Listening and Responding to Child Talk

Supporting Oral Proficiency in the Early Years

Apr 21, 2009

Strong verbal skills lead to reading success. Parents and caregivers can encourage oral proficiency by listening and responding to young children when they talk.

One of the prerequisites for reading is oral proficiency. Children develop verbal skills when adults talk to them, and when they are in the presence of conversing adults. Children grow in their oral proficiency when they have opportunities to talk and when they have things to talk about. Parents and caregivers can also encourage child talk by listening.

Be Patient

Young children, in their early communication efforts, need more time to work out what they want to say. Wait for the child to finish speaking before you respond. Try not to jump in with corrections or to put words into his or her mouth.

By the time children are three, you may be flooded with incessant questions. Listen and patiently answer them. By five, they seem to talk non-stop to anyone and about everything. Bear with them and the stories that they tell again and again, and with the jokes that they are experimenting with. Be equally respectful, if for whatever reason, the child does not seem too eager at that point to want to talk about anything with you.

Young children will have issues with waiting and tend to forget what they want to say. They want your immediate attention and response, and do remember that you and your child may have different ideas on what constitute as urgent matters. However, despite their desperation to talk to you, young children need to learn that they cannot interrupt at will. When you are engaged in an activity, acknowledge the child’s presence and say for example, “Mummy is on the phone with grandma. We’ll talk once I am through.”

Show Interest

When your child speaks, listen and give the child the full attention that you would give to adults. Stop what you are doing, if possible, and come down to the child’s eye level. Eye contact is essential when listening. Nod and offer suitable facial responses to show your sensitivity to what they say. Use phrases such as "Oh!" and "Go on" to show interest. Prompt for more information or to keep the story going by asking open-ended follow up questions that require specific answers. For example, “And what did Uncle Bob do to the tree?” Elaborate on, rather than correct their stumbling efforts at self-expression. Summarise what they say as this shows that you have heard them out.

Through such responses, you send the message to the child that what he or she says is important and taken seriously. You show that you value and respect the child, and this is a wonderful boost to the child’s self-esteem. Your acknowledgment of their verbal efforts therefore encourages them to continue to explore with the language.

Special Listening Time

Consider as well even setting aside some time when you can listen and give your child complete focus. Bed or bath times may be suitable.

Feedback Strategies to Encourage Talk

Here are some strategies that may be adopted to extend and support child talk, so that vocabulary expands, and sentences increase in length and complexity.

In short, while freedom of speech is encouraged, children must be mindful of what they say. Parents need to guide children to be respectful when communicating with others, and to refrain from rude, hurtful and offensive statements.

Dockrell, J, Stuart, M & King, D. “Supporting early oral language skills”. Literacy Today, 40. (2004)

The copyright of the article Listening and Responding to Child Talk in Early Childhood is owned by Carolyn Marie Choo. Permission to republish Listening and Responding to Child Talk in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.