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In her first title for Scholastic, Lily Howard Scott’s The Words That Shape Us: The Science-Based Power of Teacher Language explores the power of language to shape children’s thinking patterns, emotional experiences, and everyday choices.
A New York City-based educator who provides professional development to teachers and school leaders around the country, Scott masterfully combines personal anecdotes, scientific research, and insightful analysis to offer teachers and families a deeper understanding of the power of language. Scott offers simple language suggestions that can trigger a tectonic shift in way that kids speak to themselves and navigate challenges—in the classroom, at home, and beyond. She also offers plenty of practical, reproducible curricular extensions (such as poetry invitations and reading responses) that empower kids to explore, adapt, and internalize these transformative words.
Check out Scott’s recent NBC News Now interview to discover the significant role language plays in shaping young minds.
Q. Congratulations on the launch of your book! What are some of the most surprising findings you discovered while researching and writing?
A. Thank you! I loved digging into recent research about how words can invite us to create new mental concepts and unlock healthier patterns of thinking. Over the past few years, I’ve become fascinated by the idea that language isn’t only a tool for communicating with others, it’s also a tool for more positively regulating and navigating our inner lives. I believe this truth carries profound implications for the ways in which teachers (and caregivers!) speak to kiddos.
Q. This is a much-needed resource, especially when we think of all that children are dealing with today. How exactly does the language we use with children affect their mental health and self-perception?
A. Yes, anxiety rates and perfectionist tendencies in young people are soaring. But here’s the good news: because the way we speak to kids becomes the way they speak to themselves, and because we now know more about how exactly words can shape kids’ thinking, every educator has a powerful tool right on the tip of their tongue.
For example, a first-grade teacher’s unusual pairing of the words “brilliant” and “mistake” in the phrase “What a brilliant mistake! What learning can you find in it?” can rewire how a student responds to making errors, replacing feelings of shame with self-compassion, curiosity, and a capacity to keep going when assignments get hard.
Here’s how such a simple phrase works its magic: as neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett explains in her groundbreaking book How Emotions Are Made, emotions don’t happen to us, they’re made by us. They’re “guesses” our brains form based on our previous experiences. This means we all have more agency over our interior lives than we might have realized. Deploying brilliant-mistake language is an example of a decision that Barrett calls an “energized determination”: an approach that seeds our brains to predict differently in the future. When a child—let’s say one who typically shuts down emotionally when they spot mistakes—internalizes this language as self-talk, noticing errors begins to feel viscerally different. Slip-ups don’t bother the student in the way they used to; this child no longer feels sick to their stomach or paralyzed by self-consciousness because their brain has, quite literally, changed its response. Instead of looking away from mistakes, this student can now comfortably investigate them and search for learning to carry forward.
Q. What a powerful example of what a small shift in language can do. We have a lot of readers who are educators. Could you tell us about a few other phrases that teachers can share with kids?
A. The phrase “Think ishfully!”—a term inspired by Peter H. Reynolds’ Ish, a picture book about a little boy who, initially frustrated that his sketch of flower doesn’t look exactly how he imagined it would, learns to embrace that his sketch is “flower-ish”—is an antidote to perfectionist thinking. When kids approach challenges “ishfully” and remind one another not to “squish their own ish,” they jump into tricky assignments even when they’re unsure of exactly how to begin and hold onto the understanding that what they end up creating may surprise them in wonderful ways.
Another playful phrase that keeps circulating the classrooms I support (and in my home!) these days is “Turn on your birder mindset!” A birder walks into a forest with binoculars, a field guide, and hope that they’ll see something beautiful. In much the same way, we can encourage children to be deliberate about looking for flashes of joy and wonder in ordinary moments. Especially as kids’ attention spans wither—habituated to the novelty hits of screen-based media—children need practice looking upwards and outwards with a “birder mindset”: approaching new experiences with sustained attention and through the lens of “what funny, joyful, or interesting thing will I find here?” A kindergarten teacher might say to a group of little ones about to explore a water-beads center for the first time: “As you feel the beads, turn on your birder mindset! Tuck away one special, secret noticing to tell your partner. When I ring the bell, go ahead and share.” Or a fourth-grade teacher might say: “As you read today, keep your birder mindset on high-alert. Which elements of author craft delight you or make you stop in your tracks? Jot down what you notice.” And before long, of course, kids’ birder mindsets are permanently turned on and they move through their school days with more engagement and joy. As Ross Gay teaches us in The Book of Delights: “The more you study delight, the more delight there is to study.”
Q. I’m going to turn on my “birder mindset” on my walk to work tomorrow. You mentioned that kids can adapt these phrases—what might that look like?
A. Well, the language suggestions in this book are exactly that: suggestions. They are not a script. Sometimes it takes hearing another person’s language to suddenly grasp the word you were searching for, the one that had been just out of reach.
Seven years ago, I remember introducing the concept of an “inner voice”—the kindest, wisest, most “you” part of yourself—to my student Harper, then eight-years-old. Harper suggested calling this wise part of herself her “President Decider” because, in her own words, “President Decider is like the president of my body and she gets to choose what to think about and what to not think about.” Effective teaching isn’t about compliance; it’s about what your contributions might stir up within the child, who in turn brings forth something new and wondrous of their own.
Q. What advice would you give to new teachers who are just starting to explore the power of language in their elementary classrooms?
A. I’d say this: I hope you know that, as a teacher of young children, you have a secret power. You are a trusted grown-up in one of the most formative moments in your students’ lives; a moment when their capacity for neuroplasticity is remarkable and their senses of self are rapidly evolving.
The words you share can literally shape how your students’ brains receive information and predict, transforming how they think, feel, and behave—now and later. Twenty years from now, a student from your second-grade class may remember to “think ishfully” and keep perfectionism at bay so they can finally begin a long-deferred endeavor. Or turn on their “birder mindset” at the DMV and find a flicker of humor in a humdrum errand. You, and the language you shared, cross space and time to become a part of those moments.
Lily Howard Scott
To learn more about The Words that Shape Us, click here. Be sure to follow @Scholastic on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, as well as @ScholasticEdu on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Lily Howard Scott (MSEd) teaches in the Continuing Professional Studies Department at Bank Street College of Education and provides professional development to teachers and school leaders around the country. Her work is centered around helping children navigate their inner lives, connect with each other, and take the risks that lead to meaningful learning. Scott presents regularly at national conferences, and her writing about the importance of a child-centric, holistic approach to teaching and learning has been published in Edutopia and The Washington Post, among other publications. For nearly 10 years, Lily taught elementary school in both public and independent settings. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two young children.
