[Listen Again] Strengthening Language Comprehension in Young Learners with Tricia Zucker and Sonia Cabell

We are two educators who want the best for all kids , and we know you do too .

So can you start by just explaining these five turns in a conversation ? What does that actually mean ? What would that look like for a teacher ? What happens in each turn ? Like what ?

So rather than having the regular conversation that is , um , you know , I ask a question , the child responds and I say good job , and then I kind of move on , we just want to stretch that conversation a little bit further to about five turns . Might be more than five turns , but five is sort of a nice easy number to remember and also strive for five rhymes .

So it was an easy way for a lot of the teachers that we coach in our statewide projects to get a sense of okay , how long should I keep this conversation with a young learner going ? So , yeah , that's the general idea and I'll walk through the steps . But I mean , sonia , is that a good way to ?

And we have to also say we didn't make up the term strive for five . It's a term that's been used and that was pioneered by David Dickinson , who was a researcher at Vanderbilt , and so we have used this term but reached out to him first to ask his opinion about it . So we were okay in using the term .

But yeah , no , I think that I'm often asked about that , is it , you know ? Is it five ? Should I stop at five ? You know ? But it's the multi-turn conversations . Keeping it going is what's important .

So having that idea of just like how do we keep this conversation going with this one student one way or another , it's really helpful to think about that way .

But strive for five happens maybe in read alouds or in content area instruction . It also can happen on the playground . It's any time that you are having an intentional conversation . It's five turns . So the first turn usually starts with a teacher asking a great open-ended question .

The second turn is a child's turn to respond to that question and the third turn is contingent on what the child said . So if the child answers correctly , the teacher scaffolds up , asks a more challenging question . So add a little something , step it up a notch .

But alternatively , if the child answered incorrectly or didn't quite seem to be understanding the initial conversation question , then the teacher scaffolds down . We step it down a notch , make it easier . And then fourth turn goes back to the child . It's their turn to respond again .

You listen to what they said and then you usually need to close out that conversation at turn five as a teacher and just build on what the child said , you recast their ideas or you expand on what they said by building just a little bit more on the child's words , maybe modeling some sophisticated vocabulary or grammar , but that's it .

It's five turns where the teacher usually starts , child teacher , child teacher .

And so if you're watching this , you can see I'm doing this counting on my fingers , because that's what we often do when we're coaching teachers , is we play classroom videos and we just count on our fingers how many turns the conversation went , so that we can strive to keep it going to at least five turns .

You're trying to keep it going with that one child , not just shifting to the next child , even if you're talking about the same thing . So you ask a question , the child answers and then , if it's not quite right , you don't go to Sally to see if Sally has the answer to the same question . You stick with that one student and scaffold them .

So at that point it either is just like good job , it ends , or we could go to another , like typically we might go to another student , or it's a little awkward if the student who we're talking to doesn't necessarily know , like right , have an answer that we're like oh okay , Like I need to help them get on track .

So instead of kind of turning away from that discomfort , we're leaning into it and we're practicing stretching it with that student , and I know there's benefits for other students as well that we're going to get into , Cause I'm sure teachers listening are thinking okay , so this is , is this benefiting more than just that one student I'm having the turn with ?

But before we do , could you share some specific examples of what this looks like ? And if you're listening , there's so many examples in the book , so a little plug for the book , but I'll let you share .

I stick with that child , even if they gave an incorrect answer , because it really builds trust and it shows that you're a responsive conversation partner , who it's okay , it's a safe place to say a wrong answer , because you are going to make that child feel seen and heard and successful , even if you have to keep stepping it down , stepping it down , stepping it

down for several conversation turns and we'll walk through a little bit more of those . But they can be really simple downward scaffolds , like just reframing that first big question into a more simple , you know , forced choice or either , or kind of question .

If that's not enough , step it down again and give the child a little hint where they kind of fill in the last missing word of the sentence and you know that's only a one word response , but it's still . It's still conversation and it's still supporting a child who may have very limited language or be learning English .

And finally , if the child still does not respond , you can just model a correct answer , invite them to repeat it . And if they do not want to repeat it , no problem . You just keep smiling and nodding and showing them that that's okay .

Then you recast a little bit of what happened and close out that conversation , because that really does create this safe space to not to not necessarily know how to respond to the teacher's questions , but to see that you know he or she took care of me , like they carried me through that conversation . So , sonia , do you want to sort ?

I want you to think about this question as I read , and an example that we have from the three little pigs is how do the pigs feelings change during the story ?

So this is an open ended question , right , and an open ended question means that the child has to give more than a one word answer for it to be a correct response or an adequate response and , in this particular question , also allows for maybe multiple correct answers . So so do you want to role play with me , tricia ?

