Professor Deb Linebarger, doctoral candidate Jess Piotrowski, published British Journal of Development Psychology

Annenberg’s Deborah Linebarger, Ph.D.,  Assistant Professor of Communication; and doctoral candidate Jessica Taylor Piotrowski have published an article in the March issue of the British Journal of Development Psychology titled “TV as storyteller: How exposure to television narratives impacts at-risk preschoolers’ story knowledge and narrative skills” (Vol. 27, Number 1, March 2009, Pages 47 -69).

Educational media serve as informal educators within the home by supplementing young children’s development. Substantial evidence documents the contributions of educational television to preschoolers’ acquisition of a variety of skills; however, television’s natural capacity as storyteller and the role it plays in preschoolers’ early literacy development has been largely overlooked. This study examined the effects of viewing different TV program types on 311 at-risk preschoolers’ story knowledge and narrative skills. Children were assigned to one of 4 viewing conditions (i.e. watching up to 40 episodes of a particular program type): no viewing; expository; embedded narrative; or traditional narrative. Story knowledge scores were higher for those viewing either narrative type. In contrast, viewing specific narrative types differentially affected the component skills of narrative competence. Story retelling and identification of explicit story events were higher after repeat viewing of embedded narratives while generating implicit story content was higher after repeat viewing of traditional narratives.