Communication is an essential part of development and something people were born to do. Babies quickly realize that when they cry, their caretaker will respond and the seeds of conversation are planted. As children grow, so do their communication skills; speaking, listening and responding are fundamental aspects of living in society and milestones for development. In child care, preschool, or primary classrooms, children naturally converse as they play and explore their worlds. It is through this play and conversation that children learn, discover and construct the meaning of their world. If children are learning in an authentic play setting, then it seems fitting that there should also be ways to assess in those genuine contexts. Yet how often do we use children’s conversations to assess what they know? How can research inform our practice of listening to what children are saying to each other and to us? 

As a doctoral student, Emily Fisher explored various questions and queries. Her interest in literacy spans broadly across grade and developmental levels. She has always been intrigued by the potential benefits of incorporating conversations into classrooms to help foster a broad range of skills needed throughout life; skills such as considering multiple viewpoints, asking questions for more information, and listening to understand are crucial for us to acquire. 

During an early childhood assessment course—in which Fisher was a graduate student and Chris Kiewra was the professor—the culminating graduate assignment was to create a learning module for undergraduate students also enrolled in the course. Fisher’s reasoning for choosing to learn more about using conversations to inform assessment came from her concern over increased standardized testing in primary grades, and her desire to embrace children’s strengths and differences. She looked for research that focused on using conversations to assess students to incorporate in the learning module and her own classroom. She discovered assessment practices that can be used to capitalize on student conversations already happening in many early childhood settings.

Her investigation led to research by Tolentino (2007 & 2013) and Ferrara et al. (2011), as well as digital resources on strategies for supporting rich conversations (shared in the adjacent resource box). Fisher gained insights and ideas, and the students who participated in the learning module conveyed that they did too, by sharing an array of responses and ideas on the importance of listening to children’s conversations and types of assessments to employ to exhibit children’s knowledge. Other students in Fisher’s class were able to glean information about the importance of children’s conversations, as well as apply different forms of assessment previously learned in the course. Students wrote about methods that could capture conversations to appraise knowledge as an authentic assessment tool. This article features findings from Fisher’s inquiry and the early childhood assessment course.

According to Erika Christakis, “Conversation is gold. It is the most efficient early-learning system we have.” In an article in The Atlantic (Christakis, 2016) she goes on to say, “The real focus in the preschool years should be not just on vocabulary and reading, but on talking and listening. We forget how vital spontaneous, unstructured conversation is to young children’s understanding. By talking with adults, and one another, they pick up information. They learn how things work. They solve puzzles that trouble them.”

Creating rich opportunities for talk amongst children plays an important role in developing children’s oral language skills and so much more. Conversations are also an important way to learn more about children’s background knowledge, understandings and wonderings. This is especially important when teaching and assessing multilingual learners. Many children in the United States are learning English as their second language, while also mastering their first language. Unfortunately, standardized assessments are predominantly written for children who are from English speaking homes. Authors Wortham and Hardin (2016) raise considerations about the over-use of standardized assessments with students in their nondominant language, because this can lead to over-identification of special needs, whereas providing supportive, engaging learning environments that encourage conversation supports all children, including emergent bilinguals or multilinguals. For example, if a child’s first language is not English, then conversations can foster opportunities for translanguaging. Reminiscent of the Reggio Emilia approach in “The Hundred Languages of Children” (Rinaldi, 2006), translanguaging is the process of using and intermingling all of one’s languages to communicate. The research and resources below help us grapple with how to effectively capture and analyze children’s conversations as an aspect of well-rounded assessment.

Research-based Strategies

As former classroom teachers ourselves, Fisher and Kiewra recognized the value of assessment, but found that it sometimes conflicted with their teaching approaches. Standardized assessments were an essential piece of the assessment puzzle but could not complete the whole picture. In “Assessment in Early Childhood Education,” Wortham and Hardin (2016) explain numerous authentic assessment techniques and strategies, including capturing children’s conversations and writing, that can also be used to assess children. The following three studies can be helpful resources for research-based strategies to support, document and assess conversations.

Children’s Conversations Reveal Their‭ ‬Knowledge of Literacy

Conversations can be used to listen for specific indicators of knowledge, and they can also demonstrate knowledge of important skills such as literacy. Captivated by the questions children ask each other, Tolentino (2007) created a qualitative study exploring what children discuss and talk about when they are participating in reading or reading-like behaviors. She observed the children and worked with their teacher for over a year gathering video tapes, taking field notes, and analyzing their talk to discover her findings. From her research, Tolentino believes it is not only imperative that educators create and plan opportunities for children to talk to each other, but also for those conversations to be documented and analyzed. She explained that listening to children’s conversations showed that children engaged in various types of conversations and contexts of talk during literacy activities. While reading informational texts, the children had inquiry-based discussions about insects and showed understanding of the functions of features associated with informational texts. When children read storybooks, they began to narrate the books to each other, and looking at family photos evoked talk about themselves and their families. The children engaged in a variety of different things while immersed in conversation. Children role-played during stories, asked clarifying questions, taught each other, learned new information, provided emotional support for each other, and asked questions about each other’s lives. Tolentino believes that “if talk among peers were perceived as a learning tool in the classroom, then teachers could make a conscious effort to create contexts that make talk possible, even encouraged, for it is in social contexts that young children articulate and apply the connections they are making about literacy” (p. 526). Teachers must create the situations for children to discuss and talk about different texts together.

