Young children need plenty of practice using play resources that will enable them to become confident in reaching out, grasping items and then exploring them.
Practitioners must ensure that the items are safe for a baby or young child to grip and explore. Not all play resources have to be bought toys but they must be easy to clean and not too small. Babies always put items to their mouth; they touch with their lips and tongue as well as with their fingers and hands. Many toddlers and young children also still explore at least sometimes by mouthing and sucking.
Using touch
Babies and toddlers need to be given plenty of time with play resources, as they like to spend time looking at something of interest. It also takes practice before they can stretch out their hand accurately, grasp an item successfully and then bring it much closer to look at and explore further.
They also need the chance to repeat their actions, often with slight variations. Young children do not know, until they have plenty of direct experience, that a similar action on the same item is likely to bring about the same result. Toddlers build up their knowledge through repeating the same experiments, which can include:
* Treasure baskets. These can provide a wide range of experiences for babies who can sit up securely. They build babies' understanding, through direct experience, of how items may need to be grasped in different ways.
Getting a good grip on an egg whisk involves different skills to holding on to a small tin with rounded edges. Shaking a soft piece of material is very different to waving a wooden spoon.
* Three-dimensional play and domestic resources. Playing with these extends young children's understanding, as each shape or object requires different skills when grasping, handling and exploring it. Watch as they manage wooden blocks of different shapes and sizes, as they scoop up some sand or pour some water from one container into another.
* Touching objects. Using their fingers, mouths, bare feet or toes helps under-threes learn directly through the information that they gain. Varied items feel different, rough or smooth, soft to hard. Young children begin to understand through their fingers and hands how things feel, long before they have the words to describe textures.
Reaching out
Young children use their hands, fingers and sometimes mouths to make affectionate contact and communicate through body language, as well as words. Babies and toddlers are still learning to judge distance as they stretch out to touch or stroke a friend's arm or face. They need to be forgiven if they mistakenly poke rather than stroke your face. You can show them how to touch gently and say, 'Here's how we say hello gently.'
Almost as soon as young children see something of interest, their hands move out to touch and grasp it. They find it hard to resist, so we need to have an environment that is safely accessible for them. Young children do sometimes manage to resist touching, when, for example, a practitioner stands close by to look at something with equal interest and explains, 'We look, we don't touch.'
However, frequent instructions not to touch are disheartening and impossible for very young children. Also, if you get down at toddler eye level, you will understand why they are so tempted to reach out for the apples on the market stall or to touch the wall or fence when you are on a walk. Such items of interest may be lined up perfectly for their visual level, and seeing leads naturally to touching.
Linked Nursery World features
* 'Softly, softly' by Jennie Lindon, Kevin Kelman and Alice Sharp (6 June 2002)
