MODEL2TALK: An Intervention to Promote Productive Classroom Talk

Abstract

This article describes the MODEL2TALK intervention, which aims to promote young children's oral communicative competence through productive classroom talk. Productive classroom talk provides children in early childhood education with many opportunities to talk and think together. Results from a large-scale study show that productive classroom talk has a positive effect on young children's oral language abilities. This is of great importance as good oral communicative competence is related to later reading comprehension skills and social acceptance and mediates learning, thinking, and self-regulation. Teachers can promote productive talk in their classrooms by giving children more space to share their ideas, listen to one another, reason, think together, and reflect on their communicative performance. The examples in this article support teachers to adopt productive talk and move toward a classroom culture in which children think and communicate together.