Early Childhood Educator Preparation to Support High-Quality Language Instruction
Explicit Support for Expressive Language
MODULE 3
The focus during Module 3 is to provide children with explicit support for their expressive language as they play and learn at classroom centers. During this module, the teacher will lead brief targeted language interactions that provide specific opportunities for children to use prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, and elaborated noun phrases in authentic moments.
Center activities included in this module have been developed for centers such as: art, blocks, dramatic play, science/discovery, and writing. Each center activity creates a natural opportunity for play, while providing the teacher opportunities to explicitly focus on a specific oral language target.
The teacher’s authentic play-based interaction with children may include modeling an oral language target, such as prepositions, to determine if the child receptively understands the target. The teacher will also give children the opportunity to express their understanding. All of this will be achieved in brief interactions while the teacher and children play together in centers.
By conducting these quick, explicit teaching moments, the teacher will model rich language and vocabulary and then encourage the children to use the rich language independently in the future.
Module 3.1: Elaborated Noun Phrases
- An elaborated noun phrase includes a noun (a person, place, or thing) and a word that describes it (articles and adjectives). The describing word can come before or after the noun. Common adjectives include: brave, bright, grumpy, large, tall, cold.
- Original Sentence: The boy ran.
- Sentence with Elaborated Noun Phrase: The energetic little boy ran.
She asks the ‘waitress’ for a “tall glass of cold water.”
She asks follow-up questions, such as, “What do you like about the ham?”
The child says, “I love tender.” The teacher correctly restates the child's utterance by saying, “I love tender ham too.”
Module 3.2: Adverbs
- An adverb describes a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Adverbs typically answer the questions when, where or how. Many adverbs end in "ly." Common adverbs include: quickly, safely, nicely, honestly.
- Original Sentence: The boy ran.
- Sentence with Adverb: The boy quickly ran.
The teacher asks, how? One example was, “How was that camel moving?”
The teacher restates the answer by saying, “The camel went quickly through the desert.” Then, she prompts the child to repeat the sentence.
The teacher leaves the children with a challenge to catch all the animals that would ALWAYS be found in the wetlands.
Module 3.3: Prepositions
- A preposition is a word that connects nouns or pronouns to other words, like verbs or adjectives, within a sentence. A prepositional phrase is made up of the preposition and its object, along with any words that describe the object. Common prepositions include: between, above, below, behind, toward, under.
- Original Sentence: The boy ran.
- Sentence with Preposition: The boy ran behind the oak tree.
The teacher provides a forced choice (above or below) and allows the child time to think. She also states that below can mean down.
The teacher repeats a child-friendly definition for above while having the children look for something above the sand. She also uses familiar synonyms when explaining what above means. She says, “above or on top of.”
The teacher gives short specific tasks to individual children. She draws the children’s attention to the language targets by emphasizing the words near and far. After asking the children to freeze, she uses gestures while explaining, “Look at the blue crab. Is he near or far from the shovel? Far. Because we have a lot of space.”
Module 3.4: Conjunctions
- Conjunctions are words used to join words, phrases, and sentences. There are several types of conjunctions, but the most common are coordinating conjunctions. Common conjunctions include: and, or, but.
- Original Sentence: The boy ran.
- Sentence with Conjunction: The boy ran and the dog chased him.
The teacher joins the children at the block center and emphasizes her own use of the target words (and, but, or) multiple times. For example, she says, “You can use Lincoln logs AND legos.” She then prompts the children to show their receptive understanding of each conjunction by asking them questions. For example, she asks, “Are you going to use Lincoln logs OR legos?”
The teacher interacts with children individually by describing their block activity and incorporating one or more conjunction into the interaction.
The children made predictions that say, “If we mix blue and red, then we will make green.” The teacher talks with the children while they test their predictions. She uses the “If __, then __” statement multiple times. The teacher then concludes the experiment by having the children restate the “If __, then __” statement with the correct finding. “If we mix blue and red, then we will make purple.”
