Narrator: Serve and return describes the back and forth interactions that take place between adults and children in conversations.

Knowing how and when to take turns is the first step in learning to talk with others.

You can use your facial expressions, tone of voice and leave gaps in the conversation for babies and young children to answer you in their own way (with sounds, words, or body language).

Baby: (Shakes rattle).

Mum: Ahh pēpi, are you shaking your rattle?

Baby: (Looks at adult) Ah (wriggles body and arms, making the rattle shake).

Mum: Is it fun to shake that rattle?

Baby: (Short pause then smiles and kicks legs/wiggles and moves arms - shaking the rattle.)

Mum: Can you hear the noise that rattle makes when you shake it?

Baby: Aahh, baaaa (shakes rattle as arms move).

Mum: (Laughs) Yes, it makes a funny noise, doesn’t it?

Baby: (Laughs, shakes rattle as arms move).

Narrator: Reading and storytelling are great ways for children to enjoy and experience different words, sounds, rhythms, and ideas while relaxing and spending time with the adults in their life.

(Girl with grandma pointing at a photograph)

Little girl: Will you tell me a story Grandma?

Grandma: Yes, shall I tell you about the lamb I had when I was a little girl?

Little girl: Were you little like me?

(Grandma holding the photograph in a frame)

Grandma: Yes, I was, just like you! See that photo over there, that is me at the front.

(Little girl points at photograph)

Little girl: Who is that?

Grandma: That is my big brother and two little sisters. Can you see I had curly hair just like you?!”

(Little girl points at photograph)

Little girl: Is that (Great) Grandma?

Grandma: Yes, it is, and there’s my lamb! When I was little we were very busy on our farm and helped look after all the animals.

Little girl: What animals did you have? Did you have a horse and a cow?

Grandma: We had some horses, cows, dogs, chickens, and lots of sheep. But I loved my lamb the most. I fed her milk with a baby bottle, she used to run up to the fence whenever she saw me coming and she would bleat until I went to her.

Narrator: Speak the language you are most comfortable speaking in and use that language in your everyday routines, stories, rhymes, and songs.

Children who speak more than one language have a proven advantage in any language learning.

(Animated illustration of a child with their Aunty cooking together)

Aunty: I was just thinking about last Sunday, we had such a nice day, didn’t we?

Child: Yeah, it was really fun.

Aunty: What did you like best?

(Drawing of hugging Grandma)

Child: Mmm playing with everyone, and hugging Grandma.

(Drawing of cousins playing)

Aunty: I liked seeing you play with your cousins, you all laughed so much!

(Drawing of umu)

Child: And we watched all the food coming from the umu, it smelled so yum!

(Drawing of table full of food and the family serving themselves)

Aunty: It tasted good too, didn’t it!

Child: Yeah, the food and playing and hugs were the best.

Narrator: Word and sound play help children to recognise and use the sounds of spoken language, which helps develop the skills required for reading.

Children enjoy humour, funny voices, nonsense words, and rhymes.

(Animation of grandfather fitting jacket on a little boy)

Being playful with words and sounds through stories, waiata, and rhymes is a fun way for children to learn about language.

Grandfather: We’re getting dressed so we can go outside. It’s still raining so we need to dress nice and warm eh.

Little boy: My jacket on.

Grandfather: Good idea - your arm goes in the sleeve (sssssllllip). Other arm in (sssssllllip). Now to slide up your zip - zzzzzzziip!

Little boy: Zip-zip-zip.

(Animation of illustration of little boy sitting on grandfather's knee putting on gumboots)

Grandfather: Gumboots next, in goes one foot (sssssllllip), in goes the other (sssslllip)!

Little boy: (Laughs)

Grandfather: You look nice and warm now, all ready for outside – let’s find a puddle to splash in – splish, splash, splosh!

Little boy: Splashy!

(Animation of little boy standing in a puddle)

Grandfather: (Sings) Let's go splishy splashy, splishy splashy, splish, splash, splosh!

Little boy: (Sings) Splish, splash, splosh!

Grandfather: Open the door and off, we, GO!

Narrator: You can expand your child’s word bank by choosing words that help them express themselves.

Describing what is happening helps children understand the world and develop language and vocabulary.

You can follow your child’s lead and talk about the things that are of interest to them at that moment.

(Animated illustration of a tūī in a tree with with a child and their father looking up at it.)

Child (points) Look!

Father: There are so many tūī, aren’t there, I wonder what they are doing.

Child: I think they’re playing.

Father: Mmm, they do look like they are having fun, don’t they? They’re very noisy!

Child: Noisy!

Father: Very noisy, they’re making quite a ruckus!

(Animated illustration of a piwakawaka in a tree with with a child and their father looking up at it.)

Child: Look, look a baby bird.

Father: It could be a piwakawaka, it is very small, isn’t it? It’s tiny next to the tūī.

Child: Tiny. It’s pretty, I like the piwakawaka best.

Father: I like it too, I like how they flit about. They’re so quick.