1. Give priority to enjoyment in play, for both children and professionals
2. Create play settings in which children need language to communicate with you and with each other
3. Engage all children in communication, including quiet children, more active children and children with lower language proficiency
    
   Young children communicate in two ways: verbally and non-verbally. If you want to understand what children mean, if you want to engage other children and if you want to deepen communication, you can find out how to do that under the headings Explore, Connect and Deepen (De Haan, 2010).

Explore

Exploring is taking  time to really see and hear what the child says and does. We investigate, explore what the child is doing:  What does he find interesting? What does she want to know? What does he already know? We also look at what a child shows non-verbally. For example, what is she doing with the pans in the house corner?

4. Carefully observe children’s play, before you join in

Connect 

After exploring, we connect with the interests we’ve seen in the children: “Ah, you’re cooking.” This is an open statement that shows interest in what the child says and offers opportunities for open communication. We also look at whether we can connect other children to the play and to each other. That’s how communication is created. 

: don’t dominate – don’t take on important roles yourself.

5. Follow the children’s stories: step into their make-believe world
6. Create space for children’s contributions and follow them
7. Connect children to each other

Enrich

Enriching is how we raise the play to a higher level. “Ow, this pan is getting very hot” (and then snatch your hand away from the toy pan). We cognitively challenge children by going a step further. We add new elements to the play, making the game more interesting and encouraging the children grow and develop.

Enrich play and language if necessary. You can do that by picking up on children’s contributions or contributing something yourself. Children will often take the initiative themselves: use that, follow their lead. When you notice the children’s engagement starting to decrease, take the initiative yourself by adding a new element.

Important: don’t dominate, don’t be a director and instructor of play.

8. Use opportunities that arise in make-believe play to challenge children to use (complex) thinking language
9. Deepen and broaden the play
10. Use a problem, or create a problem

Source:
Haan, D. de (2012). Verkennen, Verbinden, Verrijken: didactiek voor een goede interactie met jonge kinderen. Basistraining VVE plus. Amsterdam: City of Amsterdam in association with De Activiteit, CED-groep, CITO and Dutch Youth Institute.  

Core component 1: Give priority to enjoyment in play, for both children and professionals.

It’s easy to see when children are enjoying themselves. We can measure that in terms of well-being and engagement.

Well-being:

Important signs of well-being are enjoyment, spontaneity and feeling able to be themselves, openness, relaxation and inner peace, and vitality (the Leuven Well-being Scale, LWS, Laevers et al., 2012). What signs do we see in the children?

• the child clearly feels on top of the world, and is having a lot of fun
• the child is happy and excited: smiling, laughing, beaming, crowing with enjoyment
• the child is spontaneous, can be himself and shows confidence
• the child is relaxed and shows no sign of stress
• the child has shining eyes, shows a lust for life and reacts energetically
• the child is open to her surroundings and to contact with other children and adults, and enjoys what the setting offers

Engagement:

We see significant engagement in children when they are totally immersed in what they’re doing. What signals can you look out for?

• Concentration: the child doesn’t let himself be distracted, he focuses his attention on what he’s doing
• Motivation: the child does something on her own initiative, because the activity really appeals to her; she is really interested
• Intense mental activity: the child’s observation is sharp and intense. Children show themselves to be creative and precise, and demonstrate complex actions
• Satisfaction: the child is visibly experiencing satisfaction; he is not bored and is clearly interested in the play.
• Urge to explore: children need to get a firm grip on reality; you see them explore and discover more.

Joining in their play offers opportunities to support or strengthen well-being and engagement, but it can also disrupt children’s play. The core components of Language in Play offer a guide to how you can influence play in a positive way.

Important:

• Make sure well-being and engagement levels don’t go down when you join in the play. That’s a signal that the children can no longer hold on to their own story because you are steering the play too strongly in a direction you have chosen (see also core component 7).
• Let yourself get immersed in the children’s play. Be curious, allow yourself to be surprised and use your astonishment in the make-believe world…

Source:

Laevers, F. et al. (2012). Een procesgericht kindvolgsysteem voor kleuters. Leuven: Centrum voor Ervaringsgericht Onderwijs.

For the video

Context

Before the start of this clip, the children and Francisca are looking at the books they borrowed from the library corner. The children’s engagement drops off and Francisca introduces a new stimulus: something smells. Francisca saw earlier that the children were changing the baby, and they were talking about the dirty nappies. Francisca picks this thread back up. She is also clearly enjoying herself. 

