Nursery World - Learning & Development: Schemas

Being attentive to the development of behaviour patterns can help
practitioners better understand children's thinking. Frances Atherton explains

Remarkable capabilities are divulged in the most conspicuous ways as children play. This can lead the discerning observer to a deeper understanding of the intricate nature of young children's thinking.

In what they do, the language they use and the things they make as they play, children acquaint us with important aspects of their learning and development.

Through careful observation, underlying patterns in thinking can emerge as children work on their schemas. An awareness of these patterns and consistencies is important, for if adults are mindful of, and receptive to, children's cognitive structures - their schemas - the time spent together can be a more attuned and conceptually relevant encounter.

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