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Adult-led and child-led learning refer to the two ends of what is a much more complex continuum of children’s learning. Wherever learning falls on that continuum, there are challenges for the early years practitioner in supporting it well. As adult-led learning increasingly becomes ‘adult-insisted’ learning, then the gap between the two ends of this continuum widen and the role of the adult must change in order to offer support that is appropriate according to whoever is leading the learning.
In order to support any early learning in the appropriate way – wherever it falls on that continuum – practitioners need to be clear about whose purpose the activity or experience is ultimately serving and whose objectives are being met. If practitioners are not clear about the purpose of a learning situation, then there is always the possibility that they will offer the wrong kind of support in the wrong way and at the wrong time.
THE CHALLENGE OF SUPPORTING ADULT-LED LEARNING
Leading the learning can be challenging for practitioners because children are often more interested in their own agenda than that of the adult. So keeping children’s interest focused on adult objectives can be very demanding. Indeed, observation of children engaged in adult-led learning shows just how hard practitioners often have to work to keep children following their lead. This is chiefly because children’s innate drive to discover the world for themselves is more compelling at this age than to learn what someone else deems to be important (Bredekamp 1987, Whitebread 2012).
I would suggest that many children struggle with this kind of adult-led learning because learning ‘through’ an adult is an abstract process. We know young children learn best when being active, playful and hands-on (Broadhead et al 2010, Smith 2010). Yet learning via another person means thinking what they are thinking and understanding their understandings – both of which are very abstract processes.
The practitioner is not a ‘hands-on’ activity in themselves – even if using resources to exemplify their teaching – but is explaining or describing or modelling something through words and ideas, resulting in many children struggling to grasp what is being taught or finding it difficult to sustain attention or hold onto what is being taught in the working memory (Whitebread 2012). Abstract learning at this age goes against everything we know about how young children learn most readily.
Learning from an adult when children choose to and when they are made to
However, in many cultures around the world, children learn not in formal institutions, but by imitating adults and having adults model their various skills and accomplishments in their local communities (Rogoff 2003). Even in our own culture, children will ask a parent or grandparent or next-door neighbour to show them how to catch a fish or cook a favourite meal or sew a cape for their doll. But, once again, there is a difference of purpose here which affects the control, and success, of the learning situation.
When the child chooses to come to the adult – ‘show me how…’; ‘how do you…?’ – they are still in control. The child has asked the question and clearly wants to know the answer. The motivation is intrinsic and the enquiry is driven from within. When the adult requires the child to come to them, to learn something that meets the purposes of the adult, then the control shifts to the practitioner, the motivation is theirs and neither the question nor the answer may be of relevance or interest to the child at that moment in time.
In the early years of education, we are so often asking children to make the transition, as described by Whitebread (2012), from ‘incidental’ to ‘deliberate’ learning. In the early years, children’s selective attention means that they may struggle to focus on something not immediately interesting or relevant to them.
We have seen that the benefit of adult-led learning is that it can focus children’s attention onto one or two specific aspects of learning and lead to learning that might otherwise be missed. Ironically, however, even when it is effective, adult-led learning can also sometimes constrain learning because the child is expected to learn what is planned and is sometimes stopped (by the plan) from going beyond that. Practitioners always need to be alert for the learning that may go beyond what is planned on the page.
THE CHALLENGE OF SUPPORTING CHILD-LED LEARNING
Despite the challenges of adult-led learning, the role of the adult in child-led learning is even more complex and infinitely more subtle. We have established that child-led learning gives children the opportunity to play, explore and investigate the world around them in whatever ways they choose, following whatever direction they want their learning to take. Because of its very unpredictability, practitioners have to be particularly sensitive and responsive to what support – if any – the child or children need in order to achieve their objectives.
First of all, if the adult has not been involved in the initial stages of play or a child-led episode then they must wait, watch and wonder to show respect for what has gone on already (see Part 2 of this series). Crucially, before engaging with children, the practitioner must ask the vital question: ‘If I open my mouth now, will it help?’
