Oral narrative comprehension is an important precursor to reading comprehension. Supporting preschool students in building strong oral narrative comprehension skills prepares them to be successful once they enter formal schooling. Gesture and body movement have been shown to support children's oral narrative comprehension and recall skills. This study examines whether drama-based instruction (DBI)—an organic, inherently gesture- and movement-based approach to teaching—during storytime fosters preschool children's narrative comprehension and recall. In this paper, we compare story retells by preschool students who participated in a DBI storybook reading (n = 90) with retells by preschool students who heard the same book during a business-as-usual (BAU) storytime (n = 106). Results show that using embodied behaviors (i.e., gesture, facial expression, body movement, vocal change) during story retelling was associated with recalling more story elements during a free retell task (when children are asked to retell the story without additional prompts), although not during a prompted retell task (when children retell the story by responding to questions). Students who participated in the DBI storytime used twice as many story-relevant embodied behaviors during retell tasks compared to their BAU peers. Additionally, embodied behavior significantly mediated the relation between treatment status and free retell scores. This study offers promising evidence as to the efficacy of using drama-based storytime in preschool classrooms to support listening comprehension and recall of oral narratives. Findings support a theory of embodied language learning and suggest potential benefits of drama to enhance literacy learning.

口语叙述理解是阅读理解的重要先导。支持学前班学生建立强大的口头叙述理解能力，可以帮助他们在进入正规学校后取得成功做好准备。手势和身体动作已被证明可以支持儿童口头叙述的理解和回忆技能。本研究探讨了基于戏剧的教学（DBI）——一种有机的、本质上基于手势和动作的教学方法——在讲故事期间是否能促进学龄前儿童的叙事理解和回忆。在本文中，我们比较了参加 DBI 故事书阅读的学龄前学生的故事复述（n  = 90）和在正常（BAU）故事时间听同一本书的学龄前学生的复述（n  = 106）。结果表明，在故事复述过程中使用具体行为（即手势、面部表情、身体动作、声音变化）与在自由复述任务（当要求儿童在没有额外提示的情况下复述故事时）期间回忆更多故事元素相关，尽管不是在提示重述任务期间（当孩子们通过回答问题来重述故事时）。参与 DBI 故事时间的学生在复述任务中使用的与故事相关的具体行为是 BAU 同龄人的两倍。此外，具体行为显着调节治疗状态和自由复述分数之间的关系。这项研究提供了有希望的证据，证明在学前班教室中使用基于戏剧的故事时间来支持听力理解和口头叙述的回忆的有效性。研究结果支持了具身语言学习的理论，并提出了戏剧对增强识字学习的潜在好处。