TALK MOVES

Talk Moves support the development of oracy skills. They are sentence starters (also called sentence stems) that can give students possibilities of what to say when they want to contribute an idea, build on an idea, support an idea or challenge an idea. If students notice their conversations going off track, or if they themselves are distracted, there are also sentence starters for focusing the conversation, monitoring understanding and synthesizing. There are many great ideas in the infographics below, but you probably will want to brainstorm your own talk moves with your students.

Ideally, once Talk Moves have been co-created with students, and we have discussed how and when they might be used, the next step is usually modeling and practicing. Additional ideas or variations can be brainstormed as needed. Many teachers post Talk Moves on the classroom wall or project them on interactive whiteboards. Sometimes cards are taped to desks or tabletops, and Talk Moves reminders can also be made into bookmarks. All of this work with Talk Moves can help our students to incorporate these Talk Moves into their discussion repertoires.

Download the infographics for Talk Moves and Going Deeper with Talk Moves.

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