Because ScienceStart! is an inquiry-based hands-on curriculum with a rich content, it supports a flexible teaching style that gradually gives control to children as they learn to articulate their questions and test their ideas.

The cycle of scientific reasoning provides a structure that supports teachers as they help children learn to ask questions and to discuss their experience. At the beginning of the school year, many children will remain silent when the teacher asks discovery questions. When this happens teachers (and aides!) can model asking questions and suggesting ways to find answers. By mid-year, the children, now familiar with the cycle of scientific reasoning, chime in with their ideas, and teachers support the children's efforts to test them. The "trial and error" "Let's see!" of science helps teachers shed the role of final authority to become coaches and resources.

ScienceStart! content provides many related experiences through which children explore phenomena such as making secondary colors from primary colors. As children engage in the activities, teachers talk with the children about what is happening, helping the children to learn the language that is meaningful in the context of their activity. In this way ScienceStart! supports a teaching style in which language is used for sharing, description and questioning as well as managing behavior. ScienceStart! teachers engage children in conversations.