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The teachers will promote critical thinking by asking at least two open-ended questions throughout the day and giving them time to respond.

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The teaching team will enhance the science center by providing stimulating materials and hands-on activities at least once a month in order for children to gravitate to the center and increase the ECERS 25. Science/nature score.

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Teachers will promote expressive language by using at least three language modeling strategies throughout the day.

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Simple Ways to Promote Speech and Language Development

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Simple Ways to Promote Speech and Language Development

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Simple Ways to Promote Speech and Language Development

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Try these strategies to engage all young children in rich conversations.

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This post may contain affiliate links. See Disclosure for more information.

Our science center is stocked with lots of cool magnets and magnetic objects. We started with a basic magnetic/non magnetic sort, and have slowly added more interesting items for the students to explore.

This is a pencil with round magnets on it, stacked so that they will repel each other. The preschoolers love to take them off, and put them back on again to see if they will attract or repel.

On another day, I added a tub of paper clips and a magnet wand taped so that it would hang off the edge of the center. One of our little scientists spent a half an hour playing with that magnet and the paper clips. At first, he hung them in a little chain from the magnet. He was fascinated! Then, tried adding a few more clips on the other side of the magnet. They still stuck! By the end, he had piled on more magnet wands and a pair of scissors. Finally, he dumped the whole tub of clips on the magnet to see "if it would catch them all"!

Do you remember these little Wooly Willys from your childhood? I sure do! My parents used to take us on long cross-country car trips, and my mom would bring little toys to entertain us. The Wooly Willy was always my favorite! I found these mini versions at the party store, and they are a fun addition to the science center.

We also have a number of magnetite rocks and regular, non-magnetic rocks. The kids are intrigued by the fact that the magnet will attract some rocks, but not others!

Finally, we were inspired by Preschool Inspirations' magnetic discovery bottles. These are mason jars full of colorful paper clips and water. The students worked together and tried to figure out how to get the clips to the top of the jar. Problem solving at its best!

When they finally worked them up to the top, they shrieked with joy. "Look! They're hanging." It is so exciting to see the way that their minds discover new things. It never gets old!

Get those magnets off the fridge and have fun playing and learning with your children today!

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Magnets in the Science Center - Play to Learn Preschool

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Our science center is stocked with lots of cool magnets and magnetic objects. We started with a basic magnetic/non magnetic sort, and have slowly added more interesting items for the students to explore. This is a pencil with round magnets on it, stacked so that they will repel each other.

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Hello Meridian Teachers,

This personalized website (Padlet) was designed to provide you with the opportunity to interact with your coach, download resources related to your goals, and share comments/inquiries.

- To the right you will find that each classroom has their very own section that includes your classroom goal and resources. In addition, you will find resources related to the topics you have requested.

- Down below you will find updates and announcement.

To schedule a coaching session, below you will find my monthly calendar. Once you have reviewed the calendar, email me the date and time to confirm a coaching session.

Thanks for your partnership!

Manny Ramos

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When I think of spring, I think of planting seeds, growing plants and flowers, gardening ideas and all things outdoors! With these easy preschool plant activities, even the youngest kids can explore, investigate, plant seeds and grow a garden! These plant activities are also great for a plant theme at home or in the classroom. Preschool science activities are perfect for early learning!

EASY PLANT ACTIVITIES FOR PRESCHOOL!

PLANTING SEEDS WITH PRESCHOOLERS

Whether this is your first year planting seeds with kids or you do it every spring, you want to be prepared to make your plant activities a success!
Here are some easy seeds to grow:
We just made these awesome homemade seed bombs ! Perfect for a plant theme for preschool activity. Use recycled materials and give some as gifts too!

EASY PLANT ACTIVITIES FOR PRESCHOOL

These plant lesson plan ideas for preschoolers below are a mix of hands-on activities growing your own plants, science experiments that use plants and art and craft ideas that teach kids about plants.

A seed jar is one of the coolest and easiest plant activities to try! We had a blast watching our seeds go through each phase of seed growth.

You can also plant seeds in eggshells. We checked out our seeds in different phases of growth. Also a fun dirt sensory activity.

Grass seeds are an easy seed to grow for kids. Make these fun grass heads in a cup and give them a haircut when they grow long.

Watching flowers grow is an amazing science lesson for preschoolers. Check out our list of easy flowers for kids to grow and big enough for little fingers to pick up.

All you need are some leaves from the garden for this simple plant science experiment.

Turn white flowers into a rainbow of color and learn about the parts of the flower at the same time.
ALSO CHECK OUT: Color Changing Carnations Looking for easy to print activities, and inexpensive problem-based challenges? We have you covered...
Find out how to make seed bombs for a great hands-on preschool plant activity or even to give as gifts. All you need are some flower seeds and scrap paper.

Did you know that you can regrow certain vegetables from their stalks right on the kitchen counter? Give it a try!

Learn about how water travels through leaves with this simple science experiment. Watch what happens when you put leaves into a jar of colored water!

Explore real flowers with an ice melt activity, sorting and identifying the parts of a flower and if there is time, a fun water sensory bin.

Learn about the parts of a plant with this fun and easy art activity for kids.

MORE EASY PLANT ACTIVITIES FOR PRESCHOOL

I love all these mini seed experiments from Gift of Curiosity. She has some great ideas for setting up awesome mini experiments with seeds. What do seeds need to grow? Such great learning!

Exploring and investigating seeds from Fantastic Fun and Learning is also a great science activity and perfect for young kids.

Make your own paper plate greenhouse from J4Daniels Mom to watch your seeds grow with a fun craft and science activity!

Did you know an avocado pit is a seed? Take a look how you can use your next avocado pit for a seed science activity from Share It Science.

MORE FUN PRESCHOOL THEMES

PLANTING THEME FOR PRESCHOOLERS
Click on the link or on the photo below for more fun spring science activities this season! Looking for easy to print activities, and inexpensive problem-based challenges? We have you covered... Click below to get your quick and easy STEM challenges.

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Plant Activities For Preschool - Little Bins for Little Hands

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When I think of spring, I think of planting seeds, growing plants and flowers, gardening ideas and all things outdoors! With these easy preschool plant activities, even the youngest kids can explore, investigate, plant seeds and grow a garden! These plant activities are also great for a plant theme at home or in the classroom.

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Language Modeling and Conversations Webinar

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Language Modeling and Conversations Webinar

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Vanessa Maanao-French: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our webinar. It will actually be our last AIAN Teacher webinar for the year, so I'm glad you're able to join us. I actually see some names that I recognize, so hello to those who I know and have met in person. And to those who I haven't met in person yet, welcome. I'm hoping the weather is better where you are than it is where I am. But the spring flowers that we're talking about helped me think about it really is springtime despite the gray clouds and lots and lots of rain. So let's get started. If you haven't had a chance, be sure to register. It helps us to build our list, to be sure to include you in all of our upcoming webinars. But we'll go ahead and get started. Today we are going to be talking about novel words and how you would introduce advanced language to children. And for those who don't know me, my name is Vanessa Maanao-French. I'm here in the Seattle office at NCQTL, and I'm happy to be with you. This is actually one of my favorite topics, so I hope that by the time we're done, it's one of your favorite topics, as well. Alongside me today virtually is Susan. Susan, would you like to introduce yourself, as well?

Susan Stewart: Yeah, hello, everybody. I am a consultant with NCQTL, and I'm happy to help with the webinars. And I've got to tell you, novel words is one of my favorite things as well, so I'm glad to be a part of this today. If you have any problems, put them in chat and I'll see how I can help you.

Vanessa: Thanks, Susan. It's been a long road with Susan and actually Dawn, who's not with us today, putting together these webinars. And it's been a fantastic journey, I have to say. But Susan is amazing behind the scenes, so, please, if you have any issues along the way, let her know, and she'll be able to help you out as quickly as possible. So actually we're going to start with a video.

Teacher: And this is "proud." Look at that happy face. Look at how the smile is turned up and the eyebrows are up and the eyes are almost closed because they're smiling so big. "Proud" means that they are feeling good about something they did. Like when Robby built an amazing thing out of Legos, he felt really proud of it. And you could tell by looking at his face.

Teacher: What is the person called that draws the pictures? Children: The author.

Teacher: I tricked you. The person that draws the pictures, the il...? Child: The illustrator.

Teacher: The illustrator. What's the name of the person that writes the words? Children: Author.

Teacher: The author. So the author of this book is Daniel Manus Pinkwater.

Child: Whoa, there's a lot of authors. Teacher: There is. Is my hand where? Children: On the top.

