storyteller. In general, children develop some level of mastery of both modes ofthought, although the respective balance varies according to the childt culture, expo-sure to school, and individual circumstances.

NorrotivesNarratives are stories, usually about the past. Rsearchers define narratives (or a mini-mum narrative) as containing at least two sequential independent clauses about a sin-gle past event (Laboy, 1972). Personal narratives are stories about personal experience,often describing firsthand events experienced by the storyceller. Through the tellingand sharing of narratives, narrators (children and adults alike) make sense of their livedexperiences.

The following example is part of a longer narrative told by a boy, almost 4 yearsold. He had been prompted by his mother to describe a recent visit to a fire station.Although the initial focus of the narrative was on what he saw (fire tools, a steeringwheel), the key point of the narrative describes what the storyteller identified as a"mistake,"But you know what I didnt . . . that was not, that I, that I think was a mistakefor him to do.He let me wear the big heavy fire hat.But that was a mistake. Because when we got home I was, I was crying.And my eyes were starting to hurt.And actually my head hurt.And my, actually my hand and arm and elbow hurt.I was so sick when I got home.In this narrative, the child has given linguistic expression to past events. He cites

the wearing of a heavy fire hat as the cause of his illness and does so as part of a story.Following his narrative, his mother provided a paradigmatic explanation for what "re-ally'' happened. In her explanation, she used the word "associated" in its logical and

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400 CHAPIER IEN Languoge ond Literocy in the School Yeorsscientific sense, to make clear that one event (wearing the fire hat) was temporally but".,.""tdfy connected to another (the child's illness)'Interest in the develoPment of children,s narratives has grown in recent years(Berman 8c Slobin, f gqa; iit""t" Haden' & Reese' 2006; McCabe 6c Bliss' 2003;Melzi & Caspe, ZOOZ; Otf" Ar Capps' 2001.; Striimqvist ErVerhoeven' 2004)' Duringthe school years mosr Jifir.r, *rr,.. the ability to iell coherent narratives' Develop--.rr. pro. .ds from single-utterance narratives produced by. children as young asj+ ,.tor,.fN to novellale"lth pt"ott"l stories shared berween adolescents'In addition a ,"--g"*rJrated increase in length, a number of other narrative as-pects shows d.,r.lop*..r-tal change. For e*ampl.l there

are changes with age in theoverall narrarive srructure (i.e., the way in *hl.h the story is organized)' Narrativestrucrure has been ^n lyr"d, from a urr-i.ay of perspectives, including story Srammar(which focuses on rhe structural elemen,, "ttd pioblem-solving aspects of stories;Mandler & Johnson, tiilrstein & Albro, D;7), sranza analysis (which uses thenotionoflinesandgroupsoflines'orstanzas;Gee'1986;Hymes'1981)'andhigh-point analysis (Labov,-1-i?2; Peterson 6c McCabe, 1983). In high-point analysis' theclassic story builds ,.rp . ,1rlgl, point^that is then resolved. In addition to describingwhat happen.d 1" p,ott" tti"tta reference by Labov)' classic high-point narratiYesirr.trra. )rrluatior,tht """"to''s attitude toward what happened'Inastudyor"r".g...,pusofpersonalnarrativesfromchildrenbefweentheagesof 4 and.9, pererson ,""Ju.Llu. (iqsal found a number of developmentalchanges'Using high-poi.r, ,.r"iyii', tt"y fot"'d that the structure used most frequently by theyoungest children G;: i:y;:tlds) was the leapfrog narratiu.e' in which tn: :ltl1[,yrt.irrti."lly jumps from one event to another' often leaving out important polntsand causal "rrd..-porJ .orrrr..,io.rr. The following is an example of a leapfrog narra-,ir. f.o* ^ 4-yr^r'ild'girl (Peterson & McCabe' 1983' p' 72):Experimenter:HaveyoueverbeentoOberlinorCleveland'anyplacelikethat?Child': I been' been to' to Christ Jovatis right there'

