Let’s Chat! Building Children’s Language and Literacy Skills Through Everyday Conversations

Did you know that talking with your child is one of the best things you can do to support their reading abilities? Conversations help them build strong language skills. These skills lay the foundation for communicating, reading, and writing for the rest of their life.

Here’s the best part: you don’t need to buy anything or change your daily routine. Just look for opportunities to add more conversation moments in your existing daily routine.

Try out these three strategies when talking with your child: 

1. Use more advanced words and longer sentences. Think about what your child already knows, then go a little beyond that. Introduce them to more advanced vocabulary. Instead of saying “The squirrel ran down the street.” try “The fluffy, gray squirrel sprinted down the street.” Or, instead of using “cold” in a sentence, use synonyms like “freezing” or “icy”. You can use more advanced sentence structure by adding to your sentence. For example, “The fluffy, gray squirrel sprinted down the street because it was being chased by the dog.”
2. Practice back-and-forth conversations. When you are talking with your child, ask them open-ended questions. Encourage them to fully answer your questions and ask you some of their own. Try to go a little more in-depth about one topic before moving on to the next.
3. Keep the conversations going. Try talking about both routine and more meaningful topics throughout the day. Have a goal in mind for your conversation and use that to guide you. Talk about what’s happening now, what already happened, or what’s coming up. For example, while getting ready for the day, you might say: “It’s time to get dressed! Tell me which outfit you want to wear today.” Or, “What are you excited about at school today?”

Notice that two of these three strategies are focused on getting your child talking. Modeling is important, but your child’s skills will grow the most when they use new words and phrases themselves.

Here are some ways you can include these strategies into your daily routine:

Mealtimes. These moments are great for sharing conversations with your child. Sit and chat about… well, anything you want! You can talk about what you are eating, what you can see on the table, the weather, or what your plans are for the rest of the day.  Be sure to ask questions that need more than a "yes" or "no," like “What do you think we should do after breakfast? or “How do you think the blueberries got into the pancakes?” or “What are you most excited about doing today?” This kind of question invites your child to share much more. Take multiple turns talking about the same topic before you move on to talk about something else.

Time outside. Take a walk and notice things together. Talk with your child about plants, animals, buildings, and street signs. Take turns pointing out what you see and describing it to one another.  Don't just name things — add details too with adjectives, like "tall house," "quick rabbit," or "crunchy leaves.". Describe the colors, the shapes, and even the smells that you experience.

Running errands. Keep up a running commentary as you are checking things off your to-do list. Act like the announcer on a sports broadcast telling the audience everything they can see and hear along the way. Use this opportunity to introduce new vocabulary and sentence structures for your child. At the grocery store? Talk about the deliciousmelons, the oblong rolls of paper towels, and the rapidly moving conveyer belts at the check-out line. Encourage your child to take a turn at being the one narrating what you are doing, too.

Story time. Pick a book with colorful, easy-to-recognize pictures. Get your child involved by pointing to objects or actions in the pictures and asking, “What is this?” or “What is she doing?”. If they're not sure, help them find the answer, then ask a follow-up question about it. Ask open-ended questions that encourage your children to share, like “What do you see on this page?” and “What is happening in this picture?”. These questions turn your child into an active participant in reading and are powerful ways to help build their language skills. 

Bedtime. This is a good time to look back through the day and pick a few of the special moments to reminisce about. Use phrases like “remember when” and “earlier today” to signal that you are talking about something that happened in the past. Ask your child to share what they remember and then prompt them with questions like, “What did we do next?” to help them say more about what happened. 

For more ideas about language-building conversations, see the Super Day Replay activity.