As a parent of young children, Fisher was inspired to use Tolentino’s (2007) research. She wanted her children, Gabe and Molly, to have conversations in literacy contexts at home. One of the most memorable conversations occurred as they decided to create a menu for a family dinner. Before they wrote the menu, the three of them discussed what a menu was, that they are usually seen in restaurants, and that restaurants usually have names. Together, they named their “restaurant” Fisher’s Café. They also talked about what they were having for dinner that evening. This provided scaffolding and direction for their self-chosen task of creating a menu. At the time, Gabe was 6 years old and Molly was 3-and-a-half years old. Together, they wrote the menu while discussing what they were eating, talking about spelling, and finally drawing fish as well as writing each family member’s name. However, this menu could not have been created without their conversation. Gabe provided support for Molly for spelling and writing small words, such as “mom.” Molly, not to be left out of the creative process, helped draw the fish representing Fisher’s Café. Together, they talked about the order of what should go first on the menu, where the fish should be on the menu, and what else might be in the ocean other than fish, such as seaweed. Their writing captured part of their conversation from this literacy experience.

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How to Practice Supporting and Assessing Children’s Literacy Conversations

While conversations naturally happen between children, educators must also work to both create opportunities that will promote talk in a variety of settings and to document the conversations as a means of assessment. 

In the reading center, classroom teachers can intentionally support conversations between children by selecting books in a genre or topic of special interest to the class at the time (poetry, sea creatures, birds, etc.) By adding either video or audio recorders, children can take turns playing the role of “news reporter,” interviewing each other about the books. The teacher’s role can be to take running records or use anecdotal/analytical notes to document what the children say to each other while observing and listening. Over time, this documentation is used to demonstrate literacy learning.

In program newsletters or parent information nights, administrators can feature children’s rich conversations as an aspect of language and literacy development. Techniques can be shared with families that they can try at home too. A shared “Question of the Day” (i.e. “What are you curious about today?”) is a strategy used in some programs to encourage similar conversations at home and school. As described above, creating a menu for a family dinner is also a great idea.

Teacher educators can support their students as they plan for how they will foster rich conversations with children. Student teachers and practicum students can explicitly write in their lesson plans the open-ended questions and comments they will use with children as they read stories. Explicitly practicing conversations and scaffolding play scenarios through role playing is also helpful. Students also benefit from capturing conversations using anecdotal notes while viewing preschool classroom videos, and then assessing the developmental level of the language captured by comparing the samples to developmental checklists.

Eliciting Specific Talk and Vocabulary From Play Experiences

Ferrara et al. (2011) studied the use of spatial language during conversations between a child and a parent during different types of play settings. The central question they investigated was, “Does the context of block play significantly impact the amount of spatial language that children and parents are apt to use in joint play sessions?” (p. 143). This study indicates that play with blocks in a semi-structured guided play context, in the company of a more experienced partner, is especially beneficial for children’s exposure to spatial language and learning the properties of shapes. The researchers found that all of the forms of play with blocks led to spatial language being used during conversations.

For example, children said things like, ‘‘Mommy, let’s drive the cars in and out of the garage,’’ or, ‘‘The fireman is climbing all the way up to the top of the building.’’ It is also important to note that the adult role in play was especially beneficial for children’s exposure to spatial language. Children tended to learn vocabulary words better and faster when the adults embedded vocabulary in playful contexts. While this study focused on conversations between child and parent, it is important to think about how the findings can be transferred to children’s conversations with each other or conversations between child and teacher for assessment. These findings have educational implications for the enhancement of spatial instruction and for how adults can support conversation during play. Recording these conversations can serve as a form of assessment when children’s talk about specific skills, knowledge or vocabulary is captured.

Practice‭: ‬Eliciting Specific Talk and Vocabulary From Play Experiences

Classroom teachers can work with children to build a list of spatial words or prepositions (around, above, beside, under) when they are playing with blocks or similar building materials. Children could refer to the posted list or create illustrated word cards to add to the block area, when playing with playdough, and other play areas or experiences. Adding photos of famous architecture books and architectural plans to the block building area can inspire and encourage new construction and vocabulary. Images of famous architecture can trigger children’s prior knowledge and experiences, such as if a child has visited or seen the structures in real life.

Teacher educators or center directors can use video-recorded play scenarios in class or staff meetings to practice listening for specific types of language or vocabulary. Time for role-playing or practicing teaching techniques used to join and guide or scaffold children’s play could also be included. To implement this in the classroom with children, adult learners could be challenged to listen specifically for the words learned in the lesson and document how children are using them in other contexts. For example, teachers could have a lesson about vocabulary used during mealtime. After the lesson, teachers could specifically listen for the vocabulary words during a playtime center kitchen or restaurant. Teachers could use children’s conversations to note which literacy behaviors, such as which words were used and understood, as well as noting when children clarified words for each other or supported each others’ learning from the previous vocabulary lesson.