ExPerimenter: Youve been where?Child.: Christ Jovah's house' Sometimes'ExPerimenter: And?Chitd': I just said' I' I said' Hi' hello' and how are you? And then' andthen, they go to someplace else' and then' and then I had a

f*ry, *i.ft,"*ith, with, with candy and hmmmy' and my' um'I dont know.ExPerimenter: And You what?Chitd: I don t know what I did' I sure had a pafty'Anothercommonstructurethatwasusedbychildren.betweentheagesof4and

B was the ,lrrorou[i)i irrnrnr,which t"k , t]r. form of recounring a sequence of

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lnteroctions with Peers 401events ("and then and then'). The most mature form of narrative, according to high-point analysis, is the classic narratiaa in which events build to a climactic or high point,are briefly suspended and evaluated, and then are resolved. Classic narratives were rel-atively uncommon in 4-year-olds, but made up about 60 percent of the narratives of8- and 9-year-olds. The following is a classic narrative from an B-year-old boy (the highpoint is in bold type):

You know Danny Smith? Het in third grade, you know, and when he was doingjumping jacks in gym, you know, his pants split and in class you know his teachersaid, "Danny Smith, what are you doing?" He said, "I'm trying to split my pants therest of the way." It was only this much, and he had it this much in class. On the bushe was going like this, you know, splitting it more, and he was showing everybody.\7e told Danny he was stupid, and he said, "No, I'm not. You guys are the stupids."(Peterson & McCabe, 1983, p.236)Evaluation is another important feature of high-point analysis. Evaluation de-

scribes how the narrator feels about the events being depicted and can be expressed ina number of ways, including compulsion words (haue to, must), affbct terms (scared,funnfl, and negatives (events that did not happen: "He didnt hit me.") (Peterson &McCabe, 1983, p. 223). Children use a greater variety of evaluations with age (Peterson6r Biggs, 2001; Peterson & McCabe, 1983). A continued emphasis on evaluation alsomarks the development of narratives through adolescence. In comparing narrativesfrom preadolescent, adolescent, and adultAfrican Americans, Labov GSZZIf"u"d thatevaluations increased threefold from preadolescents to adults. Interestingly, a controlgroup of European American adolescents produced narratives with rates of evaluationssimilar to those of the younger African American preadolescents, highlighting how nar-rative forms vary across cultures, a topic to which we now turn.

No rrotiyes ocross Cu lturesEarly ethnographic work on narrative use in diverse U.S. communities (Heath, 1983;Miller, 1982) highlighted differences with regard to the frequency in which stories areshared, the functions narratives serve, and the roles adults and children play in the co-construction of stories. Recent work in various cultural communities has focused on rheuses and pafierns of narrative discourse in the primary context of narrative development,namely, parent-child conversations (Hayne & McDonald,2003; Leichtman, \7ang, drPillemer; 2003; Melzl 2000; Miller, Cho, & Bracey, 2005; Minami, 2002). Findingsfrom this growing line of inquiry show cultural variations in the topics that parents andchildren talk about and the ways in which parents guide their childrent narrative produc-tion. Researchers conclude that cultural values and ideological orientations (e.g., high-lighting the self or others), communicative patterns in the specific communities (e.g.,communicating in subtle ways or direct ways), and expectations about whar constitutes