Do you want to be the student or the teacher ?

She had partially correct answers it's not that it was totally incorrect , right . So she gives a response that what cues you to go downward scaffold or provide more support is either no answer , an incorrect answer , or a partially correct answer . And you can see , in this case I supported her to get a more complete answer .

I can see how I can get to the whole answer with the next question , but I don't know quite what to do . You call that an upward scaffold , right ?

Is so when you're upward scaffolding , you're providing more of a challenge , so let's start with the same question . So how do the pig's feelings change during the story ?

But at the same time as the teacher , I was providing that vocabulary word outsmarted . So you can be providing extending what children are saying , providing vocabulary words and scaffolding up all at the same time .

But one thing that I think makes me feel really comfortable is that I do this all the time in real life . It's just , I think it's different thinking about it in the scope of a classroom where typically it's the cutoff at the two turns .

So I really appreciate the opportunity to hear the example of scaffolding up and scaffolding for more support , because I realize you know I do this very naturally in conversation with you , know those around me , especially with my own child . So if you know I'm just thinking teachers listening , that might be something to really kind of reflect on .

I know I've been reflecting on it since reading your book is how I do this naturally anyway with my own child , how I do this naturally with conversations I'm having , and it just it feels different in a classroom because it almost feels like there's a little audience around you when you're , when you're doing it with a , with a one-to-one , and I'm just thinking of

the different scenarios we might . We might be doing this in right , like you had said , reading a book . So you're reading , you're reading a book , and that's an opportunity for students to respond , and then you might be doing a one-to-one on , you know , on the playground , talking about something .

So is there anything else you want to share about the different opportunities or the different , I guess ? I guess opportunities would be the best way to say it Opportunities that we can use . These strive for five plus conversations . I'm going to add a plus .

, and it's also hard with adults to sort of downward scaffold . But that's the piece where as an educator it is your job to have some strategies in your toolbox . So some of the teachers that we coach they like to almost have like a little flashcard of those downward scaffolds because it's the part that feels unnatural .

So you usually start with reframing that first question from the big question to maybe a more forced choice or narrow question . If that's not enough , allow the child that closed technique , fill in the blank technique .

That's , you know , a very well studied technique that speech language pathologists use and we were trained by a speech language pathologist in our doctoral program , and so this is when we started to recognize like , oh , there's some really nice strategies you can use , and even modeling if needed .

But yeah , it's not just our research in Read Alouds but also Jill Pentamonte and Laura Justice have studies that show it's the downward scaffolding that's the hardest for teachers and feels more challenging .

So as soon as you've got some strategies and you're sort of committed to that idea of like I'm going to stick with you through these five turns because this conversation counts , then you're willing to start trying out a variety of downward scaffolds . But yes , you do do this all the time .

And the other thing is , when kids start a conversation with you , there are lots of opportunities to strive for five and it actually might end up being six turns because you know technically they started so you might get an extra turn going there . But yeah , there's so many ways to just keep a conversation going .

In fact , it's really hard to separate that emotional support for the child with the language and the relationship you have with the language enrichment you're doing . In fact , you know , from birth to five , as children are , you know , born and growing up , they're spending time with their caregivers and their parents .

They're developing these language skills and these language abilities that depend on that warm , responsive interaction . It doesn't change because they've entered school . They still need those warm , responsive interactions in order to develop language , and teachers can increasingly give models to students as part of what they regularly do , as part of their normal routine .

This Strive for Five gives them the tools to have conversations about text , so within the classroom , to have conversations about what's happening in , what they're reading , watching , learning about , and then also conversations for teachers to have to get to know students at every opportunity , so who they are as a person , what they like and love to do outside of

school , you know , bringing that , that social , emotional learning component in to the classroom , and it's such a good point . This is such a well-rounded approach .

At the end of the day , we just have these conversations and they're they can be really natural conversations , but I'm still thinking of my . Okay , what's my next step in step in this conversation ? How do I , how do I push him rather than just saying it was fine ? How do I push him to the next level ?

And and I always think to myself , I study conversations and here I go again and again like asking the same silly question that I know leads to fine . So that's the other thing is to be really gracious with yourself , whether you're a parent or a teacher . Kids are going to kids , don't care .

If you had a sort of , you know , sloppy first question , it's okay , just keep the conversation going and pick up the pieces and , you know , ask something more specific . You know well , did you see any of your friends at camp or at practice today ? And that's a closed question .

So I'm still going to get a one word response and I'm still going to be like , why did I say another closed question ?

