Teachers talking to young children: invitations to negotiate meaning in everyday conversations

The purpose of the study reported in this article was to investigate conversations involving dialogue and negotiation of meaning, through which children will learn to talk and talk to learn. In kindergarten children will learn both to listen to language and to use language, but we have few studies of what characterises the qualities of their experiences. While there is ample evidence of the importance of early years to later development, we know relatively little about effective ways to provide all children with the boost in language learning and learning through language. We actually know little of what kind of teacher talk that might promote children's language learning, encourage cognitive development, literacy, and learning of social understanding. In this study I have investigated how teachers may invite children to talk, for instance to share events, to think aloud or to argue for a point of view. The children are aged from 3- to 5-years-of-age. The observations were carried out in small-group contexts where the children spontaneously gathered in an activity with their teacher, groups consisted of three to six members. All observations were videotaped and transcribed. The results underline the need for knowledge of how to invite children to take active part in construction of meaning.