Preschool Teachers’ Child-Directed Talk: Unlocking Opportunities for Language Learning and Knowledge-Building

Research Findings: Preschool teachers’ child-directed talk has a powerful and enduring impact on young children’s language and knowledge development. This study examines the extent to which teachers engaged in talk that supports children’s language and knowledge-building, and how it might vary in different instructional contexts in classrooms. Using a cutting-edge open-source tool that could automatically identify the characteristics of teachers’ child-directed talk through voice recording, language experiences over a typical morning hour in 97 4-year-old classrooms were recorded from a variety of federal, state, and private preschool programs. In addition, a classroom literacy environmental checklist and a survey indicating the teachers’ confidence in teaching language experiences were collected following the recording. Results revealed that the quality of linguistically and cognitively challenging talk was strikingly low. Instructional time was primarily devoted to alphabetics, with a stark paucity of opportunities for children to acquire the language and content knowledge essential for later learning. Despite this finding, however, teachers overwhelmingly indicated their confidence in engaging children in language-rich activities. Practice or Policy: These findings suggest that teachers will need more professional development and content-rich curricular support for creating a language-rich environment. Further, integrating language development metrics into early learning standards and screening assessments could incentivize stronger classroom discourse policies.