Laruen Resnick and Catherine Snow, Speaking and Listening for Preschool Through Third Grade
New Standards, 2008, International Reading Association.
In the preface the authors note that speaking and listening are the foundations of reading and writing. They say: “Speaking and listening are to reading and writing what walking is to running.”
And, “The process (of specifying a clear set of expectations for speaking and listening) was an adventure for us, for while researchers and expert teachers know a great deal about children’s language development, no one had translated that knowledge into a clear set of classroom expectations.” I would add that we are only beginning, after a long period, to pay attention to the importance of speaking and listening to learning.
Resnick and Snow say that there are three important reasons for children to practice and master their native language:
1 Speaking and listening are the foundation skills for reading and writing.
2 Speaking and listening make children smarter
3 Speaking and listening are academic, social, and life skills that are valued in school and in the world.
They go on to describe three kinds of speaking/listening standards, with several subcomponents under each type.
1 HABITS
^Talking a lot
^ Talking to one’s self
^Conversing at length on a topic
^Discussing books
2 KINDS OF TALK AND RESULTING GENRES: Children talk for a variety of reasons, or purposes. Among them
^Inform, entertain and persuade others
^Present themselves, their topics, or their points of view to others
^Negotiate or propose relationships with others
^Evaluate people, information, or events
^Think, teach, learn
^Getting things done
^Producing and responding to performances
3 LANGUAGE USE AND CONVENTIONS
^Rules of interaction
^Word play and language awareness
^Vocabulary and word choice
Because my current focus is on dialogue, I’ve highlighted those standards that are most directly related to dialogue. In particular, I’m going to focus on only a few: talking a lot, conversing at length on a topic, discussing books, kinds of talk and resulting genres, rules of interaction and vocabulary and word choice. These are the aspects of speaking and listening that support the reasons for talking.
Those standards that are most directly related to dialogue are “kinds of talk and resulting genres” and “rules of interaction.”
RULES: “Beginning in infancy and continuing through the elementary years and beyond, children learn the rules of the game of conversation…..sharing the most widely shared rules of interaction….. It is crucial for teachers to understand that the conversational rules they themselves know and follow are social rules… …children who fail to understand them [the accepted rules] suffer academic and social consequences.” People are expected to take turns, be polite, and learn to address people appropriately depending on whether they are superiors, subordinates or equals….”(p 13)
I would add to these guidelines that the rules to be followed in dialogue are also dependent on context, topic, genre, and purpose. There are numerous studies that address these dimensions, for example: “Talking Like an Historian,” “Talking Their Way into Science,” “Mathematical Discourse,” and “Collaborative Conversations.”
A set of widely accepted general “rules” for conversation was proposed by Grice: Conversation should be informative, true, relevant and clear.
REASONS. R and S have outlined an inclusive set of reasons for dialogue. They refer to 4 specific genres: narrative, explaining and seeking information, getting things done, and producing and responding to performance. And under each of these categories they list several variations. For example, under narrative, they list: recounting two or more events, recounting knowledge gained through observation, experience, or text, orienting the listener by giving some setting information.
In the psycholinguistic literature, Halliday’s list of “functions of language” is often referenced as a frame of reference for “reasons” to speak/listen. His list includes 7 categories: instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, imaginative heuristic, informative.
REWARDS. If Resnick and Snow are correct, then the rewards for becoming proficient at speaking and listening should include being able to read and write, being smart, and succeeding in school and life. As well, they should be successful in the 4 domains of narrative, explain and seeking information, getting things done, and producing and responding to performance. How these achievements are demonstrated and assessed is the essence of the Resnick and Snow book.
ROLES. R AND S described roles as “superiors, subordinates and equals.” That classification is both basic and simple. The roles are not necessarily specific to teacher/student or adult/child. If we think about roles in terms of context and reason, the role a child plays in one context may be quite different from the role in another context; in some instances the child may become the teacher. In some instances, a child may be, if not the superior, at least the expert depending on the topic. Certainly children take on a variety of roles with one another. Although these standards are only outlined until grade 3, we do want children to adopt a variety of roles as they grow older. One of the things that will impact the roles students play will be the “routine” that are modeled and used in the classroom.
ROUTINES. In the list of standards there are several that suggest that children will need to learn a lot of different speaking/listening routines (and roles): talks a lot, converses at length about a topic, discusses books and chooses words carefully. Here are some examples of what this looks like at the preschool and second/third grade levels. We expect young children to learn a great deal about speaking and listening in a short time.
Talks a lot.
| Preschool | 2nd and 3rd Grade |
| Talk daily for various purpose | Talk about what they think, read, or experience |
| Engage in play using talk to enact or extend a story line | Explain or speak from another’s perspective |
| Express ideas, feelings, and needs | |
| Listens and responds to direct questions | |
| Ask questions | |
| Talks and listens in small groups | Talk in front of groups on a regular basis
Talk in small groups to collaborate on a project…to facilitate work on a task |
| Share and talk daily about their own experiences, products, or writing. | Talk about ideas or information gained from sources beyond personal experiences
Solicit and provide feedback daily about writing. |
Converse at length about a topic
| Preschool | 2nd and 3rd Grade |
| Initiate and sustain a conversation with comments or questions through at least 4 exchanges | Initiate and sustain a conversation with eight or more lengthy exchanges |
| Recognize the topic of conversation and make topic-relevant responses | Initiate topics within conversations that are in progress |
| Recognize invitation to converse vs questions intended to elicit a brief response | Sustain conversation by extending others’ contribution |
| Listen to others and avoid talking over | Express and solicit opinions |
| Repair and revert to the topic when necessary | |
Discusses books
| Preschool | 2nd and 3rd Grade |
| Poses and answers specific qs about the text | End of 3rd grade has 19 items in this category. Noting just a few |
| Recites familiar refrains from books that have been heard several times | Note and talk about author’s craft |
| Identify a favorite book and tell why they like it | Refer to knowledge gained during discussion |
| Use information that is accurate, accessible, and relevant | |
| State own ideas with greater clarity when not comprehended | |
| Ask other students qs that require then to support their claim; | |
| Indicate their own/others’ ideas need further support | |
| Compare texts | |
| Capture meaning from figurative language | |
| Analyze the causes, motivations, sequences, and results of events | |
| Use the structure of information texts to retrieve information | |
| Understand concepts and their relationships | |
| Use reasoning and information from within and outside the text to examine arguments. |
Chooses words carefully
| Preschool | 2nd and 3rd Grade |
| 11 items. Some of them | 11 items |
| Sorts relationships among words in knowledge domain | Builds word maps |
| Adds new domains from subjects and topics the are studying | Uses specialized vocabulary (academic language) |
| Learns new words daily in conversation | Provides definitions of words |
| Shows a general interest in words an word meanings, asking adults what a word means or offering definitions | Demonstrates flexibility by choosing from word options |
| Uses some abstract words and understands that these words differ from concrete things | Develops a basic awareness of meaningful word parts |
| Uses verbs referring to cognition, communication, and emotions. | Uses metaphor language |
| Understands antonyms, synonyms, homonyms, homographs and homophones |
Can we simply teach each of these elements of speaking/listening-dialogue in sequence or must we figure out how to integrate them? How do we start at a simple level and scaffold the child to the next level? How do we know where a child is at any point in his or her development of language skills?
Dialogue About Language, Literacy and Learning 