ABSTRACT
Children often rise to the challenge of more difficult syntax and vocabulary if the story and characters are riveting. As children move through the primary years teachers hope that they become hooked on books and eager to tackle and persevere with longer stories. Longer stories and novels written for children are sustained fictional narratives with plots elaborate enough for characters to develop as they face up to events and challenges. Longer stories and novels for children have a story ‘structure’, ‘shape’ or ‘grammar’. Where a story is communicated through film, cohesion will be partly achieved visually. So a film story set on the coast will include moving images of waves, boats and sea birds. There are some language features associated with the story genre. Writers have important choices to make, for example whether to tell the story in the first or the third person.
