Children & # 39 ; S Tv Programmes Support Children's Knowledge Of Narrative And Storytelling

Do two young children’s TV programmes, one from April 1957 and one from December 2008, help support children’s knowledge of narrative and storytelling?
Introduction-
‘Pre-school children are also expected to acquire knowledge of narrative and storytelling before they enter school if they are to avoid literacy difficulties’ (Wells, 1987).
Having read the above quote, I was interested to find out if children’s TV programmes helped support children’s knowledge of narrative and story-telling and if there were any differences in the way they did it over a period of time. The BBC have focused on educative and moral standards since the 1950’s broadcasting to under 5’s from the start.
Methodology-
I transcribed two Youtube videos: ‘Peppa Pig’ (December

They both have very homely settings which are relatable to the children watching. Both programmes use narrators with the difference being that in Rag, Tag and Bobtail the narrator narrates the animal voices as well, whilst in Peppa Pig the animated characters speak for themselves.
I started by using Labov’s narrative structure to see if the programmes followed that structure. I then looked more closely how the narrators created the story-telling elements and how the naming of the characters was vital to

They add the narrative into any children’s story-book, backing up the dialogue, the same as the support of the narrative in a book.
This could be setting the scene. ‘It is the day of the school fete; Miss Rabbit is running the raffle’. The narrator is clarifying what is happening for the audience.
The second time the narrator speaks he is adding information for the audience- ‘Daddy pig loves the chocolate cake’. Older children would understand the inference from when Daddy Pig says ‘Wouldn’t it be nicer to win the homemade chocolate cake?’ but younger ones may not understand the reference. The narrator is subsequently defining Daddy Pig’s personality to remind the audience of his greedy-like character. There is a long running joke about how Daddy Pig loves chocolate cakes, which is humorous for the audience.
The inferences develop the reading skills that children need to learn to be able to read between the lines. The definite article ‘the’ shows the child that there is only one of the chocolate cakes (and it is the one on the table), the narrator is making sure the audience know what he is talking about, if he did not use ‘the’ they might not get which chocolate