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Building pre-readers' background knowledge: the impact of a play-based event exposure on children's comprehension of stories read aloud

ABSTRACT The purpose of this pilot study was to explore whether exposing pre-readers to an unfamiliar event in a brief, play-based, session would enhance comprehension of a story based on that event. Twenty-four typically developing participants (9 males; 15 females), aged 30–51 months (M = 39.13, SD = 6.02) were randomly assigned to free-play and event-exposure groups. Comprehension of story content increased in both groups over time; however, a group by time interaction indicated that the increase was greatest in the event-exposure group. Children in that group also improved in their ability to generate a goal-action inference. Findings support the important contribution of event knowledge to story comprehension and suggest that brief, play-based, knowledge-boosting sessions may have value as a pre-reading activity in the early education classroom.