For preschoolers with communication challenges, use category work to improve language and world knowledge at the same time

There seem to be important links between preschoolers’:

knowledge about the world;
oral language comprehension skills; and
later reading comprehension skills.

For preschoolers with language delays, we need to think carefully about:

what we teach (including which words we target); and
how to teach language to improve comprehension and world knowledge.

Categorisation work during shared book reading looks like a promising way of developing preschoolers’ vocabulary and knowledge at the same time.

How it works:

Choose a topic that lends itself to category work – e.g., living things.

Break the topic up into manageable chunks – e.g., pets, wild animals, desert animals, marine mammals, insects, and the human body.

Choose (or buy) text sets – multiple read-aloud texts about each sub-topic, including narratives and informational texts, with picture cards of examples and non-examples.

Choose, then teach target words, including topical words, and words that help children talk about the topic (e.g. describe, explain, predict).

Use categorisation strategies:

Class inclusion, e.g., teaching “a cat is a type of pet and an animal”, using picture cards to ask how a dog and a cat are the same, identifying which item doesn’t belong in a picture showing a dog, goldfish, a guinea pig, and a tiger.
Generic noun phrases (without distracting qualifications), e.g., “cats like to eat fish” (not “some cats like to eat some types of fish”).
Key attributes, e.g., attributes that are perceptual (e.g. dogs have tails) and relational (dogs need shelter, food and water).
Cause and effect statements, e.g., dogs need shelter because they are pets.

Use routines:

Talk together: Introduce 2 target words that are in the category (e.g., dogs and goldfish are types of pets).
Read together: Read and re-read the text, highlighting key words and concepts.
Reflect together: Open-ended questions to build knowledge of the attributes of the target category.

Use explicit teaching strategies:

Object labels/naming: This is an ant. It is a kind of insect. A bee and a mosquito are also insects. How are they the same?
Category properties: An insect has six legs and three body parts. An ant is a type of insect. It has six legs and three body parts.
Negative examples: Is a spider an insect? (pause) Why not?
Generic noun phrases: Insects have six legs.
Inductive probes: Here is a moth. What type of thing is a moth?

The bottom line:

Teaching at-risk preschoolers’ random, unconnected words is not a good idea. Topic-based category work looks like a much better way to support vocabulary development, inferencing skills, language comprehension (and later reading comprehension), and knowledge building.

Go deeper:

Neuman, S. B., & Kaefer, T. (2025). Knowledge-Building Through Categorization: Boosting Children’s Vocabulary and Content Knowledge in a Shared Book Reading Program. Early Education and Development, 1–20. (Open access)

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.