LAUSR

Early narrative skills are predictive of later academic success, and caregivers from different cultural backgrounds use different narrative styles when supporting children’s expressive language skills. Most recommendations for practice have been derived from observations of caregivers from individualistic cultural backgrounds who typically engage in an elaborative style of narrative support. Caregivers from collectivistic cultural backgrounds, however, engage in culturally unique strategies when supporting young children’s narrative skills. This study explored the strategies used by caregivers from collectivistic cultural backgrounds living in the U.S. while promoting narrative skills in young children. The naturalistic conversations of forty (N = 40) children and their caregivers were observed in their home, recorded, and transcribed verbatim. The results of this study have shown that caregivers relied heavily on a participatory style of conversation when engaging young children in narratives. The results have also shown that participatory styles were effective at promoting complex narrative skills in young children. Implications for early childhood educators are discussed.