This study investigated the characteristics of educators’ talk about decontextualised events with young children in seven early childhood long day care centres in Sydney, Australia. Educators were partnered with up to six children aged between 27 and 60 months. Across two time points, 85 educator–child dyads discussed past and future events. Educators’ use of questions, contextual statements, evaluations and prompts and children’s use of questions, open-ended responses, yes-no responses and spontaneous information statements were examined. Educators’ evaluative statements were highly correlated and educators’ questions were moderately correlated with children’s open-ended responses in past event conversations. Educators’ evaluative statements were highly correlated with children’s open-ended responses in future event conversations and were the only significant predictor for children’s talk. Given the important role of educators in scaffolding children’s thinking and communication skills, the recommended strategies for educators’ talk in decontextualised conversations include: sharing the conversational load, making frequent contextual statements and following the child’s lead/interests.

这项研究调查了在澳大利亚悉尼的七个幼儿长日托中心中，教育者谈论与幼儿脱机事件的谈话的特征。教育工作者与多达六个年龄在27至60个月之间的儿童成为伙伴。在两个时间点上，有85个教育儿童双子座讨论了过去和将来的事件。审查了教育者对问题，上下文陈述，评价和提示的使用以及儿童对问题的使用，不限成员名额的回答，是与否的回答以及自发的信息陈述。在过去的事件对话中，教育者的评价陈述与儿童的开放式回答高度相关，而教育者的问题则与儿童的开放性反馈具有中等相关性。在未来的事件对话中，教育者的评价性陈述与儿童的开放式反应高度相关，并且是儿童言语的唯一重要预测因子。鉴于教育者在支撑儿童的思维和沟通技巧中的重要作用，在去上下文化的对话中，教育者推荐的对话策略包括：分担对话负担，频繁地进行上下文陈述并关注儿童的领导/兴趣。