But eventually you'll get it going and you'll get them talking and so , and you know , the other fun thing for for parents is you will live with this child their whole life and if you are lucky enough to have many , many strive for five conversations .

They'll give you feedback on the types of questions that they like or they hate on the types of questions that they like or they hate . So I've learned from my teenagers that they hate one of my favorite open-ended questions , which is so what's on your mind ?

They apparently think that that is like a stab in the chest of like well , nothing's on my mind , mom , I'm just sitting here . So these are the things that , as parents , you'll learn what your kid needs to really start a strive for five .

I would never answer that question , but that would help you get a little pulse check on your class too . I love that idea , thinking about it in both senses , yeah .

Sometimes we're doing sort of science experiments and talking while we're doing STEM activities with our museum partner here in Houston . Other times we're running more like after-school family engagement workshops .

One of our favorite ones is called Talking is Teaching , and it's this idea that early childhood educators not only do they have this really important role of helping parents to see themselves as their child's first and most important teacher like Sonia said a few minutes ago but also this idea that just talking is teaching and talking to your child is a way to help

get them ready for school and help them to succeed in school , because you're helping to not only model conversation structures and grammar and syntax and the basics , but you're also able to model vocabulary and hopefully get your kids to tell some stories that really reflect your family values or your family's beliefs about things .

So talking is teaching is really one of the most important ideas for families and it resonates whenever we do this work with families . They feel this sense of almost relief , of like , oh , that's like I'm kind of doing enough if I'm talking to them . That's fabulous , it's a real .

It's a marginal shift again , but it is a good way to help families tune in and unplug to have a conversation . So that's also a piece of these family education workshops is to just find sometimes it's five minutes is your initial goal , and then 10 or 15 minutes where you've unplugged , there's no devices and we are really talking to one another at home .

Or perhaps it's on the go because some conversations are better had in the car , where you're not making that eye contact . Sometimes kids are more willing to open up if you're walking next to them or just that's what I was going to ask , tricia .

And I found that oftentimes I had some amazing conversations with kids who wouldn't ordinarily open up in a face-to-face setting if we were just moving and walking like parallel next to each other . So that is a thing I wasn't imagining that as a young teacher .

Right , like in some cultures , making eye contact with adult is , it's a , you know , high , it's a little higher stakes , so it does .

Just giving yourself that freedom to experiment with conversations with your students , I think really helps you to iterate on where they feel most comfortable and where you feel like you're you're likely to be able to plug into something they really want to talk to you about .

Now in our research study we're trying to figure out when you pair both the classroom and the home conversations in the classroom and at home , to what extent does that strengthen children's learning , not just the conversations . But Tricia has created a supplemental curriculum called Pre-K on my Way that we're testing out in the classroom setting .

That incorporates the Strive for Five procedure . Testing out in the classroom setting that it incorporates the strive for five procedure or the technique in it , as well as the home pieces . So we're trying to think about how much of both of those do you need to help students , preschoolers , succeed .

I have to get them reading , even even teaching them all the letter sounds . Right . That can feel daunting , but like this feels like something any parent can do with their child . Right , I can figure out what to have a conversation with them about and we can do five turns . This feels like something I can do .

It's such an important foundation of language we don't even realize it , but language undergirds so much of what we do as an , as an adult , but in general , but like literacy , when we're thinking about reading outcomes and writing outcomes , those language skills that develop , start developing right at birth , are just so foundational to reading .

Um , and it's easy for us to kind of overlook that sometimes because those skills are harder to measure in the preschool , kindergarten time . It's much easier to measure whether you know a letter name or a letter of sound , and while knowing letter names and letter sounds is also an essential skill , it's easy to underestimate how important language is .

And I also want to make sure that we address a potential teacher concern that you know this is going to take , especially at first , a little bit more time and I'm not saying a grand amount of time , but just a little bit than we're used to , if it's typically a two turn back and forth , and this is completely worth our investment .

But I do wonder if teachers are listening right now , thinking well , what about the other student's attention span ? What about this student's attention span ? So I'm just wondering if you all can speak to how much time and then maybe help settle any concerns that might be coming to mind .

So it's not , there's not a formula here , but I will say some very practical guidance that Sonia and I have given is to think about the settings in your day that really lend themselves to conversations and where you want to set a goal to first try out Strive for Five .

So for a lot of teachers that's a read-aloud , because a read-aloud is a really easy place to put a few sticky notes on your book with the types of nice , meaty or important guiding questions Sonia was talking about .

