Complex Preschool Teacher Talk, Content Area, and Child Outcome

• In Event: Teaching and Curriculum in Early Childhood

Abstract

Children who attend preschool classrooms with more frequent complex teacher talk show larger gains in language skills. Yet, the extent to which different activity contexts during instruction may be especially important for promoting language development needs further attention. This longitudinal study involved randomly selecting and recruiting 63 pre-kindergarten classrooms in 6 rural counties in North Carolina and 455 children in those classrooms. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that preschool teachers varied how frequently they used complex talk during literacy, math, science and social studies activities, and that the frequency of complex language in science activities in which complex talk was more frequent related to gains in children’s language skills. Potential implications of these findings for research and practice will be discussed.

Authors

• Wonkyung Jang, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Margaret R. Burchinal, University of Virginia