Questions whilst watching

• Can you see how infectious Francisca’s enjoyment of play is for the children?
• Can you see how Francisca is carried away by the girl’s joke at the end and they laugh together?
• Which children can you see becoming more engaged thanks to Francisca’s intervention?

Reflect together

• What have you enjoyed today when playing with the children? How did the children react?
• How do you use your humour to increase children’s engagement?
• To what extent are you able to let go of your own play idea when children are enthusiastic about something else?
• How do you join in the children’s make-believe play?

 

Core component 2: Create play settings in which children need language to communicate with you and with each other.

 

To challenge children to use language, you can create settings during play in which people act together and talk to each other in day-to-day life. Consider the customer who goes to buy bread from the baker, the passenger who asks the bus driver for a ticket or the doctor examining a patient. When children are mutually dependent on each other in order to play their game, that stimulates communication between them.

As well as the benefits for play development, when children are playing they are already more or less focused on language-based interaction. The kind of language children use in their play also goes hand in hand with their play development.
Fully-developed role play or make-believe play develops gradually from manipulating play, which is play in which children explore materials. The Role Play Development observation model (‘Rollenspelontwikkeling’, * Leong & Bodrova, 2012) provides a schematic overview of that development. The most important features of play development and language development are laid out here.

Changes in language use during role play development

Phase 1: material-focused play. The youngest children mainly focus on exploring materials in their play. They regularly make play sounds, but they don’t use much language beyond that. They also often play alone.

Phase 2: action-focused play. Children gradually start to demonstrate symbolic play: they imitate actions they see adults doing. For example, they stir a pan with a spoon or put a baby to bed. At this stage they also use action-supporting language: they put what they’re doing into words. “Like this, stirring.” “That in there.” The action can create a link to a role. Children ‘discover’, as it were, that they are a mother or father, or a bus driver. Sometimes they are assigned a role by children who are further along in their play development.

Phase 3: role-focused play. Children become more and more engaged with specific roles in their play. They want to play a particular person, such as the big sister or the police officer. They have ideas about what that person does, and they look for the materials and objects they need to do those things. This promotes teamwork, and children use role-based language. That refers to words and sentences that are characteristic of the role they are playing. “Good morning. How can I help you?”

Phase 4: story-focused play. Children become more focused on what the characters in the story are experiencing. They play out longer stories, in which children learn to add details to the role and to the relationships between different roles. They like to imitate how things are ‘in real life’. At this stage, children also have more discussion about what and how they play, using metalanguage, language about the play. “Then he chased the thief really fast and then he hit the tree.”

Phase 5: plan-focused and fully-developed role play. Children show great variety and complexity in their play. The story can be spread out over several days, or even weeks. Inspiration for their play comes from the real world, but also from stories, books, games, television… Children really enjoy planning play. They think and talk for a long time about the narrative of the play, and they make preparations. They stay strictly in line with how they think things are done in the real world, or in their shared fantasy world. The plans are by no means always actually ‘played out’.

Use materials to support interaction

• Children in phases 1 and 2 are still happy to engage in (roughly) the same play, but separately. Make sure they have enough of their ‘own’ materials to play with, but look for ways to promote more collaboration in the play. Making soup together: each child has his or her own wooden spoon and ingredients, but there’s only one big pan. Giving the baby a bath together: one baby and one bath, but two flannels. Each child has his or her own cake tins, but they put them in the oven at the same time. One child has a washing up brush and the other has a sponge... but there’s only one bowl and one bottle of washing up liquid. Keep extra materials handy.
• For children in phases 2 and 3 or higher, role-supporting materials are important. Children find it easier to engage in make-believe play with materials they recognise from the real world. Look for objects that support joint actions and interactions: bandages or plasters at the doctor’s, a cash register with money in the shop, a travel card or membership card on the bus or in the library…
• Get children to tell you about the play at their own level, before they start playing. What game do they want to play? What will that be like? What sounds will they make or what will they say?  And in phase 3 and higher: who do they want to play with? What will they do and say while they’re playing? “Tell me what will happen next...” What other plans do they have, and what do they need to carry out those plans?
• You can demonstrate play sounds, action-supporting language and role-based language during play by joining in the game. You can sometimes do this at the children’s level, and sometimes at a slightly higher level (see also core component 5).
• After the game is over, get the children to tell you about it at their own level.

