cial, and emotional development. Talking With …

1 Fall 2010 DIMENSIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOODV olume 38, Number 3 3 Everything teachers say questions, comments, guidance can influence what childrenlearn. Intentional, purposeful conversations support children s cognitive, language, so-cial, and emotional do teachers talk with children ? There are manyexcellent reasons, such as these: children enjoy social conversations with adults. A few enticing words can encourage children toengage in a particular activity or behavior. Thought-provoking questions or using new wordscan extend children s thinking and curiosity. Adults can directly answer children s great deal of research supports the value of talkingwith young children .

2 When adults purposefully talk more with chil-dren, children develop larger vocabularies (Hart& Risley, 1999; Hoff & Naigles, 2002). When children have larger vocabularies, they be-come better readers in middle childhood (Snow,Burns, & Griffin, 1998). When adults talk to children with longer, morecomplex words and sentences, children havehigher IQ scores (Hart & Risley, 1999). When adults talk with children in a responsiveand sensitive way, they encourage children s socialand emotional development (Ensor & Hughes,2008; Harris, 2005). In general, Talking with young children encouragesdevelopment in many areas: spoken language, earlyliteracy, cognitive development, social skills, and emotionalmaturity.

3 Speaking with children in increasingly complexand responsive ways does this even better. This article explores research findings about the effectsof adult s language and conversations on children sdevelopment. It also discusses ways that teachers caninclude more intentional talk in their daily routines andclassroom activities to support children s Adult Talk Supports children s DevelopmentChildren s Vocabularies GrowWhen two researchers looked at families with youngchildren who were learning to talk, they found that nomatter what a family s economic or social situation, theTalking With Young children :How Teachers Encourage LearningJoan E.

4 Test, Denise D. Cunningham, and Amanda C. LeeJoan E. Test, , is Assistant Professor, ChildhoodEducation and Family Studies, Missouri State University,Springfield. She is the faculty liaison to the Child Devel-opment Center at Missouri State and teaches courses inchild and human development. Her research focuses onthe influence of social interactions on children s develop-ment in families and early childhood settings. Denise D. Cunningham, , is Assistant Professor,Childhood Education and Family Studies, Missouri StateUniversity, Springfield. She has many years of experienceas the director of an early childhood center and as a teacherand literacy coach in the St.

5 Louis Public Schools. Her re-search interests include creating high-quality environmentsto promote children 's language and literacy development. Amanda C. Lee, , is a Lead Teacher in the Child De-velopment Center, Missouri State University, is pursuing her Master s degree in Early Childhood Ed-ucation at Missouri State. She has had the opportunity to put theory into practice and use rich, meaningful languageevery day with the children in her classroom!Why Talk WITH Young children ? Talking with young children encourages development inSpeak with children in increasingly complex and responsive ways. spoken language early literacy cognitive development social skills emotional maturity4 Volume 38, Number 3 DIMENSIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOODFall 2010more that parents engaged in dailyconversations with their children , themore rapidly the children s vocabulariesgrew (Hart & Risley, 1999).

6 Nearly all families talk with theirchildren to get things accomplished,such as eating, getting dressed, andkeeping children safe and occupied. Theextra conversation, however, done justfor the pleasure of a social exchange,makes a real difference. The amount ofthis extra conversation is highly relatedto children s vocabulary growth. The more language that 2-year-olds hear, the more rap-idly they add words to theirvocabulary (Hoff & Naigles,2002). The richer the vocabularyand the more complex thesentences that children hear,the more quickly their lan-guage develops beginning atage 2 (Hoff & Naigles, 2002;Weizman & Snow, 2001).

7 The helpfulness of speech forexplaining a word s meaningreally makes a difference inchildren s language develop-ment (Weizman & Snow,2001). The more different types ofwords that adults use withyoung children , the larger vo-cabularies preschoolers de-velop (Pan, Rowe, Singer, &Snow, 2005). In summary, Talking more, helpingchildren understand the meanings ofwords, and speaking in richer, morecomplex ways leads to more rapidgrowth in children s s Literacy BlossomsSpoken language is the foundationfor reading and writing. In thepreschool years, children learn soundpatterns, word meanings, and sentencestructure, as well as how to participatein conversation.

8 These abilities arecritical for future reading and successin school. children who developstrong spoken language abilities intheir early years stride far ahead oftheir peers when it comes to readinglater in childhood. Those who do nothave language strengths find itdifficult to keep pace with their peers(Snow et al., 1998). Preschoolers learn about 2,500 newwords a year about 7 new words everyday (Wolfe & Nevills, 2004). Thisstore of vocabulary words provideschildren with information they need toassist in decoding unknown words andcomprehending what they read(Dickinson & Tabors, 2001). Preschool children play with thesounds and rhythms of language everytime they recite nursery rhymes andpoetry, sing songs or do fingerplays,and listen to stories.

9 This awareness ofthe sounds of language (phonologicalawareness) helps children matchletters to sounds as they learn to readand write (Adams, 1990). Languagecomprehension, which young child-ren gain through conversations withfamilies and teachers, contributes to children s reading success (Scar-borough, 2002; Snow, Griffin, &Burns, 2005). Preschoolers experiences and theirrelated conversations help buildchildren s brains for reading. Forexample, children who live on a farmor in a rural area will hear and par-ticipate in conversations about rurallife. Talk about farmers, barns, cows,chickens, and ducks provides childrenwith the necessary words and un-derstanding to comprehend andeventually read, delightful books suchas Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type(Cronin, 2005).

10 Conversations with young childrenthat include decontextualizedlanguage language that moves beyond theimmediate and literal to express pastand future events, ideas, images, andexplanations also promote children sability to write stories and essays whenthey are older (Dickinson, 2001). Foryoung children , this kind of talk mayinclude narration about what went onat school, fantasy and pretend play,explanations about books or pictures,and other topics of adults and children engagein conversation, they are creating asituation in which children can beexposed to new or rarewords (Tabors,Beals, & Weizman, 2001). These rarewords are already in the adult svocabulary.