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4A2 CHAPTER TEN Languoge and Literacy in the School Yearsa good story lead to differences in the ways parents suPPort childrens developing narra-tive abilities, and thus in the ways children .o.tr,r,r., their narratives in the future'Currentworkhasalsobeguntouncoverthediversewaysinwhichchildrenfromdifferent speech and cultural co'mmunities structure their independent narratives' thatis, narrarives told to an unrelated adult or shared with peers (McCab e, 1996; McCabe& Bliss; 2003; Nicolopoulou, 2oo2). Spanish-speaking Peruvian,Andean children,for example, conYey.,rd,.ra'tiot' not by sutpe"ding the narrative.as described by Labo-vian frameworks, but iy drp*tingfro* ,h. ordeiof .,rents, such as introducing a dif-ferent but related.*p.ri.n." at the high point of the narrative (Uccelli, in press)'Japanesechildren,asanother.*,-p1.,-.o..necttemporallydistincteventsthemati.cally, often using a structure that reflects haiku, a culturally valued literary form(Minami,2002). , .' Perhaps the best-known rypology of cultural narrative sqyles contrasts topic-focused and topic-associating.rrro,lr.l'lUichaels, 1981, 1991). Topic-focused narra-iirr"r, g..t.rr[f told by Euro"pe"n h:ti:1" children' are stories about a single personor evenr that have clear beginnings, middles, and ends. These stories often conform tothe structure of classic hig[-poirrit arratives and constitute the conventional structureused in u.S. classrooms. In contrast, topic-associating narratives, often preferredbyAfrican American children, link several episodes thematically and involve several prin-6;i.hr**ers, as well as shifts in time ".td r.tting. These narratives.are usually longer,fr'rr, ,opi.-focused narratives. However, recent work with African American childrenicrrr*pi.rr, 2003) shows that topic-associating narratives is just one of rhe many,,.r.r.,,r.., used and valued in A-frican American communities'SaraMichaels(i981,1991)hasdocumentedwhatcanhappeninschoolwhenchildren tell stories that do not follow the conventional narrative formula' A topic-"rr".i".i"g fi..t-gr*d. Af,ican American girl was told by her teacher that she shouldtalk ..about things that are really, really v.iy impo.ta.r.," 1ld "to stick with one thing"(Michaels,1991,pp.316,3ZO)'Thewaythisgirlusuallymadesenseofherworld,fr.."gn U., p.rro.rrt *r,",it"t was explicltly discouraged' and she was urged to adopta narrative sryle that conformed to the dominant (topic-focused) genre of the class-room. Altho.rgl, ,rr.rJ ,r;,hi.rg irr.ri.rrically wrong with teaching students to use dif-ferent speakirg g.rrr.., ,,.r.rr.it implicit d.rr1rrrti,o, of the narrative sryle of a childtindigenous .i Ir. may have negative consequences (Champion' Katz' Muldrow' 6{Datl,l999;Mainess, Ch"rnpio.,] & McCabe, 2002;McCabe' 1996)' In a follow-upinterview 1 year later, the African American child angrily portrayed her first-gradeteacher as uninrerested in whar she had to say. Because this experience occurred earlyin her educariorr*t .*p..i.rr.., it, influence 1., h., attitude toward teachers, school,and Iiteracy w", p"r."',i"ffy p'ofot'ad (Ogbu' 1990)' Many researchers now see a needfor educator, ,o ...ogrrir. ,t.r. porenri;l conflicts and to prwide educational envi-ronmenrs that can r.,7,,rr..rrlt,rr"1 and linguistic diversiry as well as academic achieve-ment (Champion et al., 1999; Gutidrrez, 1995; Michaels, 1991). The need torecognize the cultural diversiry of narratives extends to counseling clinicians' who'

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lnteroctions with Peers 403regardless of their own ethnicirF, are more likely to perceiye signs of psychopathologyin the personal narratives of healthy African American and Latino American childrenthan in the personal narratiyes of healthy European American children (Pdrez & Tager-Flusberg,199B).

Other Forms of Extended DiscourseThe ability to narrate well and to use other forms of extended discourse is also an im-portant precursor to literacy (Snow, Thbors, & Dickinson,2001).'Written language isitself decontextualized, often making reference to phenomena that are not part of thehere-and-now. Thus, the development of decontextualized language skills has impor-tant educarional impIications.In addition to narratives, other forms of extended discourse include explanationsand descriptions. Explanatory talk is an importanr part of classroom discourse and col-lege lectures (Beals, 1993; Lehrer, 1994). Childrent initial experiences with explana-tory talk are likely to occur in the home, where parents may use explanarions as a wayof conveying knowledge about how the world works. In the following example, a fa-ther moves beyond the immediate contexr (the family dinner) to impart knowledgeabout the world, about how rivers flow into lakes (Perlmann, 1984).