Because if I preview that guiding question before I read the book and I preview another guiding question when I reread the book , then I know I'm going to answer that question after I read and I'm going to ask two to three kids to answer that same guiding question , because they're all benefiting from hearing one another's responses , because I chose an important ,

meaty question right , an important conversation topic . So that would be one sort of place where I would highly recommend you strive for five . Every single read aloud is after reading .

Have a few conversations with kids , but read the room right , like if your kids are rolling around on the back of the carpet by the second kid that you've asked that guiding question , to don't ask the third kid , like , okay , let's get the wiggles out and let's do our next thing right .

So read alouds are a favorite and knowledge building activities are another time where Strive for Five is a wonderful place to set goals for reading . So , sonia , set goals for Strive for Five . So , sonia , do you want to explain maybe a way that you might build knowledge with Strive for Five conversations ?

And so when you think about the kinds of conversations that you can easily have during that time , they lend themselves to these kinds of backs and back and forth strive for five conversations . And some of my research has shown that teachers not more naturally speak with children with richer language models in the science context .

And so I think that when I think about content area and I think about where can we kind of capitalize on what teachers are already doing ? Well , how can I strengthen that ?

So I think about that science context as being a place where teachers already want to explain more , as being a place where teachers already want to explain more , add vocabulary , extend on what children are saying , because they're trying to build children's knowledge . They're not sitting there thinking I need to build their language , what vocabulary can I add ?

They're trying to teach a concept . Right , you're trying to teach a concept . And so I would encourage the thinking about how do I scaffold in the content area . You know , setting would be really important and I would say too that it doesn't necessarily . I don't think it's a takes more time .

I think it's like a restructuring of the time you're already using , because it's just kind of suggesting a different way to have the discussion . It's suggesting like , stick with that child a couple more turns , which in reality that five turn conversation is less than a minute long , not even .

And so those things , while it might take some you know , coaching like to get into the groove of doing that , it's not that it would necessarily take more overall instructional time . It will take time to learn and to do it as more of a regular practice , but then again , conversations are what teachers are having all day long with children anyway .

We're suggesting a marginal shift of how do you restructure those conversations to add Strive for Five to your toolkit of things that you're already doing .

And we're not saying every conversation has to be a Strive for Five , but we are saying that be really intentional about building on what children say and scaffolding them , providing more challenge and providing support for children who need it .

But I can see how this obviously is helping with oral language skills . But you also brought up this has more benefits , even beyond just their oral language . So can we talk a little bit about the research and why teachers should want to do this ?

And I'm like , yes , I know , but in my world it's for reading and writing . I get it , but so , even sticking within the reading and writing frame , I'm defining the oral language broadly to be both receptive and expressive .

Tricia and I structured the Strive for Five book around Scarborough's reading rope , which Hollis Scarborough developed in 2001 or published in 2001 .

And so we're including things like vocabulary , background knowledge , verbal reasoning , language structures and literacy knowledge , like knowledge of genres , and so all of those things in the language comprehension side go into , you know , are integrated into reading alongside of the word recognition skills .

There was some work done at Harvard and MIT Romero led this study but what they did is they listened to kids' conversations throughout day-long recordings and took really simple statistics from these data the quantity of words that kids heard and the quality of the conversations they heard with adults .

And quality just means you know just sort of the count of conversations . And what they found is so compelling . They find that not only does quality and not quantity predict kids standardized vocabulary and language outcomes that , sonia's right , they really matter for reading and for life .

But they also put these little preschoolers in MRI scanning machines to look at how their brains were developing , and they found healthier brain development in the regions that are responsible for language when kids have heard a lot of conversations . So it's one of those things where you know it , just like .

It makes me so happy when research shows things that you've . Research like this shows , like the mechanism that you've demonstrated behaviorally right , like your talk , really adds up .

It's truly affecting children's brain development , and one of my colleagues , dana DeMaster , is conducting a similar study where she's got toddlers , younger kids , many of whom were born prematurely . She's putting them in MRI machines and again same sort of thing more responsive caregivers who pay attention to kids' signals and have those back and forth conversations .

Those babies , those little toddlers , have healthier brain development again , in not only the language comprehension regions but also the portions of your brain that are responsible for some of our self-regulation and attention control , inhibition , which are things that , as parents and teachers , we all care about that ability to be able to regulate our behavior .

So I really love some of that more like brain research , and I love working with neuroscientists . I am not one , but it's just really fun to see your talk adds up and it matters for kids' development , and so that's some of the research that I find really compelling .

I will also say that we've done some past studies with my colleague , susan Landry , leading this work , where what we find when we randomize students in preschool and early grades to receive classroom support alone or home support alone or a combination of the two , we always find better outcomes when parents and teachers are working together .

