"Once Upon a Time..." Literary Narrative Connectedness Progresses with Grade Level: Potential Impact on Reading Fluency and Literacy Skills
This research addresses the problem of selecting appropriate books for children's literacy development by showing how narrative complexity in texts aligns with educational progression, though it is incremental in linking text analysis to reading skills.
The study analyzed 1,627 literary texts across 13 years of education using Word-Recurrence Graph Analysis and found significant exponential growth in narrative connectedness, especially in early grades, mirroring patterns in children's oral narratives.
Selecting an appropriate book is crucial for fostering reading habits in children. While children exhibit varying levels of complexity when generating oral narratives, the question arises: do children's books also differ in narrative complexity? This study explores the narrative dynamics of literary texts used in schools, focusing on how their complexity evolves across different grade levels. Using Word-Recurrence Graph Analysis, we examined a dataset of 1,627 literary texts spanning 13 years of education. The findings reveal significant exponential growth in connectedness, particularly during the first three years of schooling, mirroring patterns observed in children's oral narratives. These results highlight the potential of literary texts as a tool to support the development of literacy skills.