The purpose of this study is to develop performance criteria for assessing the storytelling of young children. For this purpose, 518 oral stories, which were produced by 182 young children when their teachers individually asked them to tell their s...
The purpose of this study is to develop performance criteria for assessing the storytelling of young children. For this purpose, 518 oral stories, which were produced by 182 young children when their teachers individually asked them to tell their stories on three storytelling activities, were collected. The stories were classified with standards to assess their story structure, imagination, and language. Performance levels accompanied by models or examples of each level were specified. Next performance criteria for assessing a story were constructed. Performance criteria for assessing young children's storytelling were validated. The results of this study are as follows: Performance criteria for assessing storytelling consist of criteria for the story structure, imagination, and language of young children. The criteria for assessing the structure of stories told by young children consist of the following four levels. Level 1: The story is a series of unrelated events. There aren't any story elements. Level 2: The story is organized with sequences. There are no story elements. Level 3: The use of chaining introduces the temporal and causal relation into developing story schema. Events relating to a central core appear. There are 'beginning' and 'development' story elements. Group 4: Both centering and chaining are evident. Events follow a logical order that includes either implicit or explicit causal relations, and they are organized around a conceptual center, a theme that evolves over the course of the story. There are 'beginning', 'development', and 'ending' story elements. The criteria for assessing the imagination of young children in storytelling consist of the following four levels. Level 1: The story is realistic. A child tells a story about his or her experiences and about events in his or her life. Level 2: The story is fantastic but illogical. People, objects, and situations that are not present appear but they are out of context. A child tells an illogical story from his or her own fantasy. Level 3: The story is fantastic and logical. A child tells a story from his or her experiences, but connects those experiences to fantasy in some way. Level 4: The story is totally fantastic and logical. The story is "made up" by the child, but it involves real, rather than imaginary, characters in fictionalized situations. A child forms rich and varied mental images or concepts of people, places, objects, and situations that are not present. The criteria for assessing the language of young children are divided into two categories: vocabulary and sentence structure. The criteria of each category consist of the following three levels. Level of vocabulary Level 1: A child predominantly uses simple vocabularies with little use of adverbs. Level 2: A child uses a Level 1 vocabulary, but sometimes uses more expressive vocabularies. Level 3: A child uses a variety of vocabulary; includes adverbs as well as adjectives in his or her story and uses highly expressive vocabularies. Level of sentence structure Level 1: A child uses simple, choppy, parallel sentences or sentence fragments when telling a story. Level 2: A child uses Level 1 sentences but also includes compound sentences in storytelling. Level 3: A child uses a variety of sentence structures, including Level 1 and Level 2 sentences, as well as participial phases. The reliability and validity of performance criteria for assessing young children's storytelling is sufficient.