I have taught some wonderful groups of children, but I found myself repeating over and over each year the following statement: “Wow, this is a very chatty group!” At five and six years old, kindergartners love to interact verbally, and most begin their school years without knowing when to talk and when to keep silent. Some students blurt all sorts of comments and questions at inopportune times, and this is disruptive. The blurters distract those who are trying to listen; the focused students often express frustration. The blurting is rarely intentional or mean-spirited: usually, the blurter feels he simply must share his personal connection with the group!

Where to begin
I honestly didn’t feel I did all I could in the past to teach good listening skills. This year I wanted to create group sessions that honored students’ intense need to speak while allowing everyone the opportunity to speak and be heard. The trick was to create space and time for both. After thinking about how to implement this and reading an article on the topic in an Origins newsletter, I chose to focus on one distinct time each day: Reader’s Workshop.

I planned to meet their need for social interaction during Reader’s Workshop by creating a regular chance to turn and talk with a partner about the reading material. The teaching structure Turn and Talk involves discussing with a partner a specific question or issue for a brief, predetermined period. Then, while I was reading or explaining something, students would be required to use good listening skills.

To achieve my goal, I used three Responsive Classroom practices: Morning Meeting, interactive modeling, and teacher language.

Morning Meeting
Morning Meeting was an excellent venue for working on the skills necessary to have quality social interaction and for practicing Turn and Talk. For example, during the greeting and sharing components, we consistently emphasized how to listen to and to make eye contact with the speaker and how to speak clearly, with a positive tone of voice, and with the right voice level. At the start of the year, we practiced partner shares often during the sharing component of our meeting, which proved to be very similar to our Reader’s Workshop Turn and Talk.

Our daily message often included a reminder about Turn and Talk etiquette. For example, I invited students to draw on the message chart pictures of themselves being good listeners. At the end of Morning Meeting, we were able to look at the different drawings and have a group conversation about how to listen and about why listening was important to Turn and Talk moments.

Modeling
In September, my co-teacher and I modeled Turn and Talk for students twice, then the students created a Y-chart showing what we all should see, hear, and feel during Turn and Talk. I used it to remind students of our protocols.

Turn and Talk
Looks like: sitting knee-to-knee; looking at your partner; talking about the topic; silent the moment the signal for quiet is given

Sounds like: quiet inside voices; very quiet listening; words are about the topic

Feels like: fun to be involved, sharing thoughts and ideas; exciting to share and to hear others

We also modeled how to share back to the whole group what we had discussed during Turn and Talk.

Teacher language
I used many exploratory questions while modeling and setting up the routine and before using Turn and Talk each day. For example, I asked “Who can show us how to move to your partner?” “What does good listening look like?” “How can we keep our talk time equal to that of our partner?” I used reflection questions after many sessions, so they could get into the habit of analyzing their efforts. “How well did you keep your excitement under control?” “How equal was your talk time?” “What did you discuss?”

Tracking progress
To track whether I was having success with Turn and Talk, I took observational notes in September, October, and November. The initial results weren’t very good, but I kept with it and was very pleased to see my students improve each month.

September observations

• There were four children who turned the wrong way and wanted to partner with someone who was not their designated partner.
• There were two children who refused to talk. They sat quietly, and one put his head down.
• Many were excited and used loud voices to share their thoughts.
• Half were confused about who should share first.
• Many talked at the same time.
• Three talked off-topic.
• They did not seem to know they had to share quickly. At least 6 children said they didn’t have enough time to share.
• I was amazed at how much some of the children wanted to share—they were really chomping at the bit!

I rolled up my sleeves and pressed on. I knew I had to do a better job of identifying who should go first, and I specified a time frame for conversations before they began talking and again about halfway through, to let them know it was time to allow the second person to speak. I spoke with those who found it difficult to speak, and we came up with plans to make them more comfortable talking to a partner. We used our look, sound, feel chart to continue to work on voice levels, talking one at a time, listening posture, etc.

October observations
After lots of practice!

• No one was confused about who should share first.
• Everyone participated.
• No one complained about not having enough time.
• They were all very, very excited to talk, but almost all kept their voice levels under control.
• One student didn’t turn around right away.
• Two did not use the correct voice and were too loud.
• Two students talked out of turn.
• One student was off-topic.

It was working! We were very encouraged. We tried not to get complacent, and we continued to ask reminding questions before and reflective questions after our Turn and Talks.

November observations

• There was no confusion about who should talk first.
• All were on topic.
• They all followed the signal for silence well.
• There were no complaints about not being able to finish. One student got up and started walking. She didn’t have a partner, and she noticed another girl who also didn’t. She did not ask; she walked quietly to the other girl, sat down knee-to-knee, and started sharing. I was delighted that she took it upon herself to solve the problem (not having a partner) and still do what she was supposed to do (interact about the prompt)!
• The children were very loud today. They were making connections to their families, and they were very excited.
• One girl had difficulty sitting still.

Nearly perfect
The only piece of collected data during this November observation that might be considered problematic had to do with loud student voices. I chose to let it go this time, though, because the mood in the room was very positive in spite of the noise. Students were super excited to connect what we were reading to their families, and everything else about the Turn and Talk was respectful.

I am very happy with how far my students have come and how willing they are to share and talk. They are talking more than any of my previous classes ever did, and they are using their oral language skills positively! I will continue to keep track of the amount of blurting that occurs during the time I am reading to the students. I believe the blurting is down, but I need to measure to be sure.

Now that Turn and Talk is well established during Reader’s Workshop time, I am excited to use it at other times during the day as well, so that good listening skills become a habit for all my students.

Nichole Wels taught kindergartners, and now teaches 1st graders, at Roosevelt Elementary School in  Faribault, Minnesota.