Full Goal

Given a wordless picture book, a personal-event prompt, or a story retell after one read-aloud (with visual support during initial probes only), [Student] will produce a narrative containing the core story grammar elements (character, setting, initiating event, attempt/action, consequence, and resolution) with at least 5 of 6 elements present in 3 of 4 narratives, as measured by SLP transcription and scoring on a story-grammar rubric (e.g., Narrative Scoring Scheme or SALT story-grammar protocol).

Individualization Guidance

Before using this goal, verify:

• Macrostructure vs. microstructure. This goal targets macrostructure (story grammar). Microstructure goals (MLU, clausal density, lexical diversity) live in separate goals. Bundling them gives you scores you can’t act on.
• Three elicitation conditions reduce false positives. A student may produce strong personal narratives but weak story retells, or vice versa. Sampling across conditions gives a representative picture and prevents over-scoring fluent-but-thin retells of familiar texts.
• Comparison data. Use SALT databases or NLM benchmarks to compare against same-age, same-dialect peers. Without normative comparison, a 5-of-6 element count means little — a 4-year-old hitting 4 elements may be above expectations; a 9-year-old hitting 4 may be well below.
• Cultural narrative styles. Topic-associating narrative styles (common in some African American, Indigenous, and East Asian narrative traditions) may distribute story elements differently than the European-American topic-centered style most rubrics assume. Confirm the rubric is appropriate for the student’s narrative tradition or score with awareness of that style.
• Read-aloud once only. Multiple read-throughs inflate retell scores by allowing memorization. One read replicates classroom-listening conditions.

Clinical Notes

Narrative is a high-leverage target because it integrates vocabulary, syntax, working memory, theory of mind, and discourse-level planning — and it predicts written narrative and reading comprehension performance in later grades.

The “5 of 6 in 3 of 4” criterion balances rigor (multiple narratives, most elements present) with realism (allowing for narrative variability). Avoid “100% of elements in 100% of narratives” criteria — they invite avoidance and don’t reflect how skilled narrators actually perform.

Score on transcription, not real-time observation. Real-time scoring inflates element counts because clinicians fill in gaps from context. Transcript-based scoring catches the gaps the student actually leaves.

Related Goals

• Regular Past Tense -ed in Spontaneous Sentences — microstructure goal that supports narrative grammaticality
• WH-Question Comprehension from Narratives — receptive counterpart at the discourse level