Based upon the view that parents, home visitors, and teachers in early childhood settings need tools for empowering young children to develop language, this paper examines what adults need to know to guide young children's language development and presents 20 suggestions for enhancing language growth. The paper maintains that adults need to know the norms and windows of language growth, need strong research findings to defend developmentally appropriate practice, need to consider how language skills are special socially, and need helpful curriculum ideas to enhance and promote language competence and prevent school reading failures. The techniques detailed for caregivers, parents, and home visitors are the following: (1) offer turn-taking talk with babies; (2) provide prompts; (3) be a generous word giver; (4) model and expand on infant/toddler language; (5) use parallel talk; (6) use self talk; (7) arrange for children to act out familiar tales; (8) encourage children to create rhymes; (9) converse frequently with children; (10) teach children to give themselves verbal planning cues; (11) use convergent questions to find out what children know; (12) use Socratic questions to encourage reasoning and creativity; (13) restate meanings in simple words; (14) read books; (15) sing; (16) enliven spontaneous dramatic play; (17) help children use words as social mediators; (18) teach time, space, and number words; (19) recite poetry; and (20) teach finger plays and chants. The paper concludes by noting that providing language mastery experiences will ensure that children become language lovers as well as eloquent language learners. Contains 25 references. (KB)