\X/hot that spoon?That is the gravy spoon. All the juice from the meat runs into thatlittle hole, you spoon it out.Isnt that running in?\Well; it was running in. See all these little holes in the tracks downhere.Yes.\ftren you cut the meat, the juice runs out of the meat into that lir-tle track there. Runs down till it gets to that hole. Blu-up Fills itright up. [Pause.] Thatt the way rivers and lakes work.

Teachers are often very explicit in their encouragement of extended discourse. Infirst-grade classrooms, teachers have been noted to elicit explanations about objects(e.g., candles, board games) children had brought to sharing time by saylng, "Prerendwe dont know a tfring about candles," or, "TELL us how to play. Pretend we're allblind and cant see the game" (Michaels, 1981, 1991). Exposure to extended discoursein both home and preschool settings predicts competence in a number ofskills that areimportant to the acquisition of literacy (Beals, 2001; Tabors, Roach, & Snow, 2001;Tabors, Snow, 8r Dickinson,200l).

The kind of extended discourse encouraged in sharing time (i.e., narratives andexplanations) has much in common with what has been termed the referential commu-nication paradigm, inwhich a speaker is asked to communicate about an object that is

child:Father:child:Father:child:Father:

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404 CHAPTER TEN Languoge ond Literacy in the school Yeorsnot in view of the listener (Ricard, 1993).In this situation, effective communicationrequires the speaker to be clear and unambiguous about anaphoric reference (e'g', pro-nouns like she ^"a rt ri and to avoid using i-,appropri"te deictic terms (e'g" this' that) 'A study by Cameroi and \7ang (i999) illustrates the referential communicationp","dig*. They asked children between the ages of 4- and B.years-old to. tell , I:'ybased on " *oril.r, picture book to an adult, .ith.t i.t Person or over the phone' Chil-dren told longer ".ri *or. elaborate stories and made more revisions and corrections(an index of monitori.rg for listener comprehension) when narrating over the phonethan when narrating ir, "p..ro.r. In general, performance in-referential communicationtasks develop" irr.r.L.*"lly over tlt "hool years

(Lloyd' Mann' & Peers' 1998)'

ffirrnilNGUlSTlC DEVELOPMENT tN THE SCHOOL YEARSThroughout the school years children continue to acquire new words at a rapid rate asnoted earlier. They learn to master ever more co-plex syntactic structures (Nippold'iOOO), ird, "*.iave just seen, they learn to u.e " v"riety of genres of extended dis-course. uo*.r.r, ,"pia'""r"rahg of metalinguistic awareness is an especially notablecharacteristic of 1*go"g. developlent during-the school years' As we saw in Chapter 4'metalinguisti. **rr'..,.-t' is knowledge about language itself'

For the young child, languagtf'"

tt""'p"rint medi"m' In using language' chil-dren need nor have conscious awareness of iticomplex rule-governed nature' In time'however, some aspects of the system become oPaque (cazden, 1975), perhaps as a re-sult of the childt active exploration of th. ,yrt.- through l"$llgt.play,(Kuczaj'Lg1z).In addition, o.rgoi.rj cognitive development influences childrent understand-ing of ,fr. ["g.,ir.i. ,fr*ri (D"oherry 2000i, as does exPosure to literacy (Purcell-Gates,2001).At the most basic level, a precursor of metalinguistic awareness is seen in children'scorrecrions oirt.i, o*" ,p...'t, (Clark, l97B). Howev.r, the awareness that underliesself-correction does 1-ro, ,,...r.*.ily include a conscious understanding of the- languagesysrem itself; self-correction shows only that the child-recognizes ideal mo.dels or,rulesand notes i-pfi.i.fy a discrepanry bennreen her linguistic behavior and the model orrule . Tlue metalinguistic awareness requires that knowledge of the language system beexplicit.Phonolog icol AwsrenessAs mentioned in chapte r 4, oneparticular area that has received much attention inrecent years is children's awareness-and manipulation of the sound system of language';;f..;.a o as phonologirol o*orrnro. Specifically, phonological awareness is definedas the understanding ih"t *ord, ".. ,rrrd. up of sound units, including larger unitsGyll*bl.r) and smali-er units (phonemes). Foi example, we know that the word cat is