Narrative skills

Also called Storytelling, Narrative language, Recounting, Oral narrative

Telling what happened, in order, with the point in it. It is what "how was school?" asks for, and it is the skill writing is built on.

What it is

Narrative is telling a sequence of events so that a listener who wasn't there can follow: what happened, to whom, in what order, and why it mattered. A recount of the day. A story about the dog. An explanation of what went wrong in the playground. It needs vocabulary, grammar, sequencing, memory and the ability to model what the listener already knows, all at once, which is why it's a good overall measure of language and why it's hard.

It's also the language of school. Reading comprehension, written work and "tell me what happened" from a teacher all draw on the same skill.

Who it can help

Children from around three, when the first sequences appear, through to secondary school. Children with developmental language disorder find narrative especially hard and it shows in writing. Autistic children may tell a story in exhaustive detail with no point, or give the point with no detail; both need a different kind of help.

For AAC users, narrative is the thing most rarely enabled. Telling what happened at school takes many words in sequence and a partner who waits through all of it. Most conversations with AAC users never get past requests. Telling stories is the vocabulary side of the answer; this entry is the skill side.

How it works

Narrative develops in a rough sequence. Around two to three, children label and list ("dog. ball. park."). Around three to four, they produce a sequence of events, often without a link ("we went park, we had ice cream, we came home"). By around five, most tell a story with a beginning, a problem and a resolution, using "then", "because" and "so". Through primary school, narratives gain character motivation, multiple episodes and an ending that ties back to the point.

Therapists and teachers sometimes scaffold it with a fixed structure: who, where, when, what happened, what next, the end. Colour-coded story maps, picture sequences and comic strip conversations all make the structure visible.

In AAC, narrative needs pre-stored chunks as well as single words: "Then", "after that", "the best bit was", and a way to say a whole event quickly (quick phrases). A message about today, prepared in the morning with whoever knows the plan, lets a person tell the story at teatime instead of answering yes/no about it.

Getting started

Tell stories about small things. What happened when you dropped the eggs. Model the shape: first, then, and in the end. Then ask for theirs, and prompt with the structure, not with questions: "and then..." is better than "what did you do next?"

Use pictures. Three photos from the day, in order, is a narrative with the memory load taken away. Sequence them together, then tell it together.

For an AAC user, build today's story before the day happens. "I'm going swimming. Then Nana's. Ask me about the pool." Stored as a phrase set, it's ready to tell, and the person can edit it with what actually happened.

Where to get help

The NHS page on learning conversations and telling stories, 3 to 5 years. Speech and Language UK has narrative resources for schools. RADLD explains why narrative is so hard in DLD.