Teacher: On the top. And now it's on the...? Children: Bottom.

Teacher: And what part of the book is this? Children: Side.

Teacher: It's called the spine. It's where all the pieces connect together. The spine. This part's the side, and this is the spine. Here we go. "Mr. Plum..."

Boy: Take it off.

Teacher: Take it off. Yeah. It's a Velcro. Take off the Velcro. Take off the Velcro. Boy: Get the-no, boots.

Teacher: Huh? Yeah, it is boots, but it's called Velcro, see? Hear the sound ripping? It's Velcro. They're not buttons. This is a zipper, this is Velcro, these are buttons.

Boy: Velcro.

Teacher: Yeah, Velcro. Yeah, Velcro. Here.

Teacher: You did it! You did it! Look it, you can go home and tell your mom and say, "Today I walked through a cylinder."

Vanessa: Oh, I love those videos. Yeah, it's-it looks simple when these teachers do it so naturally, but it does take planning, it does take being really intentional about how you're going to introduce new words to children. And I think my favorite-I think Teacher Mitch is my favorite in so many clips that we have of him, but he was the teacher at the very end who's praising the kids and telling them to go home and talk about how they went through a cylinder. And I-he is so inspiring. He's always so excited that way. The teacher who was talking about Velcro was a teacher from a program up in Alaska, which is lovely, as well. And the teacher with the book is also from Washington State. And I can't tell you who the first teacher was because I didn't get a chance to see her face, actually, but it's nice, because I notice we have some folks who have joined us from Alaska. It's nice to see your names.

So let me keep us moving forward. I get so caught up in the videos. But why I wanted to bring the videos in was to get us kind of thinking about, how do we bring out rich language with children? And these are just some nice examples to be able to share with your teachers. And again, this webinar is based on the content that you already have. You should have an AIAN DVD with this specific in-service suite, so you can share Teacher Mitch with your own staff. So to get us grounded in effective practice, I always bring us back to the house framework. And today we're really focused again on the foundation, as we have throughout this entire series. But I do want to always mention how, without the foundation, we can't have strong pillars and we can't have a roof. So in interactions with children and how we help them interact with another really helps us to be able to gather information for ongoing assessments, to really use our curriculum effectively, and how we can really know our children well enough to individualize for them. So it's always connected. But again, we're going to focus on the foundation today, specifically on instructional interactions, because this is where novel words fits. For those who use CLASS language, this would be under the language modeling. So today this is what I'd like to do. We would like to make sure that we all have a nice understanding of how to extend conversations with novel words to benefit children, to identify conversation opportunities where you can introduce those new words, and finally to share some resources that can assist you or your teachers to be able to use novel words in conversation.

So let's get started. So novel words are a part of what we talk about when we say we want to extend conversations with children. The more we talk, the more they talk, the better they are at using language. It's really that simple. And when we talk about extended conversations, they're back-and- forth exchanges that help kids to practice using some complex language and thinking skills. And for the kids, it's just-you know, it's interesting to them, right? If we're using conversation based on their interest, it's easy to extend and get them to talk more. So we also want to be sure that as we're having these conversations with kids, that we're really thinking about, how can we add new language? How can we encourage children to expand how they use sentence structures? And I think it's important to note that we're not only talking about English. I know programs, and some of the folks I see on the list, you also infuse Native language into the classroom, which is amazing. And please, please continue to do that, do more of that. The more children are exposed to language, the better they're able to-it just builds their brains. I can't even tell you how much it builds their brains to hear new words in both languages and to have them be spoken within context so that they understand how to use the word, what that word means, and it's just such a great experience for kids. So don't hold back with language, is all I want to say.

And the back-and-forth piece is really important. People like to use the tennis analogy. That's one analogy that you can use, because it's back and forth. And it has to-it should be pretty equal in the communication. It's not the child starting a conversation and the teacher takes over, or that it gets redirected in a way that it's no longer interesting or engaging to the child, and so he or she stops talking. So it's that back-and-forth equal communication between adult and child. And that's how we extend conversation.

So when we think about having conversations with children with novel words, it's just one strategy to extend conversation, to promote their language skills. We also want to have those novel words provide children with the opportunity to be exposed to new words. Just hearing the new words in context can really help them to go, "Oh, okay, now I understand where that fits in" within their language, especially if it's embedded within an activity or something that they're really excited about. And these are just some examples of some-maybe some novel words to think about using throughout your classroom. Too often we use the word "angry" or "mad." But maybe the more descriptive word is "frustrated," like one of the words up here on the screen. Instead of something being "small," maybe it's "miniature." So finding those ways to add in these words that are advanced, but kids are certainly ready.

So why it matters. Why am I making this big deal about introducing new words to kids and extending their conversation? It all goes back to research, and I think the research is really just catching up with us as far as what we already know about the importance of teaching at this time in a child's life. What they say to us is that oral language skills are really important for kids as they learn to read, and those effects last, and they see those effects lasting up until third grade. So those kids with strong oral language skills now become stronger readers in kindergarten and beyond. And there's also some link between oral language and math skills, as well. So just talking to children, just having conversations with them is more than just passing the time. It is literally building their brain.

And I want to show you-and you probably have seen this before, but I think this piece of research really does help solidify what I'm saying. And so this is a study that's been done a long time ago, but the impact and the messaging remains consistent. And so in this study that was done by Hart and Risley back a long time ago now, 1995-but again, don't let the age of the study fool you; it's still very powerful-what they did is they followed a group of children and their families from about birth until 3 years of age. And parents were in different socioeconomic levels: we had low-income families, working-class families, and what they called college-educated families, or professional families. And at the beginning, the amount of words spoken to children and the amount of words children received were about the same, right? Think about how we talk to our children when they're really, really tiny. But what this graph is really going to focus on is how many words were the children then able to use, right? What is the cumulative vocabulary of these children based on what they were hearing? So again, they start off about the same, because kids aren't really talking much. But as we move on to about 2 years of age, you're going to start to see this gap widen. And again, it's based on what children hear as to what they then repeat and use themselves. So working-class and low-income families are staying fairly close to one another, with kids speaking just under 200 words within their vocabulary. But you're seeing that college-educated parents, they're getting close to-it's hard to tell with this graph, right-about 300, 400 words, right, already. But then the gap only continues to widen. And this is not about low-income families being less intelligent. It's about the amount of words that are being spoken within the home and the kinds of words that are being spoken within the home. So I wanted to share this with you because this impact lasts forever, and it ends up being 30 million words' difference that children hear between low-income and college-educated families.

And what that difference results in is this, the vocabulary that children go into preschool with. So we're seeing our preschool kids right now at different stages here of speaking about 300 words for low-income children within their vocabulary versus 1,200 words for those kids who are hearing much more diverse, much more dense language, I guess is what we would say. They're hearing a lot of words to be able to use and practice. And talking to kids is free. We can have conversations with kids throughout the school day. Encourage families to have those conversations, as well. I think seeing this and reminding my own self of this research reminds me of the importance of my interactions each day with my own child.

So I'm going to move us on. So extended conversations, we have it split up into different categories here. We want to engage children in thick conversations, and by that we mean that children are talking to you, they're having those rich back-and-forth conversations, right? You're basing it on what they're interested in or the activity that they're currently engaged in. So we want it to be thick. Not just one or two words, but deep conversation. The other thing we want to be able to do, too, is to ask questions. Because the questions that we ask expand children's thinking. I think immediately we go to those "how" and "why" questions, which is exactly what I'm talking about. "Why do you think it worked that way? Tell me what you think will happen next?" Asking questions, prompting thought process, is key to extending conversation. And then finally, expanding what children say. And it's more than just repeating it. Repeating it is good. So if a child gives you an answer to a question, saying, "Yes, that's a great answer," whatever the question was. But saying more, adding more on to it. And we have an example that we'll share with you in just a little bit about expanding what children say. Because what you really want to do is add additional information to help them really develop and refine their thinking and the concepts that they're talking about. And then finally today we're really going to be focusing on novel words. So I just wanted to share this with you, because it's not just novel words that's going to extend conversation. There's all these other components that are equally important. But today we're going to focus on increasing vocabulary and helping children to understand more about how they can use language to express their ideas and also tell us what they're doing, right? Excellent.

