Questions to Ask Toddlers
Twenty everyday questions for a child of roughly one to three, ordered from pointing and naming through to telling someone else what happened. The aim here is talking rather than laughing: these are the questions for the walk home, the bath and the supermarket queue, and each comes with a note on why that wording gets an answer where a near-identical one gets a stare. For the silly kind, the funny questions for toddlers are the better fit.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Do you want the red cup or the blue cup?
Why ask it
Two named options work when open questions do not, because a toddler can answer by pointing. Be ready for them to repeat whichever you said last, which is why the order you offer them in matters.
What is that? Can you show me?
Why ask it
Pairs a question with an action, so a child with fifty words can still answer by fetching the thing. Showing counts as a complete answer at this age and should be treated as one.
Who is this in the picture?
Why ask it
Photographs of familiar people pull out names reliably, and naming is much easier than describing. It also gives you a way to talk about people who are not in the room, which is hard otherwise.
What sound does a cow make?
Why ask it
Animal sounds sit in an easier part of early speech than words do, so this often works on a day when nothing else is landing. Expect to be asked for it forty more times.
Where did your shoe go?
Why ask it
A question about a missing object turns into a search, and they will talk while moving. Asking where rather than what tends to get you a whole phrase sooner.
Can you find something green in here?
Why ask it
A hunt gives the language something to hang on and buys several quiet minutes in a waiting room. Start with a colour they already use rather than the one you are trying to teach.
What is the dog doing?
Why ask it
Present tense and visible, which is the easiest kind of question at this age. Asking what someone is doing produces verbs, and verbs are what short toddler sentences are usually missing.
Shall we walk, or shall I carry you?
Why ask it
A real choice with a real consequence, offered before the meltdown rather than during it. Both options have to be ones you can live with, or the question rebounds on you.
What did you eat at snack time?
Why ask it
Recall works far better with a cue than without one. Naming the occasion, snack time, the park, the bath, gives them somewhere to look, where what did you do today gets nothing at all.
Who did you play with today?
Why ask it
Names are easier to retrieve than events, so this often unlocks the account of the day that the general question did not. Expect the same friend named every time for months, whether or not it is true.
What was the silly part of today?
Why ask it
Silly is a category toddlers understand and want to talk about, and it invites a story rather than a yes. It also tends to be more truthful than asking whether they had a good day.
Is this a big one or a little one?
Why ask it
Comparison is the first form of measurement and needs only a point or one word. It works best with things already in their hands: stones, spoons, socks, biscuits.
What do you think happens next?
Why ask it
On a book they know by heart, a prediction turns reading into a conversation. Getting it deliberately wrong yourself will get you far more talking than getting it right.
Whose shoes are these?
Why ask it
Possession words arrive later than object names and need practice on real things. Point at three pairs by the door and you get mine, yours and somebody's name, which is a lot of grammar for one question.
Can you tell me what happened?
Why ask it
Open recall, best asked shortly after the event rather than at the end of the day. Give them the first few words if they stall, then stop talking and wait.
How does your tummy feel?
Why ask it
Body questions reach feelings that emotion words cannot yet carry. Hunger, tiredness, and worry all turn up in the tummy at this age, and a child who cannot say anxious can point there.
Are you sad, or are you cross?
Why ask it
Two named feelings are easier than an open question, and toddlers will often accept whichever fits. Getting the word wrong is not a problem: being corrected is how the vocabulary lands.
Where does your coat go?
Why ask it
Asks them to describe a place rather than name a thing, which is how prepositions get used out loud. It also turns tidying up into a question they can win, which works better than an instruction.
What should we do tomorrow?
Why ask it
Future talk is harder than past talk, so keep it to tomorrow rather than next week. Wildly impractical answers are still good answers, because the tense is the point.
Will you tell Grandma what we did today?
Why ask it
Retelling to a third person is the biggest step in this list, and it works because the audience genuinely does not know. Resist filling in the parts they leave out.
Talking with a toddler so they answer
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to ask
Wait longer than feels natural
Count to five before rephrasing. Toddlers need several seconds to find a word, and adults almost always fill the gap with a second question that resets the process.
Ask while something is happening
Questions land during bath, snack, or a walk, and bounce off when you have just interrupted play to ask them. The best time is when their hands are busy and yours are too.
Accept pointing, sounds, and one word
A gesture is a complete answer at this stage. Take it, then say the sentence back with two or three more words in it than they used.
Offer two options when open questions stall
Was it the slide or the sandpit works when what did you do at nursery does not. Put the likely answer first, since many toddlers simply repeat the last thing they heard.
Getting more than one word
Cue the memory
Name the moment before you ask about it: at lunchtime, when we were at the shop, before your nap. Toddler recall needs an anchor and produces almost nothing without one.
Say the wrong thing on purpose
Suggesting that the cow says quack, or that they had spaghetti for breakfast, gets an emphatic correction. Correcting an adult is highly motivating and produces longer sentences than a direct question.
Expand, do not correct
If they say doggy runned, reply that yes, the dog ran fast. They hear the correct form without being told they got it wrong, which keeps them talking.
Ask the same question at the same time every day
A fixed slot, the walk home or the bath, gives them a routine to fill and gets much better answers within a fortnight than a novel question ever does.
What silences them
The pickup interrogation
Three questions in the first minute after nursery get nothing. They are tired and readjusting, and the account of the day usually surfaces an hour later, unprompted, about something unrelated.
Questions you already know the answer to
Quizzing on colours, letters, and numbers turns talking into testing. If you want to know whether they can name red, hand them the red one and see what they call it.
Asking why
Why questions need reasoning that mostly is not there yet and often get a blank look or a guess. What, where, and who work at this age; why can wait a year.
Correcting the grammar
Being corrected mid-sentence stops the sentence. Repeat it back properly instead, and let the pattern do the teaching.
Pressing when they are done
A shrug or a change of subject means the conversation is over, whatever you had planned. Let it go, and it will often come back to you in the car.