What can parents do to boost young children’s learning?

A few months ago, while holidaying in the English seaside town of Brighton, I attended a community festival held at the University of Sussex. While my children were learning circus skills and watching story tellers with their grand-parents, I sneaked away to attend one of the parenting workshops on offer. Dr Denise Kingston, a researcher in early childhood and lecturer at the university, was presenting a mini-lecture with the following title: “Supporting and Extending Young Children’s Learning Through Play”. The talk was specifically addressing the needs of children from birth to five, so I was attending out of professional curiosity rather than personal interest, as my own children are now older. However, I found a lot of the advice Dr Kingston shared invaluable, both as a parent and an educator. As I observe young children at school on a daily basis, I am often reminded of her words.

Dr Kingston started by reminding us that children entering school now will probably retire sometime around 2080 and, let’s face it, we have no idea what the world will be like then. This is a concern that I have heard repeated many times in educational circles in the last couple of years. How do we prepare children for something we cannot possibly imagine? How do we train them for jobs that do not yet exist? How do we make sure they are ready to solve problems that have not even begun to emerge? Although these questions would make any parent anxious and are keeping schools very busy, there are answers starting to take shape. For example, it has become clear that, instead of imparting knowledge that can now be found on the internet in a few seconds, we are much better off teaching our children skills and character traits that will help them use this knowledge in an efficient and ethical way. Although schools are gradually making this transition, parents also have a crucial role to play in this type of education.

But first, let us consider the things many parents out there are already doing right, and should continue doing. When we consider essential traditional skills such as literacy and numeracy, Dr Kingston reminded us that the home learning environment children grow up in has an even bigger impact than the quality of the pre-school and primary school children attend. Research has shown that some home activities can make a real difference to children’s progress. These include:

Reading to children

Painting and drawing

Going to a library

Singing songs

Learning activities using alphabets and numbers

This list will reassure many parents: it seems that despite the world changing at unprecedented speed, some of the basic activities we have organised for our children for decades are still fully relevant and efficient. One of the most important elements these activities have in common, as Dr Kingston pointed out, is interaction between the child and an adult. This close one-to-one attention is what makes the home environment special.

However, if we want to go further and equip children with more elaborate skills and traits that will help them face an increasingly challenging world, simple interaction is only the start. In order to really unlock children’s potential, we need to provide opportunities for what some researchers call “sustained shared thinking”. This type of interaction between a child (or a small group of children) and an adult is of a higher quality, and a powerful learning tool for parents. The key to sustained shared thinking is an interaction where adults coach children into becoming better thinkers, rather than feeding them information. Instead of suggesting games or providing material, adults follow the child’s lead and interests, and then spend time entering the child’s universe, playing under the child’s terms and asking open, meaningful questions to help children reflect on the activity they have initiated.

Let’s imagine, for example, that a child is pretending to cook food on the beach, playing quietly with  sand and bringing us the occasional “dish”. This fairly normal scene actually represents a wonderful opportunity for sustained shared thinking. While it may be tempting to keep reading our book and smile vaguely when presented with each new dish, there are ways to activate deep learning that are both easy and fun. We can, for instance, ask questions such as “what is your recipe?”, “what are you going to cook next?”, “is this a healthy dish?” or “what will you do if your oven breaks?” We can enter the child’s world by ordering more food, offering to be an assistant chef who will take directions from the child or including other adults or siblings in the game. In doing so, we develop the child’s abstract thinking, imagination, and problem solving abilities. We also give the child confidence, importance and even leadership skills. With a slightly older child who has been used to such role play, it becomes natural to include more school-based skills. The child may want to take orders in writing, create a menu or give us a bill at the end of the meal, for example.

Of course, this kind of role play based on children’s imagination already takes place in many families. What is wonderful is to know what research tells us about such interactions: they are extremely fruitful, lead to a love of learning and develop skills in a more positive and efficient way than the adult-led activities we normally associate with learning.

Dr Nancy Le Nezet
Director of Studies

Studies:

Sylva et al. 2004

Siraj-Blatchford et al, 2002