If you are a parent or teacher for a small child, you know that it takes energy and patience to help kids learn and grow each day. You also know that conversations with kids are fun, meaningful, and worth it. Sometimes as parents and teachers we need a reminder about the power of slightly longer conversations to build strong relationships with our children and to help them learn new words and ideas. Researchers Tricia Zucker and Sonia Cabell created a simple idea for conversations called “Strive for Five.” Basically, you try to build conversations into time with kids that involve at least 5 back and forth turns. This is a good alternative to the standard 1 question and 1 answer format often used during storytimes about what is happening in a book.
Watch this video below to learn more and see an example of a Strive for Five Conversation
Example of 5 Conversational Turns
1. Teacher/Parent asks child a question about a book they are reading.
2. Child responds.
3. Teacher/Parent re-states what child says, giving them praise for being correct and asking a new related question, or re-phrasing the original question to help them answer correctly.
4. Child responds again.
5. Teacher/Parents responds.
If you think about it, our days can get filled up with very short conversations about food, play options, clean-up, and getting to-and-from places. So, when we make time and energy for longer and more personal conversations, it’s worth it. Our kids learn new words and ideas, and make important connections to the world around them, which they need in order to do well in school! Try to strive for five today with your children, and see what a difference it makes.
