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Talk Is Crucial To Effective Learning, Not Just In Early Years But Throughout Children’s Education

We need to talk about talk, says Alistair Bryce-Clegg

Alistair Bryce-Clegg
by Alistair Bryce-Clegg
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Often in Early Years we think that children get lots of opportunity to talk, but in reality do they? Yes, we talk to them, with them and often at them, but when do they get the opportunity to experience, rehearse and engage in quality talk?

To help our children to become effective talkers we fist have to make sure that we have created a learning environment that supports and enriches that talk development. It is true that talk at its most basic level is made up of thoughts turned into words that come out of your mouth but, there are a number of different types of talk that require different sorts of experiences and different vocabulary.

A ‘talk-rich’ environment is one where children’s level of talk and vocabulary are accurately assessed and opportunities are created for further development and enhancement both indoors and out.

Although talk is everywhere in an early years setting, it is good to identify the areas you have got the lend themselves to particular types of talk development. For example, where in your setting are there most opportunities to develop talk for turn taking and negotiation? Where are there most opportunities for developing talk for empathy and understanding?

Knowing the different types of talk that you would like to develop will help you to create and resource areas that will support the children with their learning.

Children also need different sorts of spaces to develop different types of talk from tiny private den like spaces to great big open outdoor spaces. Spaces to whisper, spaces to shout. Spaces to talk to one significant other, spaces to chat with friends and spaces to address a larger group.

In all of your spaces you want to provide lots of interesting open ended resources that will appeal to different children in different ways and inspire them to want to talk. You can also provide specific resources that are aimed at developing a specific element of talk. For example, when you are looking at developing the language of turn taking then you would provide activities and games that need children to be able to acquire and use that language before they can take part.

If you know that the children you are working with have little or no language for the talk you are trying to develop then the adult plays a key role in modelling and supporting the introduction and use of the type of talk. Once the children start to become familiar with using the talk then they need lots of opportunities for practise.

When it comes to types of talk like talk for conflict resolution, this tend to come up as part of children’s every day play and interaction when something has gone wrong or someone has taken an extra turn on the bike.

As adults we often get caught up in the drama of the situation and provide a ‘quick fix’ resolution to the problem. What we don’t do (often because of time) is discuss options and possibilities for an effective resolution in a way that a child might be able to comprehend and understand. For some adults, compromise is an alien concept. It is usually ten times worse for children!

If it is a particular issue for any children in your setting then you might want to think about planning activities that require the children taking part to have to compromise and use their talk skills to resolve any conflict however major or minor.

Children will often use fantasy, small world and role play situations to practice rehearse their talk, either revisiting actual experiences and replaying them through role play or creating an imaginary situation and talking their way through it.

When it comes to role play then how big your role play area is and the resources that you have in it are of paramount importance. There is no point saying that you want to develop children’s talk and then having a tiny role play area that only three children can fit into!

The key to effective role play for language development is the ambiguity of the core resources that are in it. If we over theme our role play space then we are stifling children’s ability to consolidate and enhance their vocabulary and use of language. To role play anything then you have to have had experience what you are going to role play – otherwise how do you know what you are supposed to do?

It is worth remembering that a cardboard box is never just a cardboard box when it is in the play of a child with even just a little bit of imagination. Where as, a post box is a post box unless it is in the play of a child with a very vivid imagination.

Keep your ‘core’ role play resourcing simple and un-themed. Cardboard boxes, tubes, crates, fabric and den making materials. Then enhance it with ‘real’ objects that you have collected to support a theme or interest.

Once you have set up an open ended provision for role play in your setting then you need to be strategic in how you are using that provision to meet the specific talk needs of your children and develop their skills.

To help you to do this you should plan the specific skills that you are going to focus on across a given period of time and then resource the play to support that skill development. So, instead of planning to create a Post Office, which everyone will have to play in whether the post office is relevant or interesting or not, you plan to develop a talk skill that can be applied wherever the children’s imaginations take their play.

Here is an example of the sort of skills you would be thinking about.

  • Talk for social interaction – build relationships – co-operation – take turns, join in – share
  • Talk for making choices and decisions, developing curiosity
  • Talk for developing language – using familiar and newly introduced vocabulary
  • Talk for develop communication and negotiation skills
  • Talk for expressing emotions and feelings
  • Talk for recalling own experience
  • Talk for developing mathematical language and concepts in a meaningful context
  • Talk for develop day to day activities like cooking
  • Talk for communicating ideas in construction of props
  • Talk for projecting themselves into feelings, actions of others eg fantasy characters from TV, fairy and folk tales
  • Talk for taking on a role in an imaginary situation both real and fantasy
  • Talk for conflict resolution, both real and imaginary
  • Talk for problem solving in real and imaginary situations
Even
  • Tidying up! – talk for negotiation, organisation

Just like play indoors and outdoors can be very different, the same thing applies to talk. We need to make sure that our small world play is not just resigned to the carpet area or the farm but that we give opportunities for children to play with their small world resources outdoors in ‘real’ environments full of ‘real’ objects that will not only provide a setting for their play but will also support them in the development of their language for the real things that they can see, hear smell and touch.

Whatever you are doing and however you are doing it, make sure that you plan for relevant, child led, quality talk to be the backbone of your setting. The more opportunities you give children to talk. The more likely they are to take them!

Alistair Bryce-Clegg is an Early Years trainer, consultant and owner of ABC Does…; for more information, visit abcdoes.com or follow @ABCDoes.

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