Supporting oral language and participation with talk moves: A case study on classroom implementation

Language-rich classroom talk would offer opportune moments for student’s oral language and learning development. But, getting students to talk can be challenging. One way to promote classroom discussions is by using talk moves. Talk moves are conversation tools that educators and students can use to help students share ideas, listen carefully, reason deeply, and think with peers. The goal of the current study was to evaluate whether a Talk Moves intervention that was implemented in a special education primary classroom was associated with children’s oral language and participation skills. We found that the teacher and students used more talk moves over the course of the intervention, which coincided with the students talking more. Students also felt more comfortable and confident talking and participating in class after the intervention. Importantly, there were improvements on students’ use of academic vocabulary and language test scores. No changes were found on students’ sentence length and complexity, nor reading scores. Overall, results indicate that teachers could implement talk moves in their classroom to support all students’ engagement in academic conversations.