Communication skills, learning how to listen and ask open questions are features of early years training, but the focus is on how practitioners can hold a dialogue with young children - not adults.
However, a key aspect of the Early Years Foundation Stage is working in partnership with parents. This is an area where sometimes practitioners can struggle, as they have not fully developed the skills and confidence to interact easily with adults.
'I think a lot of the sector workforce has been trained very much on how to have a dialogue with children but not necessarily with their parents,' says Professor Chris Pascal, who with Professor Tony Bertram, her co-director of the Centre for Research in Early Childhood, Birmingham, runs a course for Early Excellence on developing a dialogue with parents.
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