What's included in the Oral Health and Teeth Conversation Cards resource and why is it useful?

EYFS Oral Health and Teeth Conversation Cards give you a ready-made bank of open questions that get young children talking, listening and thinking aloud. Each card pairs a question with a photograph, so children who are not yet reading can choose a card that interests them and join the discussion. The content includes 12 picture cards and a printer-friendly version, covering losing teeth, braces and false teeth, visits to the dentist, toothpaste and animal teeth from dinosaurs to birds. They make ideal oral health talk prompts and speaking and listening activities, developing children's communication and language skills and oracy.

Every card supports the Early Learning Goals for Listening, Attention and Understanding and Speaking. Children's answers make useful observations to inform your ELG judgements.

The EEF Early Years Toolkit rates communication and language approaches at about +7 months' additional progress, at very low cost.

Looking After Our Teeth

Questions about keeping teeth healthy, from brushing to visiting the dentist, such as "Why do dentists sometimes take x-rays of our teeth?"

Teeth That Change

Questions about losing teeth and the ways people fix or replace them, such as "Do only children's teeth fall out?"

Animal Teeth

Questions that compare our teeth with animal teeth, past and present, such as "Did all dinosaurs have sharp teeth?"

How do our EYFS conversation cards work?

Our conversation cards work well as snack time conversation starters or as part of a designated time for group discussion. Every question is written for you, so they're ready to print, cut and use. Children pick a picture that interests them, you read the question aloud, and the group discusses it. The questions are open by design, so there's no right answer to find: the aim is talk, reasoning and vocabulary. You can also use them:

• as a carpet-time warm-up or a hook at the start of a new topic
• for small-group talk with a practitioner or TA, where quieter children get more turns
• with talk partners, who discuss a card and then share one idea with the group
• in continuous provision, placed in a themed area such as a role-play dentist's surgery for adults to pick up during play
• for one-to-one language support or speech and language follow-up
• at home, as conversation starters for families

Stretch confident talkers with follow-up prompts such as "What makes you think that?" and "What would happen if...?", or simplify by narrowing an open question to a choice (e.g. "Sharp teeth or flat teeth?").

Supporting Children with EAL and SEND

The photographs give every child a visual hook, so children can point, gesture or use single words before building to sentences. Pair the cards with Makaton or visuals your setting already uses. These simple approaches can also help:

• Simplified question stems: break questions into smaller steps and use yes/no questions (e.g. "Can you see the toothbrush?", "Is the boy smiling?").
• Reduce cognitive load: focus children's attention on the photo by pointing to key parts.
• Response scaffolds: provide sentence starters (e.g. "I think...", "My favourite is...") to support expressive language.

You can explore more of our conversation cards resources here.