So how does this benefit teachers? Well, it provides them an opportunity to embed vocabulary into their everyday interactions with children. So being planful about it helps them to do this. And this is something I know is probably on every school readiness plan, something about language development and advanced language and critical thinking skills. But doing this also helps teachers to kind of gain information about what children know and what they still need to learn or need practice with. So introducing new words helps teachers to do some ongoing assessment. And finally, that assessment helps them to plan for the children. And every group of children is different; every child within a classroom is different. And so this ongoing assessment needs to be ongoing every year and start all over, start from scratch in the fall, right?

So as you're thinking about incorporating novel words into your conversations, just keep in mind and have teachers think about this, too, that it happens throughout the day. It's not just for small group, not just for your large group when you're reading a story. It's at breakfast time, it's when children are lining up to go outside or when they're getting ready for nap or they're stepping on or off the bus. That it really can be-if you think about it ahead of time-a place where you can infuse new words. And it can happen during a variety of activities that are kind of shown here. The small group is here, but you've had a teacher here-actually, she's an ed manager out at Oneida Head Start-helping a little girl put on her gloves. There are so many opportunities in that brief interaction to incorporate one or two new words this child may not have heard before or may be practicing using, as well.

So now I want to give you guys a chance to do a little brainstorming of your own. So we just pulled out three different areas within the classroom, and let's just have fun with this. What are some possible new novel words, advanced language that you might add in these areas? And we've got a little chat box for each of them. We'll play some music for you, so let's go. Nice lists! Yeah, go ahead and finish your words there. Tina, I see that you're still typing. Oh, "spectacular design," that was very worth it. So we were doing this for about four minutes, and, you know, we're a small group here. I just am really impressed with the kind of words that we're coming up with together on a Friday morning, for most of us. But as I kind of sift through them, it just gets me excited about the potential words that children could be hearing during the day. You know, words like "structure" and "blueprint" and "construction" and "gravity," and I love the word "massive," you know, just in the block area. And then over in the sensory table, you know, bringing in words that are really fun that we get to say, like "gooey"; that's a fun word. Thinking about a "stream" of water, to "squeeze" something. You know, these are words that we may think are pretty simple, but when you really think about words kids may be exposed to at home or in the community-I love this word, "porous"-would they hear that word normally? And this would be a great place and a time and a construct from which to learn it, right? What does it mean to be porous? "Evaporating" is a fun word, too. Ah, good list, good list!

I want to switch over to the art one really quick and pull out some that I thought were really, really, really fun. There are certainly words-oh, "abstract," that's so great. You know, and thinking, too, about "shades" of color and how you add "texture." And then instead of just saying it's beautiful-I'm so glad you finished your thought here, Tina. Instead of just saying, "Oh, that's a beautiful picture," which we say so often in the classroom, to say that it's a spectacular design. That's... fabulous.

So the reason why I wanted to have us walk through this activity is that we also have this, the same basic activity for you that's part of the in-service suite, where teachers get to do this on their own, where they can brainstorm in small groups or maybe even just a teaching team within their own classroom. You know, just sit in the block area, look at what they have on the shelves, and create that same list. And then once you have that list, post it on the wall in that area. It's easy to come up with the ideas when you're sitting back and you're planning and reflecting, but then when you're with the kids, right, all those words are like, "What did we say we were going to try to introduce?" Think of those words ahead of time, put them in the centers, let parents and volunteers know what these random words are that are posted in the centers so they can use those words in those centers, as well.

Right? Because kids learn language within context and through relationships that they have with others. So thank you so much for participating. And Susan just placed a quick link to that if you wanted to download that and take a closer look at it today. But again, it is part of your in-service suite. Just wanted to call your attention to it. It's a fun activity. Just do it for five minutes. And, you know, see which group comes up with the most words. It's always fun to listen to the words that others share. And we can also send out this quick list that we generated today during our webinar to you as a quick starter for thinking about novel words in centers. Because again, it comes back to this, right? Are kids hearing those words that we just listed? Porous, gritty, texture, blueprint. These are great words that will add to a child's vocabulary and really decrease-eliminate this word gap where they're not hearing the same amount of words as other children. Because they deserve to hear them, and they're ready for them.

So we're going to give you a quick example. We're going to do a little role-play for you, Susan and I. I think, Susan, you're going to be the kiddo, right, and I'll be the teacher in this situation where we're going to just go back and forth and have a little conversation, and we'll be able to model for you kind of what it looks like to have an extended conversation. Okay, I'm ready, Susan.

Susan: All right. I drew the mom and this one and this one and this one.

Vanessa: I see you drew the mom and then three other people. It looks like this could be your family. Susan: Yeah, and we are outside with all these things.

Vanessa: You are outside playing on the grass. And it looks like it's raining and sunny at the same

time. Together the sun and rain must have created this rainbow. That must be a beautiful sight for your family.

Susan: And here's my letters.

Vanessa: And you wrote your name across the top. I see all the letters of your name, Avery. You also wrote the letters for the word mom. So before-actually, I'm going to pull us back just for a quick second. So you can see how this is a conversation we have often in classrooms. This is very typical, right? A child will come up and go, "Look at my picture, look what I drew!" And it's so easy when we're so busy to be almost dismissive and say, "Oh, that's so beautiful. Do you want to put it in your cubby to take home?" And that's the end of the conversation. When instead, and I'm actually going to flip back through, you can see how what the child is offering are these small sentences or phrases. And what the teacher is offering back is this rich, or what we call thick, response that's full of language, that extends not only what the child says but at times offers new language, right? So you can see just from the amount of words that you're seeing on the page what the teacher's doing.

So now we'd like to offer you an opportunity to do kind of the same thing. If a child came up to you and said, "Look, teacher, I drew it," what might you say in return? Wonderful. Thank you for your ideas. I was typing in some quick responses, my own reactions to what you all have started to share. I see, Kim, you're still-oh, good, "What is making them smile?" You guys are fabulous! These are the kinds of questions or comments that help children start to share with you what the story is behind their drawing. None of us write or draw just for the sake of-well, maybe when we doodle, we do. But there is typically a story that's behind it, some inspiration. And the questions and the comments that you are listing here are about digging in and finding out what inspired you, right, to be able to put this photo together. "I see a sun," "Who's in the picture?" "I see a lot of detail." These are just great comments. Again, this is another activity to bring back to teachers as a teaching team to think about, you know, how would we respond? This could also be a wonderful activity to bring out to parents, because I know children's backpacks go home full of drawings that look a lot like this one, but being able to encourage them to ask their children questions about what they drew. Thinking again about that word gap, right, we know that we're building brains through conversation. Conversations are free to have and they just take a few minutes, but the dividends are huge. So thank you for doing this. And again, offer this to teachers and offer this to families as ways to think about engaging in conversation around a child's interest. Lovely, lovely. You guys are just on fire.

So when do we want to do this? You know, we want to be really purposeful in how we teach the word meanings to children. And we do this when we know that kids are unfamiliar with the word. And so, I mean, just thinking back to the word lists we created earlier, right? Blueprint: do children all know what a blueprint is? But we can find a way to naturally embed that into the block area, right-that was one of my favorite words out of the block area list-by bringing in the blueprints and talking to children about what they're used for, right? And it's good when we're able to use those words in a really concrete way that really enhances their interactions that they're already having. So bringing in a blueprint, laying it on the floor, and have children try to recreate what they see and talk about how blueprints are plans for builders so they know how to put the building together, right? That's a very simple way to say it. And here's another quick example that's on your slide here. "Delicious. That means it tastes really, really good." And I was talking with Susan earlier as we were getting ready to greet you all into the webinar, that this slide always reminds me of my daughter, who when she drinks something now, every time she drinks it, she'll say, "That was refreshing," which I think is just, one, cute, and, two, it's just fun to hear her use these big new words. So as we're giving children the definitions of new words, it's important to keep these things in mind. We want to keep it simple, we want to focus on the characteristics or the attributes of the word, and try not to use other unfamiliar words to define the unfamiliar word, right? That makes good sense.

So let's do a simple example. So we'll use the word "pilot" as a new word. So a pilot is a person. Keep it simple. Focus on what they do, what he or she does, who drives the plane. And there's no unfamiliar words: so we're going to finish the definition by saying, "A pilot is a person who drives the plane and takes all of the people on the plane where they need to go." Simple, right? That's exactly how we want to be able to introduce new words to children as well. So we're going to watch another video, and during this video clip, what I'd really like for you to do is take down some quick notes, because at the end, I'd like for you to type in what are the new words this teacher was using during this video clip with this child?

Teacher: Are you going to do rainbow nails like yesterday? Girl: Yeah, like I did on my friends.

Teacher: You painted a lot of friends yesterday. Remember, we had all those grown-ups come in to the nail shop?

