From flat propositions to deep co-constructed and modalized argumentations: Oral argumentative skills among elementary school children from grades 2 to 6

Drawing on a corpus of 180 peer discussions of second, fourth and sixth graders in German-speaking Swiss elementary schools (ages 7–12), we comment on three aspects of oral argumentative competence: (1) giving reasons, (2) argumentative complexity and co-constructions, and (3) modalization of arguments. We combine qualitative and quantitative analyses, both based in the approach of conversation analysis, and show that, as children get older, they not only give more reasons for their arguments, but also match them to their partner’s perspective, modalize their different standpoints to a greater extent, and produce arguments that are more complex and co-constructed. We observe a bigger change in these argumentative practices between the second and fourth grades than between the fourth and sixth.