It's very intuitive findings , but it's nice to have that data to show . You know , kids really benefit when all of their caregivers are doing things like having these responsive back and forth conversations .

And you know there's a lot of ways that you can do this in your classroom and there's a lot of ways you can support your families in having more meaningful conversations at home . So I would say the challenge is to just not try to get it perfect , not sort of count Was it five turns ?

But the challenge is to think okay , what can I do to stretch this conversation and keep it going a little bit more with each child and each day if possible ? And actually that's going back to your earlier question how often should we be doing Strive for Five ?

If you were to actually sort of keep a tally of how often you have a strive for five with each student in your classroom at the beginning of the year it's very hard and especially if you're new to strive for fives it's really hard .

But if you set a goal for yourself to incrementally add more students each day to your strive for five , you'll find that by the end of the year you're able to really have a meaningful back and forth conversation with almost every student every day .

And so that's the goal , not just for language and literacy and knowledge building , but for that relational component .

So I know that's what I would ask as a teacher as well how do I get the parents on board ? How do I do that ?

So whether that's planting seeds , that may or may not work , depending on where you live I'm in Houston . It is so hot here right now that would be a horrible activity to suggest to parents right now , but there's like right now we're texting families games that you can play with ice right Indoor activities where it's all about having meaningful conversations .

We find that if you either send families a little model of what that conversation might look like or a video of that you know , text it to them , whatever it is , that works really well for parents to be able to have meaningful conversations because they have sort of your tip sheet of here's some good conversations to ask .

The other thing that we do and it's a little bit more expensive , but again you see really nice benefits from this is giving families some kits to take home . After you do a parent-child workshop or after you have a family engagement event .

Send families home with a dozen little links that they can use to do non-standard measurement around their house and give them a tip sheet for how you could scaffold conversations around this really simple tool of measuring how tall you are or how long the pencil is in your home .

And so , yeah , our research shows a greater effect or greater impact on parent involvement and learning when you provide those sorts of scaffolds , those materials , than if you send them home with just ideas and tip sheets . Parents already know that they should be involved in learning and they want to .

They just need ideas and tips to do this in ways that they can really embed into their busy family schedules . So keeping it simple and giving some materials is probably the best advice we see from our research .

It's the teacher that's driving these things , so not some like random person from the district that they don't know , but rather the teacher and the relationship that she fosters with the parents is important for them to say , yeah . The teacher says I need , I need to be working on this . So I think that that relationship is critical .

How teachers foster that with parents ?

And I'm not saying it's not , but I do think your most valuable entry point and your most accessible entry point is the student in front of you .

And if you can build a great relationship with the student who's with you every single day , right Seven hours a day , they're going to go home and be like oh , Ms Sappington really cares about how well I did in soccer over the weekend . She was asking about that .

Or Ms Sappington was asking me questions when we were reading the Three Little Pigs and she helped me work through something that I didn't know and helped me understand it a lot better .

No , not in those exact words by any means , but that , to me , sets the teacher up for success with having that positive home relationship as well , because you're already in a positive light , your foot's already in the door without you having said a word . So then , when you make that connection to the caregiver or the parent .

It's going to be a lot better , a lot smoother , a lot , you know , a lot more positive than than like a cold call , if you will . So I kind of like think I thought about it while you were both both speaking .

I like thinking about it in that way and just kind of thinking of another way or access point to access families , to make the student's experience really great families to make the student's experience really great .

And it means too , that when you do run family engagement events , parents will listen to your feedback so much more than other people that don't have that trust built up . And so this also means that if you're hosting a family engagement event at your school , you can really move the needle by walking around the room and giving that feedback .

There's ample meta-analytic research by Todd Grindle and colleagues showing that if you just host the event , there's no effect on child outcomes .

But if teachers that person of trust circulate and give feedback it's both the warm feedback as well as like try this or ask your child that that moves the needle and then you start to see an improvement in child outcomes .

So it's really taking advantage of that moment to connect , because you are a really important person , not just to the kiddo but to the whole family .

It's really wonderful to be able to just think about , okay , how do I move that family engagement forward in a thoughtful way , as well as some links to like that Talking is Teaching website from our university .

So I just want to say it's in the same , the same and I really I think what you did with your book is really smart and taking the you know , I really I think what you did with your book is really smart and taking the you know Q&A kind of style based on your podcast and being able to then direct people to like and you can learn more looking at this

and this and this podcast . So the really really smart book .

I know you can get your book pretty much anywhere Scholastic , Teacher Store , Amazon and your local bookstore but we're just so grateful that you wrote it because I know it's helped me kind of get over the hump of two turn conversations . So I know it's helping so many other teachers out there too . We're really grateful .

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