Sometimes the answer is ‘No’:
The child/children are busily engaged in their learning and don’t need me right now.
The environment and resources that staff have so carefully prepared are doing their job – stimulating, consolidating, provoking learning… I might get in the way.
The children are ‘asking questions’ of the resources – ‘I wonder if…’; ‘I wonder whether…?’; ‘I think maybe…’ – and do not have the ‘headspace’ to talk to an adult as well.
Sometimes the answer is ‘Yes’:
I can see that Rani is getting really frustrated and may give up.
I can see Trina looking round for someone to share her newly found ladybird with.
I can see that the group are not as intensely involved as they were… I’ll see if they want to tell someone about what they’ve discovered.
Sometimes the answer is ‘Maybe’:
If you’re not sure… go closer.
Show ‘warm attentiveness’, then children can only do one of two things – ignore you or bring you into their activity and their thinking.
Sometimes the answer is ‘Not yet’:
The most effective interactions take place when children have the ‘headspace’ to engage with their practitioner, when involvement in their activity is not so intense that to speak to someone means losing the threads of their thinking.
Timing is crucial. Allowing the child to do their own thinking before the practitioner comes alongside and plants ideas of their own can be the difference between interacting and interfering (Fisher 2016).
Waiting time
That period of waiting can be very challenging. Practitioners often say they feel as though they are ‘doing nothing’ and that someone watching them will be critical. But waiting and watching is not ‘doing nothing’. It is giving the child a chance to think and, if adults are talking all the time, they just become a distraction. Waiting and watching is also a time for practitioners to think; to wonder and ponder about saying the right thing, in the right way and at the right time.
Sometimes practitioners are concerned about what to say – without resorting to those inane questions such as ‘what colour?’ or ‘how many?’. I have always found it best in a child-led situation, when joining play that is already taking place, to wait for the conversation to come to me.
If the child instigates a conversation through words or gestures, a practitioner is more likely to respond in a way that is meaningful and helpful. If a conversational ‘ball’ is passed across the carpet, or the table, or the sandpit, then the role of the adult is clear – to respond by passing back that same conversational ball. To wait, watch and wonder doesn’t reduce the role of the adult to a mere passenger in the experience. Rather, it ensures that when the practitioner interacts, they do so for a purpose and that the purpose is helpful to the child.
THE CHALLENGE OF SUPPORTING ADULT-INITIATED LEARNING
There are some situations that are neither purely adult-led nor child-led. Sometimes, the practitioner plans for an activity that children will undertake independently and which can, in the end, come under the control of the child. The practitioner may want children to consolidate something they have previously learned; or to explore something new; or to work together as a group to see which characteristics of early learning emerge. For all of these reasons – and others – the adult initiates the learning situation but leaves the children to work without supervision to see what is managed, explored or learned alone.
When these adult-initiated activities take place they sometimes result in the learning ending up where the practitioner intended, and sometimes not! Often dependent on the age of the children or on the quality of the activity/experience planned, children start where the practitioner suggests but then take the learning somewhere they feel is more interesting.
Supporting adult-initiated learning, therefore, is often challenging. If the activity or experience is well planned, then learning will have been taking place when the adult is not around. However, independent learning is not abandoned learning and so, when the practitioner is ready, they return to the activity to see what the children have been doing, thinking and learning.
If the practitioner returns, assuming that children have stayed absolutely on task, then they may well start an intervention in the wrong place – because children’s thinking may have been diverted from the original plan. So, once again, the role of the adult when joining learning that is already taking place is to wait, watch and wonder; to be respectful of what is happening, to take the time to tune in to what is being explored, discussed, tried out, and then to join in only when and if the time is right and the intervention will help.
