Thematic Apperception, Narrative Schemas, and Literacy

Abstract

This study proposed that correlations among measures of reading comprehension, decoding, listening comprehension, and TAT story production would support emerging theories that argue for a broad conceptualization of literacy as involving cognitive processes that organize mental structures or schemas and would extend the construct validity of the TAT. Given the documented association between listening and reading comprehension, a deliberate over-sampling procedure was used to establish two groups of second and third graders with contrasting scores (average and above average) on listening comprehension. A substantial link (over 74% shared variance) emerged between listening comprehension and cognitive processes assessed with TAT stories (perceptual integration, cognitive integration, level of abstraction, and associative thinking). Moreover, this overlap between “comprehending” and “telling” stories applied to reading comprehension, with over 37% of the variance shared between storytelling and reading comprehension. The notion of shared mental processes was advanced further by the finding that decoding was about as closely correlated with storytelling and listening comprehension as it was with reading comprehension. An understanding of processes that predate reading failure is critical for the development of preventive interventions prior to the presumed mastery of decoding skills.