Barnehagelæreres samtalestrategier og fem-seks-åringers deltakelse i utvidede samtaler

In this case study, the authors investigated how the qualities of kindergarten teachers’ conversation strategies facilitate children’s participation in extended conversations.

The analysis revealed how kindergarten teachers, in various ways, enabled children’s participation in interactive play that involved them in extended conversations. In line with previous research, the authors found that initiatives aimed at key aspects of what the child is consistently interested in contributed to conversations over several turns. The authors recorded several cases of ‘pretend play’, i.e. play that often invites conversations about circumstances beyond the ‘here-and-now’. However, the game was founded upon the physical play ‘here-and-now’. Therefore, the parties’ ‘pretend-utterances’ also gained a foothold in the immediate situation.

The authors studied conversations between kindergarten teachers and children aged five to six years old during an animal game. A total of seven child-kindergarten teacher interactions were filmed, transcribed and encoded with an adapted version of Initiative–Response analysis (I-R-analysis) that revealed symmetry and coherence patterns in taking turns. Based on the taking turn profile of the interactions (I-R profile), the authors carried out qualitative content analyses of the four dyads (interactions), in which the kindergarten teacher took the strongest and the weakest initiatives, respectively.

Røe-Indregård, H., Hølland, S. & Hagtvet, B. (2019). “Barnehagelæreres samtalestrategier og fem-seks-åringers deltakelse i utvidede samtaler”. Norsk tidsskrift for logopedi, (2019) 4:5–15.