TALK

Long before children learn to recognize letters or read words, they learn language through conversation. Every time a child hears words, responds to a question, or participates in a back-and-forth exchange, they are building skills that support future reading success.

Talking helps children:

Build vocabulary
Strengthen listening skills
Understand how language works
Develop critical thinking skills
Learn to express thoughts and ideas
Connect words with experiences

The best part? You don't need special materials or extra time. Meaningful conversations can happen while getting dressed, driving to school, shopping for groceries, or playing together.

Explore these simple ways to build literacy through conversation.

Ages Birth - 24 Months

Even before babies can speak, they are learning how conversations work. When your baby babbles, smile, respond, and take turns "talking" with them. This back-and-forth interaction helps them understand that communication is a shared experience. These early conversations lay the foundation for language development, listening skills, and future reading success.

Respond to Your Baby's Babbles

Mealtimes are a wonderful opportunity for conversation. Talk about what happened during the day, even if your child is too young to respond with words. Hearing family members share stories, emotions, and experiences helps children learn new vocabulary and understand how conversations flow. Over time, these everyday discussions encourage communication and connection.

Talk About Everyone's Day at Dinner

You don't need a special lesson plan to support language development. Talk with your child while making meals, folding laundry, riding in the car, or getting ready for bed. Describe what you're doing, ask simple questions, and respond to their sounds and gestures. Frequent conversations help children hear more words and make connections between language and everyday experiences.

Talk Throughout the Day

Children learn language by hearing words connected to real-life experiences. As you visit familiar places, name them aloud: "We're at the grocery store," or "Now we're walking into the library." Repeating these words helps children build vocabulary and understand the world around them. Over time, they'll begin to recognize and anticipate familiar locations.

Name the Places You Go

Weather provides an easy opportunity to introduce new vocabulary. Instead of simply saying it's cold, try using words like chilly, freezing, breezy, sunny, or stormy. Hearing multiple words with similar meanings helps children build a richer vocabulary. It also encourages them to pay attention to the world around them.

Describe the Weather

Children learn words through repetition and exposure. Make a habit of naming objects you encounter throughout the day, such as the refrigerator, sidewalk, spoon, or elbow. Even if your child can't say the words yet, they are absorbing language and making connections. These small moments add up to significant vocabulary growth.

Name Everyday Objects

Talking through everyday activities helps children connect words with actions. While preparing meals, getting dressed, or cleaning up, describe what you're doing and what your child is experiencing. For example, "I'm washing the strawberries. They're red and juicy." Narrating routines introduces new vocabulary while helping children understand sequences and concepts.

Narrate Daily Routines

The best language to use with your child is the one that feels most natural and comfortable to you. Children can successfully learn more than one language from an early age, and hearing rich, meaningful conversation is what matters most. Speaking your home language helps children develop strong communication skills while maintaining important cultural and family connections.

Speak Your Home Language

Turn a walk around the neighborhood into a simple language-building activity. Talk about what you see, hear, smell, and feel, such as birds singing, leaves moving, or flowers blooming. Sensory walks help babies notice the world around them while hearing new words connected to real experiences.

Take Sensory Walks

Ages 2-4 Years

Helping children sort objects into categories strengthens both vocabulary and critical thinking skills. During meals, playtime, or getting dressed, talk about groups of related items such as shoes, fruits, animals, or vehicles. Naming similarities and differences helps children organize information and understand how words relate to one another. These skills support language development and future reading comprehension.

Learn Categories

Turn a simple walk into a language-building adventure. As you explore, talk about things you see, hear, smell, and feel. You might notice birds singing, flowers blooming, or leaves crunching beneath your feet. Sensory walks encourage observation, curiosity, and vocabulary development while helping children engage with their environment.

Take Sensory Walks

When your child says a word or short phrase, add a little more information to the conversation. If they say "banana," you might respond, "Yes, that's a yellow banana. It's one of your favorite snacks." Expanding their language exposes them to new vocabulary and sentence structures. It also shows that you're interested in what they have to say.

Expand What They Say

Whenever possible, build on your child's comments and observations. If they say "truck," you might say, "That's a big red truck carrying supplies." This simple strategy helps children hear more complex language in a natural way. It also encourages longer conversations and stronger communication skills.

Respond and Expand

Children often need extra time to process questions and formulate responses. After asking a question, pause and wait patiently before speaking again. Giving children time to think shows that their ideas are valued and worth hearing. It also helps build confidence and encourages more meaningful conversations.

