Chronology provides the mental scaffolding for organizing historical thought.
Well-crafted narratives such as these have the power to grip and hold students attention. It is these characteristics of well-structured historical narratives that probably account for the relationships that have been observed between the use of narratives and young students developing concepts of time and temporal causation. They might illustrate, too, the different ending that might have come about, had one of the characters chosen a different course of action-the beginnings of causal and contingency thinking in the elementary years. Long before young children are ready to calculate calendar time, they are able to use such concepts as long, long ago, long ago, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and to put historical developments they have learned about in correct temporal relationships according to broad categories such as these. Children should also be developing their ability to identify examples of changes and continuity over time.