Girl: Yeah, I was painting her nails all day.

Teacher: You had a lot of customers. There's a leftover napkin. Will that help?

Girl: Yeah.

Teacher: Want to just get the edges with a dab? There you go. Girl: Maybe there. Maybe a little...

Teacher: There you go. Ooh, that's a nice shade of green. Girl: Mm-hmm.

Girl: It's teensy.

Teacher: It's tiny. That's my smallest finger. Girl: Yeah.

Teacher: Okay, so we're ready to do the other hand? Girl: Yes.

Teacher: Here. Okay, now this is my right hand. Got it. Girl: Okay.

Teacher: Going to start with the thumb? Oh, wait, this one you need to concentrate the color more. It just ran right off my nail. Just load the bristles. You've got it all clean. Okay. There you go. Try it now. See? It worked.

Vanessa: Okay, so tell me what words you heard. I'll give you a couple minutes. Thank you again for your ideas. You know, and I would encourage you, too, to videotape your own teachers and offer the same experience to them, especially if they're practicing adding new words to children. Or to be able to expose children to new language is what I meant to say. But these are great. And I think you really caught all of the words that this teacher, and her name is actually Beverly, a Head Start teacher here in Washington State. She's phenomenal. I actually got a chance to work with her for several years. So what I can tell you is behind the scenes, that this was not a spontaneous conversation for her, that this was part of this child's individual learning goals, was to expand her language. And so it was very planned that she would be using words like "concentrate" and "dab" and "customer." So I think you guys caught those words, but I just wanted you to know this wasn't spontaneous, that Beverly really did come in thinking about, "What words can I add in this activity, because I know this activity is going to draw this particular child in?" And she had this conversation with this rich language over the course of the full video clip, because it was kind of chopped up for us for time's sake. It was about five minutes. So with five minutes of her time, she was able to expose a child to all of the words that you listed here and more. So just wanted to throw that out to you again, as well. It doesn't take long, but it takes intentionality, and it takes a teacher who really is engaged with knowing her children, right? That's where it starts. You have to know your children to plan this way for them.

So some quick tips for incorporating novel words. Be sure the words you're choosing are important for the children to understand an activity, and be really sure that you have a plan about how you're going to use them. You want to provide opportunities for spontaneous conversation, but also know, too, that you want to have those words kind of tucked in your back pocket, right? You've got to know when you want to add them, which is why it's great to be able to have them posted on a wall, so as they come up, you go, "Oh, yeah, that's right, blueprint! We can talk about that today." Expand on what the child knows. So again, this is bouncing out of what they're interested in and extending the conversation. You want to help children to understand their words so that it broadens their critical thinking skills and how they're problem-solving and reasoning. And then you can do this throughout the day and across routines. It doesn't, like I said earlier, start and stop in small group.

And now I'm going to take us to an activity we do lots of times in large group. I think we may take for granted the opportunities that are there. We just kind of move through the motions sometimes. So I thought about this song in particular because it's one of my child's favorites right now, but the song "Itsy-Bitsy Spider." It's something we do all the time, right? I think every-this is like a universal. But are there language opportunities that we may be missing in something that seems so simple? For example, what does "itsy-bitsy" mean? What's a water spout, and what is it used for? Why would the rain wash the spider out? These are questions we can ask children. Let's think about this song we sing every day. And why does the spider climb back up the water spout when the sun comes out, right? Okay, so just thinking about that, that there may be other opportunities that are richer within the books you read to children every day. So taking the time to be really proactive about looking at the words that are within a story and thinking to yourself, "Does a child-does every child in my classroom understand what those words mean?" And if not, how would I provide a definition for them?

And so we actually have another planning tool for you, and Susan will put this into chat as well, that gives teachers an opportunity to be really thinking about the books that they're going to be adding in the classroom for the next week or introducing during large or small group or having special, the new books that have just come into the library shelf for that week or month. What are some of those words that might be new to kids, and how might I be prepared with a kid-friendly definition of how to explain what it is, okay? So that's another tool for you. But the opportunities are not just within the classroom. They're outside the classroom, as well. So thinking about those things that happen within the community that are rich opportunities to bring in language, be that home language or English, into the classroom.

So these are some photos to get us kind of thinking about, what are those things that are coming up, right, that we can start talking about now? So this will be a quick one to share your ideas in chat. Looking at these two photos of a man doing pottery and a child dancing, what are some possible new words you could introduce to children with these photos? You guys are great! I wonder if we have any people who do pottery in our group. These are great words! So thinking about how to bring those back to your own community, thinking about what are those specific ceremonies or activities that happen within your own community that would prompt this kind of energy and response from your teachers? Because if it prompts a response from teachers, then they're certainly going to be inspired to bring this to the children. And, again, this is another place where I think this could be a great parent/family community activity based on literacy, about an upcoming ceremony that's happening in the community. How can we really bring children in and use this as a learning activity to be able to infuse language that's meaningful and to bring in some of that home language as well that's associated with these activities? So please, I hope this inspires you to use photos from your own community to get people inspired, teachers inspired, families inspired about talking to their kids. Because if it interests us, it certainly is beyond interesting to the children. So thank you again for your input. This is great!

We're going to start to wind down, so here are some ideas to kind of take away. Because you want to be able to expand your resources, expand your ideas about how to bring in novel words to teachers and into the classroom. So it starts with identifying those novel words. And we've talked a little bit about that today. You can use each other, use your team of teachers to brainstorm together. Just the activities we did today, I'm sure as you were reading the input from others, like, "Oh, that's a great idea! I didn't think about that word." Offer that as an opportunity to teachers to do that with their co-teachers and with the full teaching team. That'd be an amazing experience. Books that we have sitting on our shelves are loaded with novel words, but sometimes we just read right through them and keep on going. Taking some time to pause and think about those books, those songs, those chants we use, some of those routines that we do every day, are there some hidden novel words that we take for granted, that we could expand on? Think, too, about how you select your classroom materials, and be really mindful of that. You can have, just in your block area there's-I don't know if you can tell it was one of my favorite areas. But what you put in there expands conversation; it inspires kids to think about things. So even having a set of vehicles, right, be they helicopters, airplanes, semi-trucks. What's on the shelves is what kids are going to talk about. It's going to be-yeah, it's going to be what really draws you to talk and to share with one another. If you're in dramatic play, I mean, do you have things for kids to dress up? You probably do. Do you have a stethoscope? Do you have an otoscope, right? These are things that build children's vocabulary. And finally, visual reminders not only for the children but for yourselves, and we talked about taking those brainstorm lists and putting them up on the wall, because we all know it gets busy. But we want to do our best for kids, and so having these helpful little tools for us as teachers can be so valuable. And this is the bottom line. It takes intentionality, it takes planning, and it takes just being willing to pause and to offer these new words to children knowing, again, that the impact is huge, right? So it's well worth our time. But we do need to be really careful and plan how we're going to define these new words within context so kids can then take them away and use them themselves, right? That's our goal, for kids to take in these new words and use them themselves.

So this is one of our last resources that we have available for this novel words webinar, and it's the quick tips. So it is the summary of everything we've been talking about over the past hour, but it's great to be able to put it in a planning binder, send it out to teachers in an email, post this in the classroom for our classroom volunteers. Just a nice way to stay grounded in why we do what we do around novel words. So thank you again, all, for joining us. I really appreciated having you on and your level of activity in conversation. We'll end with some music, and have a lovely Friday.

[End video]

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Language Modeling and Conversations: Novel Words | ECLKC

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Discover ideas and activities for introducing new or novel words into everyday conversations with children. Learn how to engage them in rich conversations.

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Focus on Oral Language and Vocabulary Webinar

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Focus on Oral Language and Vocabulary Webinar

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Deborah Mazzeo: Hello, and welcome! Thank you all for joining us today for the fourth Planned Language Approach Big 5 webinar with a Focus on Oral Language and Vocabulary. So far, we have talked about alphabet knowledge in early writing, background knowledge and book knowledge and print concepts, and so this month we're focusing on the next Big 5 skill, which, of course, is oral language and vocabulary. For those who may not have been on the prior webinars, the Big 5 is one of the five components of a planned language approach. They are the key skills that are critical for later-school success including grade level reading.

