Narrative Assessment
We can learn an incredible amount from a narrative analysis and we all need to make it a regular part of our assessment! I think we so often lean towards standardized assessment, and while the TNL-2 (Test of Narrative Lang.) is way better than the previous edition, it still doesn't hold up to our own clinical non-standardized assessment. There are so many wordless picture books and free assessment protocols to use that I have been researching heavily the past few days. I'd love to hear how YOU assess narrative skills!
Many times, standardized narrative assessments over inflate a child's narrative/storytelling skills and it's critical we get a true look at this skill since it's widely known that narrative retelling give us information about a student's verbal expression. It helps us see various language features more clearly like organization and syntax... and pragmatics (part of a social pragmatic language disorder includes having trouble with storytelling and conversation)
So what do we do? Get going with checking out some wordless picture books from your library and check out the many free resources about narrative development!
Free and online, for preschool and kindergarten ages,check out the Narrative Assessment Protocol (NAP) and Narrative Language Measures (NLM) .
The Manual for Assessment and Analysis of Narrative Skills by Winston T. Cheng MS CCC-SLP / Date of publication 2000 is available for free, with author's permission, if you are a member of the SLPs for Evidence Based Practice group in the files section. Be sure to thank Tatyana for that!
The Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument (ENNI) is a free assessment tool with pictures, a manual, and analyses. http://www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca/spa/enni/pictures_new.htm
Wordless picture books: These are such a wonderful way to build important literacy skills AND assess narrative skills. You can assess with personal narratives as well as expository and persuasive narratives. However, the fictional narrative based off a wordless picture book always works out great for me. A great resource for different books is the Reading Rockets website:https://www.readingrockets.org/booklists/our-favorite-wordless-picture-books.