What strategies do early childhood educators need to consider if they are to build on what is known about the way in which young children learn?
YOUNG CHILDREN LEARN BY BEING ACTIVE
If young children learn naturally by being active in engaging in a range of exploratory experiences, then the primary responsibility of the school or early years setting is to plan opportunities that facilitate and support these instinctive strategies.
Children need the opportunity to engage with a range of materials and stimuli. They need time and space to explore, investigate and question. They need a range of play experiences and resources of good quality. They need, in other words, a learning environment that offers concrete experiences that are relevant, meaningful and worthy of active involvement.
If children are to continue to make sense of the world, the world must be worth the struggle. Clearly, before children start school or playgroup or nursery or children's centre, the incentive and motivation to learn have been enough. It is up to practitioners to create new learning environments that are equally worthwhile.
YOUNG CHILDREN LEARN BY ORGANISING THEIR OWN LEARNING EXPERIENCES
Athey (1990) reminds us that to tap into the personal constructs of the child, early childhood educators need to focus on the underlying processes of thinking and cognition. When practitioners are concerned with the sense that children are making of their own learning then this provides a rich source for planning and development.
Observing and appreciating children's schemas can offer professionals a starting point for planning experiences that capture children's current interests and preoccupations. If a child is focusing on a trajectory schema - a fascination with things moving or flying through the air (see Bartholomew and Bruce 1993 for further definitions of schema) - then 'he or she needs to be provided with a range of interesting and stimulating experiences which extend thinking along that particular path' (Nutbrown 2006). When children are absorbed by something in this way, it is far more productive for practitioners to go with and plan for that interest.
Starting from the child becomes increasingly difficult when there is an external curriculum to be taught. However, early childhood educators who believe in working with rather than against the interests of children will make time to observe and record the ways in which they organise their own learning experiences. Nutbrown says those who become interested in children's schema development come to know that children will pursue their schemas, whether adults like it or not!
YOUNG CHILDREN LEARN BY USING LANGUAGE
The work of Margaret Donaldson demonstrates the importance of young children's experiences being embedded in contexts that are meaningful to them (1978). Her work, and that of researchers studying the relationship between language development in the home and at school, emphasises the importance of the context in which the adult and child have in common shared experiences from which to draw shared meanings (Anning 1991).
Edwards and Mercer (1987) claim that the establishment of mutual understanding and shared meanings is something with which educators must also be concerned. They suggest that the point at which education commonly fails is when 'incorrect assumptions are made about shared knowledge, meaning and interpretations' (1987: 60). Practitioners and children need to share a 'common knowledge' about the discourse that forms the basis for communication in the setting for the learning that comes from interaction to be most effective.
Children use language to learn and therefore learning environments must give them opportunities to use language in a variety of ways. It is language that affords young children the means of making sense of their experiences and internalising their actions. Therefore, to capitalise on the power of language to influence thought and action, experiences must encourage talk as a key process through which young children learn.
It is heartening to see in recent government documentation, fresh affirmation of the critical nature of speaking and listening as precursors for competence in reading and writing, as well as for understanding, across all curriculum areas and the development of good social relationships (DfES 2005).
Talking something through, either alone or with others, is an important way of grasping new ideas, understanding concepts or clarifying feelings and perceptions. Young children need opportunities for discussion, explanation, description, narration and speculation. In learning environments, where talk is recognised as a powerful and natural medium for learning, young children are able to make meaning of what is new in terms of what is familiar. Through their talk, they create a context that is personal to them and one that relates to their own experiences.
YOUNG CHILDREN LEARN BY INTERACTING WITH OTHERS
If learning is socially constructed, then early childhood educators clearly have a critical role, one that was at one time devalued by misunderstandings about the nature of 'child-centredness' and 'discovery learning' (Blenkin and Kelly 1987). It is the skilled intervention of the practitioner that will move children from their present to their future potential. Interactions with children must enable this progress through Vygotsky's 'zone of proximal development' and practitioners must arrange things, says Athey (1990), so that knowledge is actively constructed and not simply copied.
Early childhood educators need to have regular conversations with children. These conversations need to find out what children already know and understand, or to support, through questioning or answering questions, their current thinking. Such interactions are described, in Reggio Emilia, as 'a ball which is passed along. At times the children throw it, at times we (the adults) do' (Malaguzzi 1992). It is so important that children and adults alike see themselves as co-constructors of knowledge, where both parties contribute to an exchange of ideas and views and questions, in order to come to new insights and fresh understandings.
Recent material from the Coram Family Research Unit on 'Listening to Children' (Lancaster 2003) promotes adult-child relationships that uphold children's rights to be listened to as competent individuals, who should have their views, concerns and aspirations taken into account and who should participate in decisions that are important to them. This influential work promotes the view that young children are competent to express their views and supports adults to increase their listening skills so that children's voices are heard.
Other children are also part of the this social construct, and practitioners have to look at 'the context in which learning takes place in schools (sic) as well as at the nature of specific learning tasks' (Pollard and Tann 1993).
The topic of children working and learning together is discussed fully in Chapter 6. However, there is growing evidence of the importance of peer tutoring in classroom contexts, whether it is planned or not (Forman and Cazdan 1985; Galton & Williamson 1992; Rogoff & Toma 1997; Rogoff et al 2003).
Effective teaching acknowledges the role of all those who have the knowledge and understanding to contribute to the development of individual learners. Descriptions of learning in the pre-schools in Reggio Emilia constantly emphasise the significance of groups of children learning together, sometimes including adults in those groups. In Making Learning Visible (2001), there are powerful examples of how 'learning groups' create a dynamic synergy that 'extends beyond the learning of individuals to create a collective body of knowledge' (p286).
STARTING FROM THE CHILD
Revised with the Early Years Foundation Stage in mind, the new edition of Starting from the Child is a practical book that makes for essential reading for all Early Years practitioners, in both the private and voluntary sectors.
Providing a mix of depth and accessibility, Julie Fisher offers meaningful and inspirational ways of developing appropriate learning environments and experiences for Foundation Stage children. And it reflects on key elements of current research and policy.
Written in a clear and concise style, this is a book written by a practitioner for practitioners.
To buy your copy at a 20 per cent discount, visit www.openup.co.uk/fisher3e or call 01628 502700 and quote promotional code FISHER8. Valid until 30 June 2008.
