Oral Language & Concept Development

Morning meeting is a vital part of the day socially and emotionally, as children and teachers come together to greet each other and start their day together, and is also an integral time for cultivating language. Routines such as greetings, and morning message develop expressive and receptive language skills to ask questions, share ideas and concepts, and offer children modeling and opportunities to use conventions of speech. See the Morning Meeting guide for more detail and examples of morning meeting routines.

Interactive read alouds are conducted at least once daily, for 10-20 minutes. Books should be selected with an anti-bias lens from a range of genres (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, etc.) and provide culturally affirming and inclusive representation of diverse people and lived experiences. Read alouds may take place during a whole group time or in small groups, or both. Dialogic reading prompts using the CROWD approach (Whitehurst et al., 1988) are used to pose a range of questions that engage children’s thinking before, during, and after reading. Making and reading class books is encouraged. Whenever possible, providing and creating books in children’s home languages, and inviting family members to read books in their languages, can also make read aloud time an opportunity for cultivating and valuing bilingualism. See the Read Aloud guide for more.