Iran (IMNA) - The deliberate talks between parents and children not only exchange information but also foster vocabulary expansion, build connections, and model language structures. The conversation almost includes the following questions and answers:
"How did you find school?"
"All right."
"What did you discover?"
"Nothing'."
All areas of a child's wellbeing are greatly enhanced by conversations between children and watchful, nurturing adults. These deliberate and planned talks can even improve the abilities necessary for improved language and literacy development.
Beyond just exchanging information
We are doing more than just asking kids about their school days when we have meaningful talks with them. Talking with kids helps them learn about the world around them, expands their vocabulary, builds connections and trust, and models formal language structures, which explain how words are arranged and put together in sentences to make sense. In fact, interactions between adults and children can even influence brain connections in specific areas.
According to a recent study -titled Language Exposure and Brain Myelination in Early Development- published in the Journal of Neuroscience, conversational "turns", or the back-and-forth conversational exchange between children and attentive adults, were found to be associated with stronger white matter connections between brain regions related to speech and comprehension of spoken and written language.
Igniting dialogues that promote language acquisition
The following list of ideas explains how parents and other caregivers may start language-building interactions with their kids to improve family dynamics and their literacy:
Focus your attention carefully. Active listening has several aspects, one of which is showing real attention in what children have to say. Active listening techniques include turning off other distractions, keeping eye contact, stopping what you're doing, lowering yourself to their level (by sitting or kneeling, for example), repeating back what they say and maybe feeling to make sure you understand.
Pose questions that are open-ended. When asked open-ended questions, children are encouraged to consider their answers rather of just giving a simple "yes," "no," or "nothing." Questions that are open-ended usually start with one of the following terms or expressions:
- Why, how, explain...
- Explain me about this.
- How do you feel about...
- I'm curious (if, why, how)...
- What have you observed about...
- Please elaborate on this.
- What further information about it do you want me to know?
You may also use open-ended inquiries as a way to probe further into a topic.
Examine the "Strive-for-Five" model. Educators David Dickinson and Ann B. Morse invented the "Strive-for-Five" conversational framework, which has been adopted more recently by educational scholars Sonia Q. Cabell and Tricia A. Zucker. In order to promote the development of core language skills in children, this framework aims to improve conversations by encouraging parents, caregivers, and educators to aim for five conversational turns with children instead of the traditional three. Try reacting to children in a way that makes them reflect and makes language use more encouraged. Try to extend the discussion by sharing another idea or posing lighthearted, open-ended follow-up questions instead of cutting it at the third conversational point.
Integrate dialogue into daily activities. If there are periods of the day when you find it difficult to participate in meaningful discussions and actively listen, consider scheduling times when active listening could be more possible, such as when going about your daily business or reading aloud.
Facilitate the discussion. One tactic for promoting learning is scaffolding, which builds on the abilities kids already possess while progressively lowering the amount of assistance offered. Talks with kids that are scaffolded might include:
- repeating words or phrases to ensure proper use;
- incorporating terminology from subjects they are interested in or learning about;
- supplying sentence constructors to encourage students to complete the sentence;
- posing provocative questions to get a conversation past the third talking turn.
Engaging in meaningful and frequent conversations with kids of all ages enhances their comprehension of language, which further enhances their reading comprehension. Enhancing the quality of conversations by putting any or all of these suggestions into practice may strengthen the foundational aspects of language understanding while simultaneously strengthening and maintaining family relationships.
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