Conversation is the Foundation
According to The National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning, class conversations are the foundation of the Framework for Effective Practice, or House Framework, necessary for school readiness¹.
Academic talk, or classroom conversation, represents the pinnacle of engaging interactions and high-quality classroom environments. Academic talk is more formal and uses many tier-2 and -3 vocabulary, longer sentences, and more complicated grammar.
Although early learning classes are full of talk, not all classroom talk is equally meaningful. Consider the range of classroom types on the conversation spectrum:
🗣️The Monologic Dominant Classroom (In a study of 20,000 classrooms, 89% of talking comes from the teacher. This classroom is heavily oriented around teacher talk. See more here)
🗣️The Spontaneous, Casual Dialogic Dominant Classroom (Although there are many talk opportunities, they are unplanned and largely casual conversations.)
🗣️The Academic, Dialogic, Student-Inquiry-Dominant Classroom (Teachers intentionally plan for rich-language conversation opportunities using evidenced-based practices and make ample room for eliciting student inquiry as part of academic talk².)
Assessing and improving the classroom conversation climate begins with leadership prioritizing the necessary instructional infrastructure to support it.
Having a conversation count mindset enables schools to determine if every student is having at least 5 conversational turns per day (Strive-for-five model and to design effective activities to promote this. Additionally, there are students who require more scaffolding and frequent conversation practice in the classroom setting.
When schools intentionally plan for conversations throughout the day with each learner, studies have found that children exhibit greater gains in language development and academic domains compared to children in lower-quality classrooms³.
Refer to the image example of a classroom conversation planner to make the most of every talk opportunity.
About AskMeno
AskMeno is dedicated to helping early-childhood leaders build the foundational oral language and social skills necessary for their young scholars’ reading comprehension and emotional wellbeing. AskMeno provides a play-based, teacher-facilitated supplemental curriculum that systematically and explicitly develops oral language and social skills through scaffolded, fun, and engaging learning activities.
