Development in narrative competences from oral to written stories in five- to seven-year-old children

• Oral narrative competence in kindergarten predicts written narrative competence.
• Spelling plays an interference effect in the oral-written narrative relationship.
• Structure in oral narratives is the most important predictor of written narratives.

This prospective cohort study analyzes the predictive power of oral narrative competence in kindergarten on written narrative competence in first grade, and compares it to the predictiveness of phonological awareness and conceptual knowledge of the writing system. The participants were 122 Italian children. Children’s narrative retells were tested twice. First, children’s emergent literacy skills (i.e. oral narrative competence, phonological awareness, and conceptual knowledge of the writing system) were tested in the last year of kindergarten; then their narrative competence in written stories was tested one year later in first grade (narrative competence in written stories). A series of hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses showed that, among the emergent literacy variables, narrative competence was the only statistically significant predictor of the children’s competence in giving structure, coherence, and cohesion to their written stories. Among narrative competence components, structure in oral narratives was the only statistically significant predictor of narrative competence in written productions. These results contribute to our understanding of the development of children’s narrative competence in the transition from oral to written productions.