Rethinking Story Reading in U.S. Preschools: Making Story Comprehension and Social-Emotional Understanding the Priority

Rethinking Story Reading in U.S. Preschools: Making Story Comprehension and Social-Emotional Understanding the Priority

This paper begins with a brief historical overview that provides a context for understanding approaches to story reading in U.S. preschools. It also discusses factors that have prompted a new trend in story reading, one emphasizing story comprehension directly, not as a vehicle for developing only oral vocabulary and print-related literacy skills. This backdrop, as well as discussions of new research and achievement difficulties in school-age children, sets the stage for the author’s suggestion that preschoolers’ social-emotional understanding would also likely benefit, if story reading goals and strategies were changed to focus on higher-level story comprehension. Examples of suitable storybooks and comprehension support strategies are used to illustrate how the complementary goals of supporting story comprehension and social-emotional learning might be addressed. These examples also suggest a research intervention needed to determine whether story comprehension support strategies can also benefit social-emotional understanding.