Abstract
Oral language skills are a crucial factor for many life outcomes and serve-and-return interactions
between adults and young children have been identified as influential in accelerating these skills.
Kia Timata Pai (The Best Start) is a randomised controlled trial assessing a professional
development intervention called ENRICH (ENhancing RICH conversations) that aims to
increase teacher-child serve-and-return interactions. The Video Project is a sub-study within KTP
that includes 24 early childhood education (ECE) centres. Video data of five routines are
collected at each wave: Group Time, Book Time, Meal Time, Play Time, and Nappy/Toilet time,
which was subsequently changed to Greetings/Farewells. The findings of Group Time, Book
Time, and Meal Time across the first two years (three waves; June 2021-2023) of the study are
analysed here. Teachers' serve-and-return interactions were measured through an adaptation of
Dr. Phil Fisher’s parent focused FLO (Following, Leading, Other) coding scheme (Fisher, 2016).
Following is defined by the teacher following a child’s lead, leading is defined by the teacher
controlling an interaction, and disengagement is defined by the teacher focusing on something
other than a child. It was hypothesised that ENRICH teachers would increase their use of
following and decrease disengagement more so than Active Control teachers. ENRICH teachers
increased their use of following during Book Time while remaining stable in use of leading,
indicating increased serve-and-return interactions, a crucial strategy for child language outcomes.