Get Your Kids Talking! 15 Helpful Conversation Starters
If you ask a child, “Was it a good day?”, often they respond with a simple “I don’t know” or “It was fine.” Try to avoid asking that question.
Instead, ask specific, open-ended questions that can lead to a deeper and more meaningful interaction with your child. Open-ended questions and responses that are engaging and high in quality and quantity promote social, neurological, language, and literacy development.
Increasing the number of words a child is exposed to can lead to improved reading and writing skills, understanding of speech, and vocabulary size.
Open-ended questions require more than just one or two words to answer and can elicit more information. They can encourage critical thinking skills because they need your child to use more language to explain himself. These open-ended questions will also keep the conversation flowing.
Examples of open-ended questions include “What do you remember from…” “What happened when…” “How do we make…” Tell me about your….” “How do you feel about…” etc. After you have asked the question, wait 5-10 seconds for your child to think and formulate responses, allowing your child to answer the question without interruption! This technique demonstrates the importance of asking one question at a time.
Maintain eye contact and show that you are interested in your child’s answers, and keep the conversation going until your child gives you clues to move on. By modeling eye contact and by giving them plenty of time to respond, they will learn that looking at the speaker, smiling, and nodding are ways to show that they are actively listening.
15 conversation starters for the drive home from school or dinner time talk:
Tell me one thing that made you laugh or smile today.
Tell me about your favorite part of your day.
Was there a time today that you were a good listener? If so, what did you learn?
If I walked into your classroom, what would I see?
Tell me about something nice you did for someone today.
What classroom jobs did you have today?
Who did you play with at recess, and what activities did you do?
What are you looking forward to on the next school day?
What was the most exciting thing that you heard today?
Who did you sit by at lunch today?
How did your lunch taste?
What is something your teacher said to you today that you are still thinking about?
Tell me about what you read in class.
What was the hardest thing you had to do today?
What did you do to make someone else’s day terrific?
Have fun with it and enjoy fostering your child’s language and literacy while you bond with them.
If you feel that your child may need to be seen by a speech therapist, we can help! Our licensed speech-language pathologists can teach your child the essential skills required to communicate effectively.
Learn more about the speech and language services we can provide for children of all ages.
About the Author
Allison Geller is a speech-language pathologist (SLP) and the owner of Connected Speech Pathology. She obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Florida in Speech-Language Pathology. Allison has practiced speech therapy in a number of settings including telepractice, acute care, outpatient rehabilitation, and private practice. She has worked extensively with individuals across the lifespan including toddlers, preschoolers, school-aged children, and adults. She specializes in the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of a variety of communication disorders including receptive/expressive language disorders, articulation disorders, voice disorders, fluency disorders, brain injury, and swallowing disorders.
Allison served as the clinical coordinator of research in aphasia in the Neurological Institute at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. She is on the Board of Directors for the Corporate Speech Pathology Network (CORSPAN), a Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) certified clinician, and a proud Family Empowerment Scholarship/Step-Up For Students provider. Allison is passionate about delivering high quality-effective treatment remotely because it’s convenient and easy to access. What sets us apart from other online speech therapy options is—Allison takes great care to hire the very best SLPs from all over the country.
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