Talking About Books

Reading books aloud to children builds language skills. Language skills are important to children’s school success. How parents read with children is just as important as how often they read with children.

Dialogic Reading. Dialogic reading is a special method of reading with children. Dialogic reading means having a conversation — a dialogue — about a book. In dialogic reading

• Ask your child a question
• Repeat and build on his answer
• Ask him to restate the answers to make sure he understands.

Ask your child a question about a picture in a book or about a page you have read together. Let her know she is right by restating her answer and adding information. If she is not correct, gently provide the right response. Then ask your child to repeat your restated response, or the correct response. This will encourage her to use the language she has just heard, using new words and complete sentences.

Here’s what one conversation about a book might sound like: "What is Lisa doing for Corduroy?" "Sewing the button." "That’s right, she is sewing a button on his overalls. Where is Lisa sewing the button?" "She is sewing the button on his overalls." "Yes, she is sewing the button on Corduroy’s overalls."

There are different kinds of questions parents can use with the dialogic reading technique:

Completion questions require you to pause and let your child fill in the blank. This is fun to do with rhyming or repetitive passages. "Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great _____."

Recall questions ask children to remember characters and details of a story. Young children can answer questions about what happened on the page you just read. Older children will enjoy answering recall questions at the end of a book.

Open-ended questions ask for more than a yes or no or other one-word answer. Open-ended questions give children a chance to explain and describe. They use language more fully. Ask your child why Max in Where the Wild Things Are is so angry with his mother or why Leo is called a late bloomer in Leo the Late Bloomer.

Wh questions — what, when, where, why and how — teach children new vocabulary and also repeat words from the story. Ask your child when the story is taking place or what is happening in a picture. "What is the caterpillar eating now?" or "Where do Eskimos live?"

Distancing questions help children connect books to their own life experiences. These questions help children with conversational abilities. For example, "Tell me about a time you felt afraid" or "When we visit grandma, what do you like best?"

As your children grow older, you will find the dialogic reading question-answer strategy can be used in other situations. For example, try some of the questions when you are watching television or videos with your child or when you are talking about daily experiences.

Written by the National Center for Family Literacy.