Story Talk: Using Strategies from an Evidence-Based Program to Improve Young Children's Vocabulary

Abstract

Story Talk is an evidence-based language intervention that has produced significant increases in children's vocabulary (Wasik & Hindman, 2020). This paper begins with a discussion of the importance of language development in learning to read, which is the basis for Story Talk. Next, a description of Story Talk components and the strategies that teachers are trained to implement in this program are presented. Five language strategies, with particular emphasis on developing vocabulary, are discussed in detail. Finally, a description of how Story Talk can look in classrooms is provided so that teachers can visualize how these strategies might work in their own settings during book reading and throughout the day.