Many early childhood educators enter the field because they love working with children — only to find that they must also engage parents and families! When caring for children, you are in a unique position to educate and encourage the whole family, and, most of all, to listen to the family and understand the dynamics that are positive, productive relationships with families is a very important part of your job.

Engage in one-to-one, extended conversations with individual children about their experiences at home, in their community, or events in the program — that is the most valuable step in promoting language development.

With preschoolers, don’t just limit your conversation to talking about the here and now — talk with children about things that happened in the past, will happen in the future, or are in their imagination. This kind of talk requires more explanations and descriptions, and challenges children’s developing language skills.