IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN’S NARRATION OF PERSONAL EVENTS. An intervention study on the use of evaluation strategies

This study was aimed at analysing the effects of a 15-week instructional intervention withprimary school children regarding the use of narrative functions and evaluative strategies in writing personalaccounts. Eighty-one 4th graders from a primary school in a northern Italian town were divided intotwo groups: Labovian (N = 41) and traditional (N = 40). After the intervention, the children in the Laboviangroup, who were taught to use evaluation strategies, wrote longer and better narrations, and morepersonal and complete accounts than those in the traditional group. The improvement in writing abilitywas stable three months after the end of the intervention.