Demonstrating Children’s Learning Progress

Conversations between children can reveal how their learning is progressing, often referred to formally as Learning Progressions. In this qualitative study, Tolentino (2013) examined the role of talk in emergent literacy development. She recorded and analyzed children’s conversations and interviewed their teacher. From her findings, Tolentino emphasizes that literacy learning is a social process. Conversations between young emergent writers reveal what they know about writing and what they are ready to learn next. By closely listening, teachers can assess then support children’s meaning-making efforts in writing and linguistics. Tolentino argues that listening to emergent writers’ conversations allows teachers to move away from what educators think children need to know and focus on what children already know and are saying. 

Writing tables, common in early childhood classrooms, can engage children in various types of writing, including story writing, creating lists, making signs, letter writing, and even creating secret codes with their peers. Tolentino recorded and analyzed peer conversation during writing time and found that it revealed children’s knowledge about story structure, perceptions about conventions, and preferences for writing styles and layouts. She also found that talking to peers helped transform young children as writers, because children become sources of information for each other, as well as providing support when writing. Children shared writing strategies that helped empower each other, as well as strengthen their own writer identities. One of her Pre-K examples shows how (p.19):

Bill: “I can’t write my name.”

Evan: “You can write your name.”

Bill: “No, I can’t.”

Evan handed Bill a strip of paper and his name card to copy while encouraging him to try.

Putting it into Practice

Program administrators can support teachers as they create a learning progression for portfolios with goals for children’s writing. Organizing the language and literacy portion of children’s portfolios in chronological order can demonstrate children’s progression. Including dates and teacher comments alongside children’s work samples also helps to illustrate and interpret developmental progress for families. Here is an example that shows teacher documented language progression from dated anecdotal notes in one child’s portfolio.

Wyatt (August 26)
I sat next to Wyatt as he was stacking blocks into two enclosures. I asked him to tell me about what he was doing and he said, “I made two houses.” I commented on the steps I saw him take to build and asked if he wanted more blocks. Wyatt added more blocks and replied, ”It is going to be big.”

Wyatt (May 2)
I observed that Wyatt and two other friends were building. I asked questions about their roles, plans and choices. Wyatt to Jabron, “Wanna do the carrying part and I’ll do the building part?” As he stacked more blocks he asked Jabron, “Is this how you do it?” When I asked Wyatt about how he was going to use the structure he said, “It is for us. It needs to be bigger because we want to be inside.” 

Teacher Interpretation of Wyatt’s progression:

• Sentences became more complex in length
• More descriptive words
• Moved from independent task to collaborative exchanges
• Asked clarifying questions

Classroom teachers can periodically save children’s writing samples (as described above) as artifacts of their rich conversations during learning. An instrument such as state Early Learning Guidelines can be used to analyze writing samples to determine their developmental level and note progress. 

Concluding Thoughts

When children talk, listen closely because the conversations are a gold mine of information we can use to assess their learning. Focusing in on what they are saying helps us learn about their experiences, memories, thoughts and ideas. 

Administrators need to understand this approach and must be supportive of teacher’s efforts to use children’s conversations to advance their learning and to assess that learning. Without administrative support, teachers may be expected to rely too heavily on other activities and forms of assessment.

Tolentino’s (2007 & 2013) research leads us to believe that talk among peers can be a learning tool in the classroom. It can motivate teachers to make a conscious effort to create contexts that encourage the relationship between conversations and literacy. Another way educators can use conversations as a form of assessment is to listen for children’s talk about specific skills, knowledge, or vocabulary. Ferrara and colleagues’ (2011) research inspires us to use children’s conversations during block play (and potentially other play contexts) in assessing their understanding of concepts and vocabulary. 

Capturing children’s conversations can not only help us learn what they are thinking about, but also what they are trying to understand. Children’s conversations contribute to our holistic assessment picture of children’s knowledge and skills.

References and Resources

Christakis, Erika (2016). The new preschool is crushing kids. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-new-preschool-is-crushing-kids/419139/

Durham, R.E., Farkas, G., Hammer, C.S., Tomblin, J.B., Catts, H.W. (2007). Kindergarten and oral language skill: A key variable in the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status. Research in social stratification and mobility, 25, 294-305.

Ferrara, K., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Newcombe, N.S., Golinkoff, R.M., & Lam, W.S. (2011). Block talk: Spatial language during block play. Mind, brain, and education, 5(3), 143-151.

Rinaldi, C. (2006). In dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching, and learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

Tolentino, E.P. (2007). “Why do you like this page so much?” Exploring the potential of talk during preschool reading activities. Language arts, 84(6), July 2007, 519-528.

Tolentino, E.P. (2013). “Put an explanation point to make it louder”: Uncovering emergent writing revelations through talk. Language arts, 91(1), 10-22.

Wortham, S.C. & Hardin, B.J. (2016). Assessment in early childhood education (7th ed.). Boston: MA, Pearson.