In the fourth of a series of articles on Birth to Three Matters, Ann Langston and Professor Lesley Abbott consider the competent learner
Babies come into the world ready to learn, building on their experiences in the womb, their senses tuned to different sounds, smells, sights, flavours and textures, such as their mother's voice, her distinctive smell, the faces of siblings, grandparents and friends, sweet and sour flavours, a soft blanket or an itchy label.
As they learn, young babies quickly begin to show remarkable capabilities, often surprising their carers by the way they scrutinise a face, reach out for an object, or appear to know just what to do with a new toy. However, while babies are primed to learn, they also rely heavily on interactions with others, and need support if their learning is to be maximised.
It has been argued that young children behave like scientists, making predictions and doing experiments to 'explain what they see' and to 'formulate new theories based on what they already know'1. This is closely linked with the stimulation offered by the environment, which can either be a place rich with possibilities, inviting interest and exploration, or one restricting discovery and smothering creativity.
Although primed to be a competent learner from birth, young children depend on warm, secure relationships and an environment that offers boundless opportunities for learning - an environment where they may hear birds singing or buses rumbling by, water splashing or the dull drone of the radio, where they may join in with laughing or help to make wooden bricks fall to the ground with a thud.
For young children, learning is about beginning to both experience and observe the world at the same time. Sometimes, this will be done alone - seeing, sensing or hearing the movement of a bird in a tree, and sometimes with adult help - having the movement explained and being reminded of it the next time they see a bird. Children's understanding of what has been experienced or observed develops as they encounter everyday things and begin to connect what they have seen, tasted, felt, smelt or heard.
In the Birth to Three Matters framework, the four components that make up a competent learner are:
- Making connections
- Being imaginative
- Being creative
- Representing.
Making connections
Babies' brains are plastic, and the way they develop relies on the creation of complex neural networks. Research indicates that 'the wiring is "activity dependent": brain cells get connected by sending out electric signals'2. Cells contact other cells and more permanent connections are established and, as they form synapses, information is exchanged between them, laying down an infrastructure upon which learning is built. Indeed, the number of synapses in the brains of two- and three-year-olds exceed those of adults. 'Pre-school children have brains that are literally more active, more connected and much more flexible' 3 than those of adults. So, what are some of the things that contribute to children making successful connections?
- Responsive adults
- Play, movement and exploration
- Memory and cognitive development
- Language and thought.
The framework sums up research into children's competence as learners in the following ways:
- 'The centrality of positive relationships with parents and other key people in children's lives.'
This includes being responsive to the child's efforts to communicate, being a role model for the child to observe and imitate, supporting the child by offering suitable, challenging experiences, scaffolding the child's learning so they are helped sufficiently towards the next steps, and providing emotional support.
- 'Babies seem to be tuned to learn from, with and about, firstly the people and the cultural environment around them, followed by the material environment. They come into the world primed to be curious, competent learners.'
This involves helping children to get to know other people, and to become confident in their environment. Where this is out of the home, it should support and reflect the child's culture and language. For example, the songs the child knows in a home language should be sung, or familiar objects used, in the setting. The material environment should be safe, interesting and accessible, providing outdoor and indoor exploration and activity.
- 'Play, in which the baby or child leads and makes choices, is a process that fosters cognitive development.'
By definition, play involves self- chosen activity that absorbs the child for as long as they wish, and may relate to actions, language, pretence, imitation, interaction or body movement. The quality of play can be enhanced by thoughtful, sensitive adults who observe the child and provide reassurance, resources and appropriate intervention, such as participation, provided this follows the child's agenda.
- 'Language and thought are developmentally linked; they each depend on and also promote the development of the other.'
The complex relationship between thought and language suggests that the two are complementary - language facilitates cognitive development part of the time; cognitive development fosters the development of language at other times. It is crucial, therefore, to recognise that pre-linguistic children - those who have not yet used words - are making sense of the world, even though their expressive language is still emerging. They are, for example, understanding categories, even though they do not have the words to name or label them. The framework notes that research has shown 'babies respond to dolls in a different way from how they respond to humans'. Supporting cognitive and language development is, therefore, a major early years' task.
Creative and imaginative
Young children are both actors and audience - observing, remembering, sharing and constructing meanings from what they see and hear, sometimes enacting what they observe.
Being creative is partly about exploring and discovering - either in reality or mentally - what can be created by one's own inventiveness. It drives innovation and fuels the imagination, so much so that creativity and imagination are inextricably linked.
Young children engage in acts of creativity and imagination involving play with words, objects, materials and ideas. Supporting creativity and imagination involves giving children time to explore resources, sounds, materials and objects fully, and helping them to find ways to use and transform their experiences.
The framework sums up research findings into children's creativity and imagination in the following way:
- 'Children's developing memories and use of narrative help them make sense of their lives.'
This highlights the importance of story, role-play and socio-dramatic play, each offering children opportunities to make sense of experiences, connecting and reconstructing their experience of the world.
Representing
Representing can be thought of as re-presenting an experience or idea. It is concerned with how children respond to the world, including their use of marks and symbols. Bernadette Duffy notes, 'Children need to represent their experiences, feelings and ideas if they are to preserve them and share them with others. When we represent we make an object or symbol stand for something else.'
The framework sums up research findings into children's representation in the following way:
- 'Children make sense of and transform knowledge, experiences and events through imaginative and creative activity. They want to share and express their ideas playfully through the "hundred languages of children", (for example, dancing, singing, talking, "storying", music-making, painting, pattern-making, building, model-making, animating puppets and other toys, dressing up, gardening, looking after animals, drawing, mark making - to list a few possibilities)'.
Representing and communicating in these ways leads children to new understandings, not only of themselves, but also of other people and the objects, events and ideas they encounter in their lives. NW
Ann Langston is an early years consultant and was a project team member involved in the development of Birth to Three Matters. Lesley Abbott is professor of early childhood education at Manchester Metropolitan University and was director of Birth to Three Matters.
References
1 Gopnik, A, Meltzoff, A & Kuhl, P (1999) How Babies Think, London: Phoenix
2 (Ibid, p184)
3 (Ibid, p186)
4 Duffy, B (1998) Supporting Creativity and Imagination in the Early Years, Open University Press
- Birth to Three Matters Literature Review, DfES, (2002), Birth to Three Matters pack