I just want to be sure that you'll join us again in May on the 16th of May at the same time for our last webinar on the fifth Big 5 skill, which is phonological awareness. All of these webinars are recorded, and the first one on alphabet knowledge and early writing is already up and available on the Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center, or ECLKC is what we say for short, so you can feel free to listen to it online if you missed that one. So, my name is Deborah Mazzeo, and I am the cultural and linguistic practices coordinator at the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching and Learning, and I am joined here today with my copresenter Karen Nemeth. She is the senior training and technical assistance specialist for dual language learners. And before we begin, I know some folks may be new to this, so I'd like to just go over some information regarding the webinar. We'll be using some of the features of this webinar platform to help us interact, so at the bottom of your screen you'll notice these widgets. If you have any questions during a webcast, you can submit them through the purple Q&A widget. We will try to answer these during the webcast, and please know that we do capture all questions. If you have any technical questions, please enter them here as well.

A copy of today's slide deck and additional resources are available in the resource list, which is the green widget. We encourage you to download any resources or links that you may find useful. Throughout this session, we'll be using the blue group chat widget to engage with each other, and I thank you to all of those who have already shared some of your ideas for introducing new vocabulary in your programs. You can also find additional answers to some common technical issues located in the yellow help widget at the bottom of your screen. Each of these widgets are resizable and movable for a customized experience. You simply click on the widget and move it by dragging and dropping and resizing using the arrow at the top corners. Finally, if you have any trouble, try refreshing your browser by pressing F5, and be sure to log off your VPN and exit out of any other browsers.

So, with that, here is what we're planning on covering today. The tops are interwoven and connected throughout the entire presentation. You may have noticed in the resources list that there is a multipage PDF titled "Oral Language and Vocabulary." You all are the first to receive this newly updated document, which is the basis for this webinar and follows the same topics that are on our agenda. There is also a new oral language and vocabulary web page on the ECLKC, or the Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center, and as many may have heard me say before, there is a page on ECLKC for each of the Big 5 skills. So, at the end of this presentation, you should be able to understand the connections to a planned language approach, what the PLA stands for, coordinated approaches and the ELOF, which is the Early Learning Outcomes Framework. You should be able to explain what the research says about oral language and vocabulary, describe the developmental trajectory from birth to age 5, identify strategies to support children who are dual-language learners and identify effective practices for supporting each skill in different early learning settings.

So, when we talk about oral language and vocabulary, we include the points you see here on the slide. The first one is interactive and social language skills, and these are a function of our culture, which will be discussed later on in the presentation, but they include things like gesturing or taking turns while speaking and listening, and these social language skills, obviously, allow children to interact with others as they're playing with peers or with their siblings. Next is academic language skills, and this includes the rich vocabulary that allows older children to fully participate in listening, speaking, reading and writing activities in school.

Next is the receptive language skills, which includes hearing and understanding the language or languages of an environment. And then last here we have expressive language skills, which is making and using the sounds of a child's language or languages for communication. So, implementing the Big 5 includes a coordinated approach, or involves a coordinate approach I should say. All of these activities listed on the slide involve implementing a coordinated approach, and our conversation on oral language and vocabulary today is only one slice of the pie, and it falls in that slice called the Big 5 for all. You can see the image there on the slide. All of the other pieces of that pie image, though, are also very important.

The five pieces of a PLA are aligned to the sections of the DLLPA or that Dual Language Learners Program Assessment, and you can see that cover image on the slide as well, and it's a wonderful resource for assessing your own systems and services for supporting children who are dual language learners and their families. If you're implementing a planned language approach, you're implementing a coordinated approach to serving children who are DLL or dual language learners, which is required by the Head Start Program Performance Standards. Now, all of the Big 5 skills in our conversation today specifically on oral language and vocabulary are supported by research and connected to the language and literacy domain of the ELOF or Early Learning Outcomes Framework.

While I'm here showing the ELOF goals, childcare programs will see that oral language and vocabulary will also align with state's early learning and development standards. So, here on this slide I have the goals for infants and toddlers associated with oral language and vocabulary, and those appear in the language and communication domain under the language and literacy essential domain, and you see, also, the goals listed under the subdomains of attending and understanding, communicating and speaking and also vocabulary. I want to make note that these are all impacted by language and culture as children interact with family members and caretakers. Now, on this slide, we have the goals for preschoolers that are associated with oral language and vocabulary. They also appear in the language and communication domain under language and literacy essential domain, and we see the same sub-domains of attending and understanding, communicating and speaking and vocabulary. These goals are relevant for children in classrooms, family childcare and home visiting settings. And so with that, I will now turn it over to Karen and let her share a little bit about the research, so, Karen?

Karen Nemeth: Yeah, thank you, Deborah. I always like to share this part because the research about language development and early literacy is just so fascinating, and this is one are of the bigger topic that really captures my interest because oral language seems so simple. It's just about talking, but there's so much more to that story. So, we know, for example, that oral language helps children to process the language they're hearing, that children have to say words to really learn them, and they can't just say them, like, parrots, like repeating them. They have to say them in meaningful contexts and interactions, so we talked so much about the value of play in early childhood education, but it turns out that play is the place where children practice so much of this oral language in meaningful interactions with peers and adults, and they get so much valuable vocabulary learning because they're using the language, right?

So, we know that language is the foundation for communication and learning and social interactions, so if you're looking at children from any of those standpoints, language is always going to be central to what your addressing. And we have referred to the work by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff who actually developed six principles of language development that we like to share, and three of them are on your screen right now. So, we have "Children learn the words that they hear most." That's the first principle, so that's kind of interesting because children hear a lot of words. In some families they hear more words, some families they hear less words, but they hear a lot of words, and they develop an understanding of those words, their receptive language, based on the words they hear.

And so, the more we talk to children and the more meaningful and different and interesting words we use, the more we can support that early language development, but just hearing the words is not the whole story. So, children learn the words they hear the most, but they mainly learn them when they use them, so that's why we see the second principle from Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff, "Social interaction matters." Social interaction is an important way that children have to practice the words they've heard and learned, to try things out that worked, try words out that may be not so accurate and they get feedback in that natural context of those interactions, and so it's really important that as children are learning that they hear words that they can understand, and they hear words that they can use in social interactions. So, this is especially important for children who are dual language learners because they may be in the presence of a lot of words that they don't understand, and so they can't use them, and that doesn't help them develop their home language or their English. But if we make sure that all children, no matter what language they speak, are getting some input of words they can understand and use and then they have opportunities to practice those words in different contexts, social interaction matters in practicing language, both the home language and in English.

And the third principle: "Children learn words for things and events that interest them," not that are dictated by the teacher but for things that the children are interested in and excited about, things that they want to talk about. So, we have an example here of when a baby is focused on a picture of their parent and you might say, "Yes, that's your mommy. She had to go to work, but she'll be back soon. I know you'll be excited to see her," and certainly, there are a lot of words in that interaction that the adult is saying and the child is learning about, but they're making connections because you're saying words that focus on what the child is showing an interest in. And the next three principles - "Children learn words best in meaningful contexts," and this is so important. You know, we do a lot of things in early childhood that have to do with learning colors and shapes, right? But you can't have a very interesting conversation if you just learned the words for colors and shapes in your own language or in a new language, so we want, also, children to have verbs they can use and descriptive words they can use, and if they can -- If a child can learn to say the word big or learn to use the word big, they can certainly understand the word "gigantic" just as well, so we can provide those things in meaningful contexts that support their interactions and are supported by their interactions.

And then the next one, "Vocabulary learning and grammatical development are reciprocal processes." They go together. They go together. Children learn how grammar works long before they ever open a grammar textbook because grammar helps you say things that people can understand. Grammar helps you organize the thoughts that you are having about what you're hearing. So, we see, for example - Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Berta Golinkoff gave this example in their article. If you say John is blicking Mary - That's a nonsense word, blicking - you could guess that a child would know that John is doing something to Mary, and that's different from if you said John and Mary are blicking. And so just that simple question of word order really does make a difference in a child's understanding and how not only they understand what you're saying but how they organize it and store it in their brain and then how they call it forth to use it in their own interactions as well.

So, but it's all based on meaning and context and interaction, not memorization, not one-shot words one time only but repeating and practicing things that you like and are interested in and want to talk about, and then the last of the six is keeping it positive. Encouraging children to use words however it works for them to communicate, and sometimes they will make mistakes, but we focus on the content of their message, the intent of their message and support them and extent their messages rather than correcting their grammar or their vocabulary.

And over time, children do learn from our high-quality language modeling that we provide. We know, also, that oral language and vocabulary are rooted very much in culture, and so we want to pay attention to what families do and how families feel about the language interactions that they have at home. So, children develop ideas about how and when to use language beginning at birth based not only on how adults interact with each other but what are the expectations the adults have for children? And families and culture vary very much in terms of what they expect about how much a child is allowed to talk or encouraged to talk, and so getting to know more about the family and what they are feeling and how they are interacting with their child can give you a lot of insight about what that child's experiences have been and how you can understand the family's practices and help the family understand the choices you make in supporting oral language and vocabulary in the program.

