Children remembering and reshaping stories in retelling

Authors

• Agneta Pihl University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Louise Peterson University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Niklas Pramling University of Gothenburg

Keywords:

Narrative remembering, preschool, children, oral storytelling, sociocultural theory

Abstract

This study concerns the processes of storytelling and remembering in the context of how 4-5-year-old children orally retell stories they have been told by a teacher. Understanding children’s retellings as a sense-making activity, the analytic focus is on what children pick up from, and how they transform, the story. The storytelling activities have been video recorded, transcribed and analyzed from a sociocultural theoretical perspective. With an interest in studying the nature of narrative activity, three retelling activities of one focus child were chosen for analysis. The results show that the child remembers details, introduces new elements and in various ways transforms the story. On a more overarching level, the study shows how the child’s retelling and remembering are clearly related to the sense she makes of the story and the activity she engages in. This implies that narrative practices contain an important reflexivity; when teachers support the processes of storytelling and remembering, they also support children’s sense making, and conversely, when supporting children’s understanding of stories, teachers assist children’s remembering.