We have heard a lot about the importance of talk in school recently, not least the final report of the Oracy Education Commission and the new government’s stated intention to put oracy at the heart of the curriculum.
So why is it important to develop children’s ability to be articulate and how is it best to go about fostering this? This article, and the book it stems from – Bringing Talk to Life: Thinking through dialogue in the classroom – attempt to answer these questions with an underpinning rationale and plenty of examples from primary classrooms.
A vital need, a vital skill
We have known for decades that being articulate plays a major role in improving life chances. You only have to look at the statistics.
Data from the National Literacy Trust suggests that poorer children start school 19 months behind richer ones in language and vocabulary (see Cadbury & Douglas, 2019; Waldfogel, 2012).
Furthermore, Public Health England (2020) estimates that 10% of children are affected by long-term and persistent speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) – a situation that has surely worsened since Covid.
And Speech & Language UK (2023) in its Listening to unheard children report estimates that 1.9 million children (1 in 5) are behind with their talking and/or understanding of words. At age 11, children who struggle to talk and understand words are six times more likely to be behind in English and 11 times more likely to be behind in maths.
Children with SLCN have difficulty with fluency, forming sounds and words, formulating sentences, understanding what others say, and using language socially.
As a result, they are far less likely to achieve well in school and much more likely to have mental health needs and be involved with the criminal justice system (Hollo et al, 2014).
Those of us who have developed good speaking skills know the opportunities it has created. Being articulate allows you to feel confident in social situations and develop one of the very things that many children nowadays are crying out for – agency: the ability to express their thoughts and feelings aloud in a world where they have had fewer opportunities for play and exploration, and where the relentless pressures of social media and an online existence can contribute to poor mental health and can be disempowering.
Developing young children’s fluency in the spoken word is therefore emphatically not just the role of the nursery and reception teacher – but should be a golden thread that runs throughout education.
Schools can integrate talk across the curriculum and teachers can adapt their teaching style to encourage more productive pupil talk. All of the eight strategies outlined below are important elements in integrating talk into your daily teaching. Most of it is common sense and it can lead to really rewarding teaching experiences.
1, Develop a concept curriculum
Use your existing curriculum plans to develop a curriculum where questions lead the term’s topic. For example, instead of The Victorians, how about: Should we accept our place in society?
This way you can look at the class system in the past and encourage children to consider whether it still exists. They can compare the passenger list on the Titanic with the ethnicity and social lives of people who died in Grenfell. Or they can look at urban graffiti and discuss the question: How can we make our mark?
Instead of a geography-based topic with a title of Communities at Risk, how about the title: Does adversity make you stronger?
This way pupils can learn about villages that have been built on the side of a volcano, as well as developing their understanding of religious faith and PSHE, maybe with a focus on Anne Frank’s Diary or children in modern day Ukraine or Gaza. Discussions can be organised using a talk pedagogy like Philosophy for Children or dialogic teaching.
2, Create a community in your classroom
For talk to flourish, the classroom needs to be a place of trust. The teacher needs to make themselves open and accessible to the pupils and the pupils need to listen to each other, too.
Building a community like this should be a principle aim of every teacher because, although it might take time to establish, it will soon pay off, and any time “lost” at the start will be more than made up when pupils are on their journey of discovery together.
One of the first steps in creating a community of learners is doing away with a “right answer” culture. A supportive environment where it is okay to have a go and to make tentative attempts to articulate your understanding is an important step in developing that understanding.
Pupils and teachers need to build on what others say, learning to validate each other’s statements but also to disagree respectfully. Teachers need to show that they can be wrong too and share a bit of themselves with their classes.
3, Encourage exploratory talk
Doing away with the right answer culture also means that the teacher is not the only one who asks the questions. In fact, encouraging children to explain their understanding by asking questions should be a natural next step.
This should not mean that they become dependent or need to ask about everything, but it is about encouraging a “what happens if?” approach. Whether it is a science experiment, writing a story, or painting a picture, asking “what if” is a natural element of human creativity and innovation – the very thing we should be encouraging for children to become confident and successful and to prevent them from feeling inhibited by not doing things in “the right way”.