So, we know that families and cultures may differ in their expectations, such as at what age should a child begin to speak? When do you expect children to start talking? When should children speak and not speak at meals or in the car or, you know, whenever they have something to say or only if they have a question? You might ask families to talk about who does the child talk to? Who do they have the most conversations with? Who has the most conversations with their child and provides that important opportunity for oral language practice and expression? And, you know, does the family feel like children should do all the talking they want, or do some families want to limit how much the child talks? And some families see talking in different ways in terms of the role of the child in the family, so, getting to know what the family feels is also important because we want to make those connections with families as well as with the child and make things meaningful in context. So, we have some important resources on the ECLKC to help with these discussions, and here is a really important one called Code Switching and "Why it Matters and How to Respond."

And I want to ask you in the chat box if you've seen examples of code switching with your children. Type in some examples that you've heard because these are some amazing examples of brain power because the drive for young children to use language to communicate is so powerful that their brain enables them to pull words from whatever language is available to them, and that's what code switching reveals to us: an extraordinary strength of brain power that enables a child to get that message across by putting together whatever resources are available in that brain.

So, children who know more than one language have learned some word in one language and other words in their other language, so the total number of words that a child knows adds up to at least as many as the total number of words that a monolingual child knows, but the number of words they know in their home language might be a smaller number, and the number of words in English might be a smaller number, but they put it together, and it makes a really rich and interesting total vocabulary that reveals what the brain knows and how they can talk about it.

So, code switching is something that we really allow and support because it really shows us how that child's brain is working, and, yes, as adults, we don't want to present code switching so much because we're trying to present a clear model for the best possible use in one language or the other, but you're writing your own examples. I know we had some examples from our work, such as a child that might say, "Quiero jugar outside." I want to play outside.

Or this is not what I want to comer. Right? This is not what I want to eat. Those sentences sure get the message across, but think how creative that behind-the-scenes work the brain is doing to get that message across because communication is so critical, and didn't we just talk about how the research says that those social interactions - Well, those are important, and they are supported by communication. These factors all go together, and none of them is about, you know, making sure the child is absolutely correct. They're all about supporting those interactions, that meaning and that communication.

Now we're about to have a poll question because we wanted to draw your attention to another resource, which is the manual for developing classroom language models in your program, and I'm going to ask in the chat room just real quick if as soon as you see this, have you seen this before? This resource on the ECLKC is called "Classroom Language Models: A Leader's Implementation Manual," and many programs use it to - as a guide to address the kinds of language models, the way the classrooms are set up and how they use language. That's what a classroom language model is about. So, in a minute I'm going to show you the poll so that the choice is based on what's in this manual. First of all, some classrooms are set up where the teaching is done in English, but they provide some support of each child's home language, and that's letter A.

Letter B could be for dual language classrooms where there is a focus on teaching in both the home language and English or both - or two languages that are chosen for that classroom. Like Misty, B is saying English and Spanish, right? And then that there's a balance in the use of the two languages, and for C, a home language classroom that's used as a foundation to begin to support English development, and then some classrooms are just English only, or you might be not sure. And now I'm going to administer the poll, so I see that you're writing things in the chat box, but I'm going to ask you also to actually click it on the poll, so we can have a count. So, here's your chance now to go ahead. Even if you've already put it in the chat box, you're ready now to answer the question, so please click it on the poll so we could see. People will then be able to see what the results are.

Okay. I'm giving you a minute or two. You've had a chance. See, I gave you a chance to think of what your answer is, so this is the time for you to start typing it into the polls, so then when I show you the results, you'll be able to see how your answer compared to the other people in the group, but I think when we take a look at, also, some of your written answers, we'll see some more details about how you address these things. Okay. I see more than 100 people have already answered the poll. I'm going to close it in 10 seconds. Okay, and now I just clicked something, and my friend, Deborah, is now going to be amused that when I clicked something, I'm not sure what you can see.

Deborah: Hey, Karen. This is --

Karen: Yes, yep.

Deborah: We can - I can see the poll results.

Karen: Oh, yeah. It's - Okay. It's up. When I click too many things, all of a sudden everything goes away. So, now can you see something interesting with this poll? That the first few people that voted, voted for English with home language support, and for a few minutes - for a few seconds, that was 100 percent of the answers, but now look at what a balance we have. Many people are using home - English with home language support, but also about a third of you are fully using a dual-language classroom model, and some are using home language as a foundation for English, and that leaves a very small number of - Well, not too small - a quarter of the people still using English only, and so - And it's okay to be not sure because, you know, there are still a lot of variations in the way these things are played out, but we really want to make sure you knew about this resource so that - and to think more about how you're using those languages models intentionally to support oral language and vocabulary. And now we're going to talk about how that shows up in the developmental progression of the ELOF. Are you ready, Deb?

Deborah: I'm ready. Thank you so much, Karen. So, we've heard about the what, and we've heard about they why and now we'll get into the how of developing oral language and vocabulary, so we're going to start our conversation on developmental progression with babies and know that many of the strategies we'll be sharing in a moment can be used with toddlers, too. It's likely that these strategies will be familiar to you all. Maybe you've been using them already or if you're a supervisor or a coach, you've supported staff on using them. They may be strategies that are used in your curriculum, which - The curriculum should provide the experiences and activities in which you'll use these strategies.

Okay? So, in this table, we see the goal for infants and toddlers under language and communication and the subdomain of communicating and speaking, and it means the child communicates needs and wants nonverbally and by using language. So, as adults we support babies oral language development by talking to them even before they're born, right? So, when adults give even the youngest babies opportunities to participate in quote, unquote conversations, they're helping children become eager and able talkers, first, as the infant babbles and coos and later as they speak their first words. And so babies build oral language and vocabulary when adults are responsive to their needs for feeding, changing, comforting and cuddling, when adults use child-directed speech or parentese, and that simply means speaking in a higher pitch or at a slower rate with, like, clearer enunciation or simpler and shorter phrases. You probably get the idea. The next bullet there, when they talk, read and sing to babies in one or more languages, and we often recommend that it be in the language that the adult is most comfortable using because that's when the richer vocabulary is shared.

The next bullet is engage babies in back-and-forth exchanges or conversations by responding with different facial expressions and gestures or different words each time a baby babbles and coos, and, you know, you may want to wait for a response before responding back. And then lastly here on the slide, talk to babies about what they see, hear, touch, smell and taste, and that's what you'll be talking about in those back-and-forth exchanges. Here we have a few more. You'll want to explain routines to babies as they are - as you're doing them, so as you're getting them dressed, involved in mealtime, diapering, bathing, those routines. Use gestures, such as pointing, to direct children's attention to objects or people of interest, like if you're outside pointing and saying look! See the squirrel?

The next one, teaching older babies, like 9 months and up, to use simple signs or gestures to help them communicate basic messages like eat or drink or all done, and this would be separate from using sign language with children who are hearing impaired. And then lastly, sharing culturally and linguistically diverse books with brightly colored illustrations or photos and then labeling and describing these pictures. And so on this next slide here, we have two briefs that can support you in your work with babies, and they can also be found in the resources widget, so be sure to download them. The first, on the left-hand side, is called "Hearing Language is Learning," and it provides information around the science behind how babies learn language and some really great tips on how to support it. There are two additional briefs in that series called "Growing Up as a Dual Language Learner" and then also "Cognitive Benefits of Bilingualism," so definitely do a search for those on the ECLKC. The next document on the right-hand side is from a series called connecting research to practice. They're tips for working with infants, toddlers and their families, and that series on the right was actually developed to support home visitors in their work with children and families, but in addition to home visitors, teachers and family childcare providers can certainly use them to learn more about the recent research on early childhood development was well. So, next, before I advance

to the next slide, you're going to see a short video clip of a teacher interacting with an infant and offering him some nesting cups and a ball to explore; so, I'm going to ask you to watch for the strategies that you see this teacher using, and then also think how might these be the same or different if the child was a dual language learner, so here we go.

[Video clip begins]

Teacher: Tower. Flip it over. Oh! Whoops! We're going to look at this. This is yellow. Look how round it is. It's a circle. Yeah. It's exciting. Watch! We're going to take the blue ball, and it's in.

