The Development of Comprehension of Main Ideas in Narratives: Evidence From the Selection of Titles.

The authors investigated readers' ability to identify main ideas in narrative texts and the development of this ability. In particular, the authors explored students' sensitivity to the goal structure of narratives. Third-, 6th-, 9th-, and 11th-grade students read narratives in which goal statements were systematically varied on 2 structural dimensions: position in the text's hierarchical structure and number of connections to other statements....