How to Talk to Your Toddler: Fewer Questions, More Comments

By Julia Taylor, B.App.Sc. (Sp.Path.), M.Hlth.Sc., CPSP 6 min read

Record yourself playing with your toddler for two minutes and count the question marks. Most loving parents discover they're running a quiz show: 'What's this? What color is it? Can you say duck?' The counterintuitive fix, used across parent-coaching programs, is to flip the ratio — lots of comments, few questions. Here's why it works and exactly what to say instead.

Why quizzing backfires

A question is a demand: produce the answer, now, out loud. For a toddler with few words, that's a test they might fail — and children go quiet under testing. Worse, quiz questions ('what's this?') ask for words the child already knows, so even success teaches nothing new.

A comment is a gift: 'Big red truck!' hands over vocabulary at the exact moment your child's attention is on the thing named — no performance required. The CDC's own examples model this: respond to a child's 'truck' with 'Yes, that's a big, blue truck', and to unclear attempts by restating the likely meaning in full, rather than correcting or demanding a repeat (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2026a, 2026c).

The 4:1 swap, with scripts

A workable target: about four comments for every question. The swaps look like this:

Instead of ‘What’s this?’ → ‘A digger! Digging the dirt.’
Instead of ‘What color is it?’ → ‘Ooh, a RED one.’
Instead of ‘Can you say duck?’ → ‘Duck! Splash, duck.’ (then wait)
Instead of ‘What does the cow say?’ → ‘Moooo, says the cow.’ (they’ll beat you to it soon enough)
Instead of ‘Are you building a tower?’ → ‘Up, up, up… so tall!’

The questions that ARE worth asking

Not all questions are quizzes. Two kinds earn their place. Choice questions — 'apple or banana?' — give your child the answer words inside the question and practically guarantee a successful reply; simple choices are explicitly recommended in the milestone guidance (CDC, 2026b). And genuine questions — ones you don't know the answer to, like 'where should teddy sit?' — invite opinion rather than performance.

The litmus test: do you already know the answer? If yes, consider making it a comment instead. If the question hands your child power or words, keep it.

Where to practice

Every toy page on this site is written comment-first — the Bronze/Silver/Gold goals are words to give away during play, not answers to demand. The word kits do the same for the highest-value words, and each Woodland Friends parent guide marks the spots to comment and the one or two places a gentle question earns its keep. Comment, pause, and let the conversation come to you.

The takeaway

Swap the quiz show for a commentary track: four comments for every question, choices instead of tests, and expansions instead of corrections. Comments hand your toddler words for free — and free words get spent.

Sources & further reading

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026a). Milestones by 1 year. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/milestones-1yr.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026b). Milestones by 18 months. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/milestones-18mo.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026c). Milestones by 2 years. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/milestones-2yr.html

A friendly note (and the fine print)

This article is general educational information only. It is not speech therapy, therapeutic advice, an assessment, a diagnosis, or a substitute for individualized professional care, and reading it does not create a therapist–client relationship. Every child is different — if you have any concerns about your child’s speech, language, hearing or development, please consult your own certified speech-language pathologist, pediatrician or family health professional, who can advise you about your individual child. See when to talk to a professional for how to find one.

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