Oral language and narrative skills constitute very critical factors for children’s academic performance and social competence. The aim of the present study was to investigate the developmental patterns of story retelling, as well as the relationship between oral language and story retelling in preschool and primary school children. Two hundred and thirty-seven Greek-speaking children (4–5, 5–6 and 6–7 years old) participated in the study. Vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, morphological awareness skills and pragmatics were examined through a standardized psychometric test. Story retelling was measured by inviting the children to listen to a story and then retell it. Children’s narratives were evaluated according to microstructure (use of conjunctions and lexical cohesion) and macrostructure (story grammar and temporal sequencing) criteria. The results showed that children performed better as they got older across all the oral language and story retelling tasks. Structural equation modeling revealed that vocabulary skills stand out as a stable predictor across all the three age groups. A new finding was also demonstrated, highlighting that morphological awareness, phonological awareness skills and pragmatics work together with vocabulary skills in diverse patterns at different points of a child’s development, in order to support his/her ability to retell a story.

口语和叙事技巧是儿童学业成绩和社交能力的关键因素。本研究的目的是调查学龄前儿童和小学儿童故事复述的发展​​模式，以及口语与故事复述之间的关系。237 名讲希腊语的儿童（4-5、5-6 和 6-7 岁）参与了这项研究。通过标准化的心理测量测试检查词汇知识、语音意识、形态意识技能和语用学。故事复述是通过邀请孩子们听故事然后复述来衡量的。根据微观结构（使用连词和词汇衔接）和宏观结构（故事语法和时间顺序）标准对儿童的叙述进行评估。结果表明，随着年龄的增长，孩子们在所有口语和故事复述任务中表现得更好。结构方程模型显示，词汇技能在所有三个年龄组中都是一个稳定的预测指标。还展示了一项新发现，强调在儿童发展的不同阶段，形态意识、语音意识技能和语用与词汇技能以不同模式协同工作，以支持他/她复述故事的能力。结构方程模型显示，词汇技能在所有三个年龄组中都是一个稳定的预测指标。还展示了一项新发现，强调在儿童发展的不同阶段，形态意识、语音意识技能和语用与词汇技能以不同模式协同工作，以支持他/她复述故事的能力。结构方程模型显示，词汇技能在所有三个年龄组中都是一个稳定的预测指标。还展示了一项新发现，强调在儿童发展的不同阶段，形态意识、语音意识技能和语用与词汇技能以不同模式协同工作，以支持他/她复述故事的能力。