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Ask a Question

Next, ask a question. Questions that can’t be answered with "yes" or "no" encourage children to talk. You might follow a child’s response with another question that requires even more information. For example, if the child responds “I am building roads to the city,” you might ask, “What will the people see when they drive on your roads to the city?” Or “What will the people do when they get to the city?”

Respond and Add

Finally, respond by adding a little more. When a young child responds, his/her answer may be very short. By repeating what the child says and adding a little more, you are showing the child a new way of saying something. If you ask the child what kind of signs the people will see on the way to the city and he/she answers “McDonalds®,” simply saying “People do see McDonalds® signs on almost every highway” demonstrates for the child another way of answering. If you ask, “Where are the cars?” and the child answers, “The road,” you can respond by saying, “Yes, the cars are on the road.”

Follow the Child's Lead

Remember, keep the focus of your conversation on the meaning of what the child is saying, not whether or not the child is saying everything perfectly. Children’s language will grow and improve as they are included in conversations. If you want a child to talk, you need to follow the child’s lead. This means that you need to talk about what the child is interested in at that moment. It might be about something he is looking at or something he is doing.

It’s easy to extend language in a one-on-one conversation with a child, but how can you accomplish this with a group of children? One way is to improve whole group conversations by making sure children do most of the talking and that many children participate. Try to open a group conversation by suggesting a topic and pausing to listen to children’s responses. You could try saying something like, “I noticed how foggy it was this morning on the way to school” and pausing to encourage children to respond to your comment. A comment encourages children to think and respond in a way that is different from responding to questions that require answers. As children contribute to the conversation, try saying things like, “Hmmmm,” or “That’s interesting,” or just nodding your head and then looking to another child for a response. This helps to keep the conversation going and open to all children.

Another way to extend children’s language is through explicit instruction. Some children have a hard time learning new words or sentence structures without explicit teaching. You may want to incorporate explicit instruction and practice when you notice children who are not demonstrating some of the language competencies listed in the prekindergarten standards.

A pitfall to beware: teachers have a tendency to do too much of the talking. Monitor yourself when you sit and stay, or lead open conversation with the group. Make sure children do more of the talking than you do.