If children have taken the activity somewhere that the practitioner has not predicted then there is a decision to be made. Do I steer the children back to the objectives I originally planned, or are the children’s lines of enquiry more valuable and potentially more productive?
THE CHALLENGE OF BEING AN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATOR
This series is showing just how complex the role of the early childhood educator is and what myriad decisions need to be made throughout the learning day in order to take on the right role at the right time. Despite its complexities and despite the pressures which we are often told come from Ofsted, I always return to Ofsted’s own definition of ‘teaching’ and the role of the early childhood educator, which I recommend is displayed in every early years setting.
Ofsted says, ‘Teaching should not be taken to imply a “top down” or formal way of working. It is a broad term that covers the many different ways in which adults help young children learn. It includes their interactions with children during planned and child-initiated play and activities: communicating and modelling language, showing, explaining, demonstrating, exploring ideas, encouraging, questioning, recalling, and providing a narrative for what they are doing, facilitating and setting challenges. It takes account of the equipment adults provide and the attention given to the physical environment, as well as the structure and routines of the day that establish expectations. Integral to teaching is how practitioners assess what children know, understand and can do, as well as taking account of their interests and dispositions to learn (characteristics of effective learning), and how practitioners use this information to plan children’s next steps in learning and monitor their progress.’
(See Early years inspection handbook, August 2015, page 35, www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-inspection-handbook-from-september-2015)
This definition gives a truly balanced view of the many-faceted roles of the early childhood educator and recognises how they change from child to child and situation to situation.
DEFINITIONS: TYPES OF LEARNING
Adult-led, or adult-directed – where the practitioner provides a certain activity or opportunity and is in control of the learning outcomes.
Child-led, or child-initiated – where the child is given time, space and opportunity to play, explore and investigate, and is in control of the learning.
Adult-initiated – where a practitioner provides an activity or opportunity that child/ren will undertake for much of the time on their own. Control of the learning will start with the adult but may shift to the child as they embark on their own independent enquiry.
KEY POINTS
- Adult-led and child-led learning are the two ends of what is a much more complex continuum of children’s learning.
- The role of the adult must change subtly according to where on the continuum the learning occurs. The critical question in determining the right approach is: who is leading the learning?
- The challenge of supporting adult-led learning is that children are more likely to be interested in their own agenda than the adult’s. Here, it is important to remember that children will learn from an adult when they choose to, rather than when they are made to.
- The challenge of supporting child-led and adult-initiated learning is knowing what is actually engrossing the child and deciding whether and how to enter into the child’s play. Here, the key is to ‘wait, watch and wonder’ before intervening – and not feel that waiting means you are doing nothing.
- The role of the early childhood educator is a complex one, that requires the practitioner to make a myriad decisions throughout the learning day in order to take on the right role at the right time.
- Ofsted’s definition of ‘teaching’ gives a truly balanced view of the many-faceted roles of the early childhood educator and recognises how it changes from child to child and situation to situation.
ABOUT THIS SERIES
Who should initiate and lead learning in an early years environment? And what is the adult role in supporting learning in different contexts? These are the questions that will be addressed in this four-part series looking at:
- child-led, adult-led and adult-initiated learning (see ‘Leading or following’, Nursery World, 28 May and at: www.nurseryworld.co.uk)
- the role of the adult and child in learning experiences (NW 25 June)
- the challenges of supporting learning
- balancing adult-led and child-led learning
REFERENCES
Bredekamp S (ed) (1987) Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age 8. NAEYC
Broadhead P, Howard J and Wood E (eds) Play and Learning in the Early Years. Sage
Fisher J (2016) Interacting or Interfering? Improving interactions in the early years. Open University Press.
Rogoff B (2003) The Cultural Nature of Human Development. Oxford University Press
Smith PK (2010) Children and Play. Wiley-Blackwell
Whitebread D (2012) Developmental Psychology and Early Childhood Education. Sage
Part 4 of this series will be published in Nursery World on 20 August