4, Teach pupils how to reason
At the heart of good classroom talk is reason. To support pupils to develop their reasoning skills, the lesson could start with a question. But to develop reasoning itself, pupils need to be introduced to the discourse norms of discussion and debate, understanding the need to be appreciative and respectful.
Taking turns to discuss a question, listening to each other and not interrupting, using eye contact and non-confrontational body language, whether in a whole-class session or small group discussion, are all essential ground rules.
The phrases “I agree” or “I disagree”, with a reason given, “building on what X has said”, and other words such as “position” in phrases such as “I am not sure that I would take that position” are all necessary to allow a full discussion to flow.
Lessons with talk will not always be full-on enquiries or discussions. Teachers can help talk flow by recapping and reformulating what children say. They can also tease-out concepts after careful listening to the pupils, with phrases such as “are you talking about the concept of… ?”
5, Provide evidence for what you say
Another crucial aspect which is necessary for good reasoning is being able to provide evidence to support what you have said. Teachers should encourage pupils to substantiate what they say in class discussions or tentative talk situations with evidence from research or personal experience or understanding.
This not only helps them in their academic enquiry and decision-making, but it is an excellent skill for life. Skills of reasoning and providing evidence are often not taught until children are in secondary school, and even then, it is often through the medium of meeting the learning objective or because the mark scheme requires it.
Pupils are taught the jingle “Point, Evidence, Explain” when writing essays in secondary school, but this approach is just as useful in spoken discussion and can be used very successfully in primary.
6, Introduce concept words
The power of concept vocabulary, whether you are studying maths or science, or encouraging discussion in PSHE, RE, English, or geography, allows pupils to think about things in a different way.
In our book we see how the careful introduction of words such as “freedom”, “influence”, “class”, “power”, and “adversity” enable pupils to think about issues in their lives or in the subject they are studying differently, by providing a peg to hang their thoughts on. We use this approach regularly in maths and science, using words like “multiplication” or “evaporation”, so why not include it in English, history and PSHE?
7, Don’t take everything at face value
Although much learning, especially in the early years, requires pupils to take things at face value and trust what the teacher says, the ability to scrutinise and evaluate – to ask questions – becomes increasingly important throughout schooling.
Young children are often brilliant at asking penetrating questions. Teachers just need to be confident to go with it and it can lead to very productive debates and encourages a mindset that we would sometimes describe as “thinking out of the box”.
8, Don’t confuse presentational talk with exploratory talk
Although there is a place for presentations in developing children’s confidence to talk out loud, this approach should only be used sparingly. It is best for end-of-topic summaries of what pupils have learned, for sharing with other classes, parents or in assemblies.
Exploratory talk, where children ask questions and hold discussions, building upon their own prior knowledge and experience, is a much better tool for developing children’s articulacy.
Final thoughts
Many schools who have adopted these approaches to teaching find a corresponding improvement in children’s participation, self-esteem and motivation. Teachers notice children are better able to listen to each other, consider concepts in new and different ways, and resolve conflict independently. What’s not to like?
- Meghan Tipping is an experienced primary school teacher currently working in the education and heritage sectors. Paul Gurton was a primary school teacher, headteacher, and a senior lecturer in primary teacher education. They are the authors of Bringing Talk to Life: Thinking through dialogue in the classroom (Routledge, 2025).
Further information & references
- Cadbury & Douglas: Language unlocks reading: Supporting early language and reading for every child, All-Party Parliamentary Group on Literacy, 2019: https://cdn.literacytrust.org.uk/media/documents/Language_unlocks_reading.pdf
- Hollo, Wehby & Oliver: Unidentified language deficits in children with emotional and behavioral disorders, Exceptional Children (80,2), 2014.
- Oracy Education Commission: We need to talk: The report of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England, 2024: https://oracyeducationcommission.co.uk/
- Public Health England: Best start in speech, language, and communication: Supporting evidence, 2020.
- Speech and Language UK: Listening to unheard children: A shocking rise in speech and language challenges, 2023.
- Waldfogel: Social Mobility Summit, The Sutton Trust, 2012.