Interactions
Learning through play, and the quality experiences and opportunities for this, are created and nurtured when adults are involved in the process.
Early Years Alliance
The role of the adult is both skilful and complex. The adult must enable learning for and with the children and requires them to take the lead from the children and to identify what they need to reinforce and extend their learning and development.
It is a delicate balance of supporting, enriching and proposing on one hand, and giving the children the space to build their own ideas on the other.
Realising the Ambition, (2020)
Interactions with young children are profoundly important for supporting and extending their learning. Interactions (verbal or non-verbal) help build warm relationships with young children and these relationships are at the heart of quality learning. Effective interactions also help practitioners to; know and understand children better; model language; model thinking; scaffold learning; affirm and consolidate learning and extend children’s knowledge and understanding.
Julie Fisher, Interacting or Interfering, (2016)
Many interactions between practitioners and children involves spoken language. Hodgkinson (2008) noted that talk as a medium for learning, is “the most important educational tool for guiding development and for constructing knowledge”.
Cognitive Development and Interactions
Adults can support children’s cognitive development and thinking skills through careful interactions. Specific and skilful interactions of adults will enhance executive functioning in children. Below are five different adult behaviours which can support the development of cognitive skills in children. These behaviours can enhance language and thinking process, spark curiosity and support the regulation of learning behaviours (such as attention or perseverance).
How adults can support learning.pdfThis document produced by the Educational Psychology Service gives details of each of the adult roles outlined above, as well as information on; the Zone of Proximal Development, Mediated Learning, the Learning Pit and Cognitive Feedback.
Quality Interactions between the leaner/s and adult/s should add something positive to learning. We want the learners to be curious, to ask questions, to explore, be creative and imaginative. We can support this by talking to them, modelling a problem solving mindset and asking our own questions.
Below gives examples of how this could be done.
Commenting - can support children with little verbal language
“my hands are getting colder in the water”
“I really like your hairband, it’s very colourful”
Pondering – opens up thinking and helps to plant or develop ideas as it suggests that we are interested in the question too, rather than trying to test them
“I wonder what would happen if…”
Imagining – encourages creative thinking in a range of different contexts. It allows children to experience what they may never have before
“what might it be like to …?”
Connecting – helps children to make connection within their learning. It can draw on past experiences that can maybe be useful in supporting their current experience. It is much easier to remember something new if we can connect it to something we already understand.
“Do you remember when/how we ….?
“It is just like when you….”
Thinking aloud – indirectly supports and extends thinking to stimulate interest/curiosity
“I am going to try ….”
“I think if I do this it will…”
Talking about feelings – helps children to name and manage their own feelings. Allowing learners to talk about their actions and to help us to support them through their challenges.
Reflecting back to the children – shows children that we have been listening to them. We can repeat their words back to them or sometime we use our own words to describe their actions.
“I like your idea that a snail leaves a trail on the ground to move easily”
“I like how you just used both hands to keep the base steady”
Supporting the children to make choices and decisions – limited choices help children focus and make decisions more manageably. This allows children to have an element of control over their lives and learning.
Explaining/Informing – sometimes children just need to be told something rather than be made to think about something. We can give reasons for why something has happened. This would only happen after the child has been given an opportunity to show whether they already know something, or try for themselves if they wanted to.
Posing problems – we challenge children’s thinking by posing problems, which they can then solve in their own way. This develops resilience, problem solving skills, communication and teamwork, all within a real life context.
“I wonder how we can keep this dry?”
Staying quiet – there are times to stay quiet, times to stay attentive but not to intrude, times to watch and wait and wonder; observing and assessing.