Playing With Words: Teacher Language During Children's Playtime

• In Event: 25.068 - Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: 25.068-19 - Vocabulary Instruction for Young Children

Abstract

Child-directed playtime (CDP) in preschools provides an opportunity for teachers to engage in child-initiated, relevant, and developmentally appropriate conversations with children. The language that is used during play is relevant to children’s interests and experiences (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Lightbown & Spada, 1999) and is therefore more likely to stick. Although previous research (Hicks, 2013) has demonstrated that teacher talk varies widely across CDP contexts, the quantity, quality, and effects of that language has yet to be studied. This study compares higher and lower quality CDPs in terms of the quantity and sophistication of teacher language. We found that there was more talk and more sophisticated vocabulary in higher-quality preschools. Implications for teacher training and future research are discussed.

Author

• Judy Hicks Paulick, University of Virginia