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11 - Latino Mothers and Their Preschool Children Talk About the Past: Implications for Language and Literacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Alison Sparks
Edited by
Allyssa McCabe ,
Alison L. Bailey  and
Gigliana Melzi
Allyssa McCabe
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Alison L. Bailey
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Gigliana Melzi
Affiliation:
New York University
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Summary

Key words: narration, Latino children, parent–child reminiscing, reminiscing style, language development, literacy

ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the ways that Latino mothers and their preschool children reminisce. Parent–child conversations about past events were examined for level of maternal elaboration, and children's independent narratives were analyzed for the presence of elements that are thought to characterize Latino children's narrative forms. A qualitative analysis of talk between a single mother and her child was undertaken to examine other possible strategies that Latino caregivers use to engage their children in conversations about the past. The relationship between maternal elaboration and the child's provision of contextualizing elements in independent narration points to talk about misbehavior as a culturally salient context for reminiscing. Implications for developing narrative structure and literacy in the preschool classroom are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

Recounting the day's events at dinner, telling stories about a summer vacation, detailing the events that led to an emergency room visit – all are forms of talk that occur in family conversation. From the earliest age, children learn to tell tales that are valued by those among whom they live and grow (Miller, Potts, Fung, Hoogstra, & Mintz, 1990), they come to recognize rhetorical patterns that occur regularly in the chatter they hear daily (Heath, 1986), and they become skilled narrators of personal stories in ways that are recognizable to those with whom they talk (Hymes, 1972).

Type
Chapter
Information
Spanish-Language Narration and Literacy
Culture, Cognition, and Emotion
 , pp. 273 - 295
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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