[Video clip ends]

Deborah: All right. So, what did you think? What strategies did you see the teacher use? Well, I'll get us started with, you know, some of the gestures for example. So, did you all notice that to reinforce the word round she runs her finger along the edge of the stacking cup? We talked about that use of parentese, too. Did you see how she was kind of using a higher-pitched voice as she talked to the baby? I see Barbara answering here "Thinking aloud." Jan, "Descriptive words and gestures." Yeah, Holly, "The color of the cup," exactly. Keep using those specific vocabulary words, right? Kelly is talking about descriptive language. "Look how round it is," like a circle, the blue ball. "It's in." So, lots of great vocabulary in this 30-second clip. Thank you all. All right. So, since we talked about babies for the first goal, we're going to talk about toddlers for this one. Just know that the strategies we just talked about for babies will also support the development in this goal, too. So, in this table, we also see an infant-toddler goal under the language and communication domain and the vocabulary subdomain, and it reads, the child "uses an increasing number of words in communication and conversation with others," and so the number of words children know and understand expands pretty rapidly from 18 months to 3 years.

Toddlers are also developing expressive language and vocabulary when they begin to combine words and sign or speak in simple sentences and, you know, begin to say things like "go bye," "bye and all done" or "Mommy home." It's important to note that not all toddlers develop oral language and vocabulary in the same way. Some will show slow steady growth while others may progress in spurts or, like, sudden increases in the number of words that they know and use. Toddlers, of course, learn the words in the languages they hear, so it's important that they hear lots of language whether it's in English or another home language or both during this time of development. So, let's look at some of the strategies on how to support toddlers.

So, toddlers develop oral language and vocabulary when adults talk and/or sign to them frequently using different and interesting words, have one-on-one conversations every day and aim for two or more conversational turns for each speaker. Intentionally teach words and word meanings, so, for example, you might say that sign says "caution," so we need to be careful, and then you repeat these new words over time to increase the toddler's understanding, so, you know, later on that day, you might say that yellow light means caution just like the sign we saw earlier. Cars need to be careful.

So, you know, that's just one example, but it is important that you repeat it often and enough so that they really begin to understand the meaning. Answer children's questions, particularly those about how and why the world works the way it does. For example, you might say the sun is setting, and that means it's going down. That's why it's getting dark outside. That's an example there. And then build on what children sign or say, so, for example, if a child points to a plane in the sky and says plane or if the child points to a picture of a plane on his assistive communication device, you might say yes, that's an airplane. The airplane is flying high across the sky, and so here, you're actually repeating and you're expanding. And then lastly here, say words in the child's home language, so, you may need to reach out to the parents and integrate words that are used in their home language to communicate between a parent and child, and these, of course, may be familiar to the child in the home as that's where it's likely often spoken. Here we have a couple more. Model how to use language correctly.

For example, if the child is saying the bear go to sleep, you might respond with, oh, you're bear went to sleep. Goodnight, bear. And just note here that you do not want to ask the child to repeat the phrase correctly. Over time, they'll learn the proper language structure, so, you know, just accept what they say and be excited and, you know, repeat and expand like we talked about. Ask questions that invite toddlers to provide explanations, so, you know, how did you get those blocks to stand up? And even if they don't have, you know, the language, you're modeling the question that offers opportunities for the child to think and then respond, so keep that in mind. You'll want to read and re-read books written just for them, and these kinds of books encourage singing and clapping. They may be concept books that teach new ideas and, of course, books that tell a good story. You might need to adapt some books for children who have difficulties holding and turning pages, so, for example, you might attach tabs to books, to the pages for easier turning, and then lastly here, encourage imaginary plan and introduce words not used in everyday experiences, and this offers, again, another opportunity to introduce new vocabulary. And so, with that -

Oh. Here we have another video that I'm going to show. Oh. Let me set this up for you before I play this video. So, in this next video, the teacher sits as a table with a small group of young toddlers, and the toddlers just explored avocados and are now starting to explore bananas, and so, again, I'm going to invite you to react to the video. Feel free to place comments about what you notice in the chat. Again, based on the strategies that we just covered, feel free to chat about, you know, what you see the teacher doing, the children doing and what this tells us about what the children know. So, here we go again.

[Video begins]

Teacher: You like it? Mia has opened her banana all the way. She's getting all the banana out of there. Huh, Mia? Yes. You're pulling that peel with your teeth. Yes, and getting that banana open. How does it taste? Hmm? Does it taste the same or different than the avocado? Hmm? What do you think? Do you think it tastes the same or different? Hmm? Bananas are sweet, huh? And avocados are not so sweet. They're just plain. You see our avocado seed? Yes. This was in the middle of the avocado.

[Video ends]

Deborah: All right. I just love this clip, and I, you know, I just get so excited every time I see it. I see several folks responding here. The parallel talk, the vocabulary. Yeah, she's totally narrating what the toddlers are doing. "Mia is opening the banana. You're pulling it with your teeth." And so, by doing that, she's talking to them and modeling that language use, right? Did you notice that she's also asking questions? "How does it taste?" Even though they may not have the vocabulary, right, she's providing it. She - You know, she also is intentionally teaching those words. "Bananas are sweet." So, many of you all here are saying, yeah, she's using that soft tone, using the word peel. I just love it. This is great. Expressive, showing excitement, I know. I want to be a child in this teacher's classroom. She's so student-centered. Yes. Yeah, she even asks, "Do you think it tastes the same or different?" Someone just responded there. Wonderful. Thank you all. All right. I think now I'm going to turn it over to Karen to talk about the preschoolers, so, Karen, do you want to take it away?

Karen: Here we go! So, basically, what I want to say about the learning oral language and vocabulary for preschoolers is pretty much everything Deborah just said about infants and toddlers and then some icing on the cake. How about that? We want to add to those experiences, and we want to capitalize on the preschoolers growing receptive language, so when they're younger, we work so hard on supporting their receptive language because we know they understand more than they're ready to say, but as they start saying more and more things, we want to give them plenty of support for that oral language and plenty of opportunity to use it in meaningful ways.

So, once again, we see using lots of different and interesting words, and we do want to use words that are not commonly found in everyday speak. However, that doesn't mean using uncommon words they'll never use again. It means adding interesting, unusual words that do apply to the kinds of building that they're doing with blocks or their outdoor play. Like, we were saying, you know, oh, my goodness. You are soaring down that slide, and your block tower is colossal, and we are adding words that they might not have used before but that they could use, so they practice their oral language. And this idea of explicitly teaching what new words mean, it turns out from recent research, to really be rising up as a powerful strategy to use in preschool, and that goes for English only as well as for supporting dual language learners. Where we might help a child understand new words, like first referring to the familiar word in their home language and then explaining how that familiar word is connected to a new word in English. It makes it easier for a child to learn a new word when they can see how it's connected to something they already know, and then they are able to use it. And that we want to find ways to tuck in definitions of new words during informal conversations and interactions with children, explaining unfamiliar words when they come up during reading, reading books that provide interesting words so that we have a chance then to talk about them.

But this is so important to remember that if you read a book to children and it introduces some wild and wonderful words, they won't stick if the child never hears them again or never uses them. If you read a book with wonderful words, then you should find ways to use those words elsewhere in the classroom or at other times of the day, and making connections with the child culture and traditions is a key component of that work. It's really important to have one-on-one conversations with children every day. Some teachers even track that so that they don't miss it. You know how sometimes you have children - You - you might feel like you're having conversations all day long, and then you might realize, you know, I remember talking to this child and this child, but there's a couple children in my class I can't remember the last time I had a conversation, and those might be the ones that really need it the most.

So, think about ways to build in those conversation times and to find ways to support conversations with the children who are dual language learners. You know what? You're not the only person that has to have those conversations. I'm going to say this, and I'm going to ask you to write in the chat room, who else can you encourage to have conversations in children's home languages? And watch what happens in the chat box when you people start putting in your suggestions. If you don't speak all the home languages in your classroom, who else could you teach about conversations or encourage to have conversations or bring in to have conversations in home languages with those children? Sometimes we call them conversation friends. Okay, so we'll see if you have some examples, and I'll chime in, in a minute. We want to encourage children to tell us stories about what's happening in their life or what they've been doing, and sometimes those stories take a long time, and we really need to find the time to be patient.

