Tell-Me-More Teasers

The adult drops a tiny, mysterious piece of news and then stops — the child has to pull the rest of the story out with questions that fit.

  1. Announce a one-line teaser from your real day and then go quiet: “Something surprising happened on my way home.”
  2. Wait. If needed, whisper the rule: “I’ll only tell you more if you ask me something about it.”
  3. Answer each question with just one small piece — enough to invite the next question. (“What was it?” — “I saw an animal.” … “What animal?” — “A fox!” … “Where was it?”)
  4. Hold up a finger for every question that fits the story. Three good questions earns the grand finale — you tell the whole story properly.
  5. If a question doesn’t fit (“Can I have a biscuit?”), smile and say, “That’s a different question — ask me one about the fox.”
  6. Swap. The child gives a teaser about their day and you ask the follow-up questions, showing what curious listening sounds like.

Variation: keep a few question-starter words on your fingers — who, what, where, when, why, how — and see how many different ones the child can use on a single teaser.

Requirements

  • Space: Anywhere — the car, the dinner table, bedtime
  • Surface: Not applicable
  • Materials: None
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; grandparents on a video call make excellent teaser-givers
  • Supervision: Full participation — the adult is the storyteller

Rationale & Objective

Asking relevant questions to continue a conversation is a listed example for this subdomain, and Head Start ELOF describes older preschoolers keeping conversations going by asking related questions. Many 5-year-olds are good at answering adults’ questions but rarely ask one back, so conversations with them run one way. Chouinard’s (2007) study of children’s questions shows that preschoolers ask questions to get information they want and follow up when the answer is incomplete — exactly the mechanism this game sets up by giving deliberately small answers. The questions must be contingent on what the partner just said, which is the heart of “strive for five” responsive conversation (Zucker & Cabell). When the roles swap, the adult models interested follow-up questions, and the child experiences what it feels like to be listened to with curiosity.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: waits silently for the story, or asks something unrelated; needs the adult to supply a question to copy
  • Developing: asks 1–2 fitting questions, usually “what?” questions; repeats the same question form
  • Proficient: asks 3 or more different questions that build on the previous answer (“where was it going?”); uses several question words
  • Advanced: asks “why” and “how did you feel” questions; adds a comment before the question (“A fox! Was it scared?”); asks follow-up questions unprompted in ordinary conversations with adults and peers

Safety Notes

  • Choose teasers that are light and true; avoid worrying news (accidents, illness) as a game hook
  • Do not withhold genuinely needed information or comfort to make a child ask “properly”
  • Keep it to one or two teasers at a time — being made to work for every story becomes tiresome
  • Accept imperfect grammar in questions; echo the question back correctly in your answer rather than correcting it
  • A 5-year-old who rarely asks any questions in daily life, or who does not form “what/where/who” questions, should be seen by a speech-language pathologist

Hints

  • Playfulness: deliver the teaser like a secret — lean in, lower your voice, raise your eyebrows. The more ordinary the truth ("…it was a very big puddle"), the funnier the build-up
  • Sustain interest: invite a different family member to bring “tonight’s teaser”; keep a tally of the most questions ever asked about one story
  • Common mistake: giving away the whole story after the first question. Short answers are what create the next question
  • Limited space: this needs no space or equipment at all — it is ideal for queues, car journeys, and waiting rooms
  • Cross-domain: re-telling the finished story to another family member is narrative practice; asking “how did you feel?” builds empathy; counting questions on fingers is one-to-one counting
  • Progression: adult prompts each question → child asks 3 unaided → uses varied question words → comment-plus-question turns → child tries follow-up questions on a friend’s news

Sources

  • Head Start ELOF — Language and Communication, Goal P-LC 4 (maintaining multi-turn conversations, including by asking related questions)
  • Chouinard, M.M. (2007), “Children’s Questions: A Mechanism for Cognitive Development,” Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 72(1)
  • Zucker, T.A., Cabell, S.Q., Oh, Y. & Wang, X. (2020), “Asking Questions Is Just the First Step,” The Reading Teacher, 74(3)
  • UK EYFS — Communication and Language ELG (“make comments about what they have heard and ask questions to clarify their understanding”)
  • Teaching Strategies GOLD — Objective 10a (engages in conversations)
  • Weitzman, E. & Greenberg, J. — Learning Language and Loving It (The Hanen Centre)