Sociocultural variables in children's sequencing of stories∗

To study the possibility that sociocultural differences in story schemata affect reading comprehension, a story unscrambling task was given to a large sample of Black, Hispanic, and Anglo students. While the greatest effects were for grade and reading achievement, there were effects that suggest that the three cultural groups have somewhat different strategies for choosing initial and final sentences and for making narratives coherent. No effects were found, however, for social class or school location (suburban or inner city).