I mean, we could have enough adults prepared to listen and respond to those stories. We need to take outings and have lots of experiences that give children lots to talk about or sign about, and, my goodness, I love the use of sign language as a way to connect children who speak a variety of languages, right? Because if you learn signs, then children - And you have children in your classes who speak several languages, everyone can come together in their understanding with using the signs. It helps bridge those connections, and look at all the suggestions we've got. Grandparents, foster grandparents, family members, people from the community, right? How about if you have local, bilingual high-school students that need a community volunteer project or people from the local university that could visit and volunteer as conversation buddies in your classrooms? Lots of opportunities, so, it's not all on one person's shoulder.

Oh, look at all these great ideas. This is just an amazing group, you guys. We also want to model appropriate language without correcting children but really being aware of how we construct sentences and how we communicate with children to model good language. Give them good models that they can learn from and supporting pretend play by providing rich, engaging objects that give children a lot to talk about, and if those objects in the classroom relate to the words they learned in the stories, that's going to help them practice to say those words more often. And now here's a video clip.

[Video begins]

[Chatter]

Teacher: That's a - Here. You can have this, Emile. [Speaks native language]

Boy: This is the last one I'm doing.

Teacher: We have a lot of pasta. Don't worry, okay, Dro?

There you go. Boy: [Speaks native language]

Teacher: [Speaks native language]

Girl: Teacher! Teacher! Teacher, right here. Dro: [Speaks native language]

Teacher: [Speaks native language]

Boy: No, Camile.

Dro: Yes [speaks native language]

Teacher: Uh-huh.

Teacher #2: Who wants pasta? Who wants pasta? Girl: Me!

Me! Teacher: Right. You know what Dro said [Indistinct] just now?

Girl: Teacher!

Teacher: He said he's going to be getting dirt because he wants to plant it over here in our garden.

Dro: Yeah, no. I want to give it all to my friend, the dirt, and then we're going to plant all of us. [Chatter]

Teacher: What do you want to plant, Dro? [Chatter]

Teacher: [Speaks native language] So, he wants to plant cucumber, huh?

[Video ends]

Karen: So, you can see from that video that the teacher is taking her time having conversations with those children, letting those conversations keep going back-and-forth turns, but she's facilitating by adding explanations and explaining what one child is saying to the other children and back and forth, so, she's modeling how people who speak different languages can interact together. So, is there anything else that you notice about the way that teacher interacted? There's more in this video with the older children than the strategies you noticed in the infant-toddler videos, so if you see some additional strategy ideas in the video you just watched, just put that in the chat box. We can all capture it. And so, we are going to be watching for your strategy. I see Lydia said she loves those feedback loops, and she saw that the teacher waited. That's a hard thing. It's a hard thing for me as a webinar presenter, but sometimes we have to just take a breath and let a child take a bit to understand what our question was, think about what they want to say and then say it back to us. We can help the other children learn to be patient with each other as well. Thomasina is saying she loves the engagement. Latisha is saying, "The same thing can apply when you talk to infants, and the same kind of patience and eye contact and getting down on their level is also important for preschoolers."

And so, we know we only have an hour today, and we want to have more of these conversations. You're sharing already such great ideas in the chat, and now we can offer you the opportunity to keep talking about talking, and so, Deborah manages this Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Practices community on MyPeers, and those of you who belong to MyPeers already can just sign on for this group, and you will see that we're going to ask some more questions to keep this conversation going. The kinds of things you're talking about today - Imagine if all these big ideas could be shared with other people who are not on the webinar and that you can also ask questions to help us meet your needs by participating in the community.

And if you're not yet a member of MyPeers, the link that's on the slide will take you to the instructions of how to join. I'm asking you now if you have any more questions to make sure you type them into the chat box or the questions link, so we can try to answer them as we get to the end of the webinar coming up at 4 o'clock. This is another handout that we wanted to draw your attention to. These are strategies for parents and families to talk about building home-school connections, supporting daily activities for infants, toddlers and preschoolers and uses a lot of examples to help families and education staff share together about the kinds of things that can build that homeschool connection to support oral language and vocabulary. And we wanted to let you know that there's a new resource available on the ECLKC, and this is an amazing thing: a curriculum consumer report with new reviews of all the current curriculum models that are being used that you sign on to this resource, and for infants and toddlers, preschoolers and home-based, you can look up different curriculum models and see how they compare to each other, see how they answer the questions you have about the kinds of qualities you want.

You can see the features all listed in this slide, so, we really encourage you to visit that curriculum model, curriculum consumer guide, and then look at this resource coming up. On May 28 to 31 there's a 3-day e-institute to support home visitors, so this is a new event that we want to make sure everyone knows about. You can share with the people you work with, and the link is here, and the details - It starts on May 28, and there are four micro-learning sessions, so, it's like going to a conference, but you don't have to leave your house, and there'll be a ton of really rich information available on the home visitor e-institute with the link that you see on your screen.

And we also have an evaluation form that we ask you to please use this e-mail or ask questions using the phones, which are places where you can ask questions, find out about resources, ask specific things about your program or your classroom, and we will respond. And then here's the list of resources that we shared with you today that you should all be able to access from the resource section, and included in the resource section is the PowerPoint so you can see these links, and this is a link to complete the evaluation for this session.

So, if anyone has any questions, we'll stay on for another 60 seconds, and after this we'll see you on MyPeers and continue the conversation, so thank you all for your participation.

Thank you to Deborah. Thank you to our team behind the scenes with Erica and Alyssa and Shawn, and thank you for attending this program.

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Focus on Oral Language and Vocabulary | ECLKC

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Deborah Mazzeo: Hello, and welcome! Thank you all for joining us today for the fourth Planned Language Approach Big 5 webinar with a Focus on Oral Language and Vocabulary. So far, we have talked about alphabet knowledge in early writing, background knowledge and book knowledge and print concepts, and so this month we're focusing on the next Big 5 skill, which, of course, is oral language and vocabulary.

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Going Deeper into the CLASS Measure: Language Modeling

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Going Deeper into the CLASS Measure: Language Modeling

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In my last post, I shared some of my personal struggles to master the CLASS measure and promised to take you on a "deeper dive" into some of the trickier CLASS concepts I encountered in my CLASS journey.

We'll start with conversations -what we might consider the vehicle for all of the other Instructional Support dimensions.

Overall, the focus of Language Modeling (LM) is for teachers to model more complex language and to increase the amount of talking kids do. So when observing and coding for LM, I always ask myself these key questions first:

1. How successful was the teacher at getting kids talking? Not that much? Kind of? Very?

2. Was there a balance of teacher and child talk?

3. Was it obvious that the teacher was intentionally modeling more advanced, more complex language for the children?

4. Were the back-and-forth exchanges I observed really conversations or just strings of questions and answers (i.e., question-answer-question-answer-question-answer)?

It is important to remember that conversations are dialogues-they include not only questions and responses but actual sharing of information between two persons. The "contingent responding" behavioral marker underscores that teachers' responses and follow-up questions should be relevant to what the child has said. Conversationally, children often don't give us a lot to go on, so we can easily fall into the trap of skipping the responding part and moving straight on to another follow-up question, which results in the question-answer-question-answer type exchange, not an authentic conversation. I call it "peppering a child with questions"- something no child really enjoys. Often times, children will clam up or walk away rather than engage; they feel like they're being quizzed.

One coach I recently spoke with said she encourages teachers to converse with children "the same way you would while getting your nails done with a friend." Different content, obviously, but the natural, dialogic flow of the conversation should feel just as comfortable. This means that teachers need to be encouraged to "just talk with" children, rather than talking "to" them or "at" them.

When coding the dimension of Language Modeling, coders need to analyze and evaluate the form, frequency, and the effectiveness of teacher-child conversations. By effectiveness, I mean "how much talking did the children do?" It should be at least as much as the teacher did.

Remember that a question-answer string will not count as a high-range conversation, as the sharing of information (contingent responding) is missing, often resulting in very short responses on the part of the child. With high-range conversations, "there is a natural flow of information during center times or other open periods of time that encourages students to converse and makes them feel as if they are valued conversational partners" (Pre-K CLASS Manual, p. 79).

Stay tuned, in my next blog I will invite you to dig deeper to consider another Instructional Support indicator, this time from the Quality of Feedback dimension.
We are excited to have Sara Beach guest blog. As a former Teachstone Staff Trainer, she frequently presented on topics such as Helping Teachers with the Instructional Supports, through active, adult-learning approaches. She has been an Infant-toddler teacher, center director, education specialist, coach-mentor, and early childhood college instructor, and her highest honor has been supporting teachers.

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Going Deeper into the CLASS Measure: Language Modeling

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Learn how to take your Language Modeling skills deeper using these reflective questions.

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How to respond to children who as "Why?"

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How to respond to children who as "Why?"