Give Them Time to Answer

The world is full of opportunities for conversation. Encourage children to observe their surroundings and share their ideas by asking questions about what they notice. Talking about birds, clouds, construction vehicles, or changing seasons helps children practice language while building background knowledge. These experiences support future reading comprehension.

Ask Questions About Things They See

Animals naturally spark children's curiosity. Ask questions that encourage them to observe, predict, and think creatively, such as "Where do you think that squirrel is going?" or "Why do you think birds fly south for the winter?" These discussions build vocabulary while helping children develop reasoning skills. Curiosity is an important part of lifelong learning.

Ask Questions About Animals

A child's name is often one of the first words that feels meaningful and important to them. Talk about the letters in their name, point them out in books and signs, and practice saying the letter names and sounds together. This helps children develop letter recognition and early print awareness. It also creates positive connections with reading and writing.

Talk About Letters in Their Name

Ages 5-8 Years

Open-ended questions invite children to think, imagine, and explain their ideas. Instead of asking questions that can be answered with yes or no, encourage longer responses by asking "What," "How," or "Why." These conversations help children practice expressing themselves and organizing their thoughts. They also support critical thinking and comprehension skills.

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Screen time can become a valuable language-building opportunity when you engage with children about what they're watching. Ask questions about characters, events, and choices in the story. Encourage children to explain what happened and predict what might happen next. These conversations strengthen listening, comprehension, and critical thinking skills.

Talk About Television and Videos

Children learn many new words simply by hearing adults use them in everyday conversations. Introduce interesting words naturally, such as enormous, curious, exhausted, or delighted. You don't need to simplify every word—children are capable of learning sophisticated vocabulary when it's used in context. Rich vocabulary supports communication, comprehension, and future reading success.

Use Rich Vocabulary

Although this activity supports reading, it also encourages discussion and engagement with text. Allow children to choose books, turn pages, ask questions, and guide conversations about what they're reading. Giving children ownership of the reading experience helps build confidence, motivation, and deeper engagement with books.

Let Your Child Control the Book

Invite your child to tell you about their day using a beginning, middle, and end. You might ask, “What happened first?” “What happened next?” and “How did it end?” This helps children practice sequencing, memory, and storytelling. Retelling real experiences also supports comprehension because children learn how events connect.

Retell the Day Like a Story

Ask your child to share what they think about a book, show, activity, or everyday situation. Encourage them to explain their answer with a reason, such as “I liked it because...” or “I would choose this because...” Giving opinions helps children organize their thoughts and use language to support an idea. This builds confidence, reasoning, and expressive language.

Explain Your Opinion

Talking with Diverse Learners

Describe the World
Use words to describe what your child sees, hears, touches, smells, feels, and experiences. This can be especially helpful for children with vision loss, language delays, sensory differences, or children who need more time connecting words to meaning. Keep the language simple when needed, but do not be afraid to introduce rich words like smooth, enormous, frustrated, chilly, crowded, or peaceful.

Label the Environment
Place simple labels on everyday objects around your home, classroom, or care setting. Labels can include printed words, pictures, braille, symbols, or the child’s home language depending on what supports the child best. This helps children connect language and print to real objects they use every day.

Use the Communication Style That Works Best
Children communicate in many ways, including speech, signs, gestures, eye gaze, pointing, AAC devices, facial expressions, sounds, and movement. Respond to your child’s communication as meaningful, even when it does not look like typical speech. These back-and-forth exchanges help children understand that their thoughts matter and that communication has power.

Give Extra Time to Respond
Some children need more time to process language and organize a response. After asking a question or making a comment, pause and wait before repeating yourself or moving on. This gives children time to answer through words, signs, gestures, pointing, AAC, or another form of communication.

Talk in Your Home Language
Use the language that feels most natural and meaningful in your family. Children who are learning English, children in multilingual homes, and children with language delays can all benefit from strong, loving communication in their home language. Building language in one language supports connection, understanding, and future literacy growth.

Expand What Your Child Communicates
When your child says, signs, points to, or selects a word, add a little more language. If they point to a dog, you might say, “Yes, dog. The brown dog is running.” This helps children hear more complete language while honoring the way they already communicate.

Talk About Interests
Use your child’s favorite topics as conversation starters. If they love dinosaurs, trains, animals, numbers, music, or a certain character, use that interest to introduce new words and ideas. Children often stay more engaged when literacy grows from something they already care about.

Build Background Knowledge Through Everyday Experiences
Talk through daily routines, errands, meals, outdoor walks, appointments, chores, and play. These real experiences help children understand the world, which later helps them understand stories and informational books. For families with limited time, money, transportation, or materials, everyday routines can still become powerful literacy-building moments.