Important:

Look out for non-verbal interaction: acting together without (much) language. This is an important precursor to verbal or linguistic interaction. It’s a signal to you to introduce language and in that way to create communication. You communicate verbally; the child communicates through action (see also core component 3).

 

Source:

Haan, D. de and J. Schut (2006). Speelmaatje of spelleider, de rol van leidster in spelbegeleiding van peuters. Zone. Jaargang 5, no. 4.

Leong, Deborah J., Elena Bodrova (2012). Assessing and scaffolding make-believe play. NAEYC: Young Children 67 (1), 28-34.

For the video

Context

Before the children start to play, Julie talks to them. A plan is made beforehand: they will play doctor. Julie helps to structure the play by asking about who will play what role. The girls agree to take turns being the doctor, but also being the big sister.

The setting of a doctor and patient always requires communication. The agreements made beforehand help the children to play out that story together. This structure gives the children a good foundation for communication with each other from within their characters.

At the doctor’s table, Hayfa is simultaneously the big sister and the doctor. Meysem (in the middle) is also a doctor. Alisa is the mother of the sick baby.

Questions whilst watching

Reflect together

• Can you see how much interaction the setting promotes between the three roles? To what extent do the three children already use language to support their interaction?
• How does Julie encourage the children to put into words what they want to play before they start playing?
• Can you hear how Hayfa again indicates which role(s) she is playing during the play?
• Can you see how, at the end of the video, Julie provides a follow-up to the children’s play narrative by asking them how the baby is now? Can you see that in this way she creates a new setting in which people need to use language to communicate?
  • Which of the stories used by the children in your group generate mutual communication without any intervention? How can you strengthen this further?
  • How does it help when you get the children to tell you what they experienced during their play?

 

Core component 3: Engage all children in communication, including quiet children, more active children and children with lower language proficiency.

 

• Even children who don’t talk much yet can still take a non-verbal part in the communication: using actions and gestures. Challenge these children to actively contribute and engage with the play, and where necessary describe non-verbal actions made by the children during play.
• Respond as much as possible to each contribution these children make to the communication, whether that contribution is verbal or non-verbal.
• Make eye contact, show that you have seen or heard the child and follow up on what they did. You can do this with a verbal response, but silence and an inviting expression are often enough on their own.
• Make sure you don’t become the centre of the play, but rather stimulate the children to play together.
• You should also regularly make fairly homogeneous groups in terms of play level and language proficiency, so that all children (whether they have lower language proficiency or are quieter or slower) have enough time and opportunity to make an active contribution. When there is a much more advanced child in the group, that often leads to a one-to-one interaction between that child and the professional.
• Keep an eye out for non-verbal actions or reactions, and if at all possible make the most of a language initiative (even if it was spoken quietly or if you couldn’t understand it straight away). Focus your antennae on these things specifically.

Important:

• Make sure that you, as the professional, don’t fill silences yourself. That is especially important with quiet children or children with lower language proficiency.Alternatively: join in with the children’s actions.
• Keep an eye on the composition of the group of children. It’s easy to let a one-to-one interaction arise between the professional and the brightest child. If the child who is slower to speak can still intensively follow and experience the play, and even join in, this is an excellent opportunity to make his participation language-based. Especially with quieter children (shy, lower language proficiency, slower), it is important that they regularly play with other less linguistically-advanced children. This will give quiet children (children with lower language proficiency) more opportunity to contribute verbally.

Source:

www.uitdagentotgesprek.nl

 

For the video

Context

Different children try to attract Nienke’s attention. At the start of this clip, we see how easily chatty Hayfa gets Nienke’s attention. Nienke then decides to accept Denise’s invitation to have a cup of tea. She uses this opportunity to challenge the quieter Denise to talk. Because Nienke pretends she doesn’t understand what Denise means, Denise uses more language. She wants to make it clear what she wants. The play is being watched by a third girl. This girl is new to the nursery and follows Nienke around like a shadow wherever she goes. Nienke gives her the space to observe everything at her own pace.

Questions whilst watching

Reflect together

• What questions or gestures does Nienke use to get Denise to provide more explanation?
• How does Denise respond with verbal or non-verbal reactions?
• Can you see how much language and thought Denise is encouraged to use?
  • Which children would you like to challenge more to talk? Which setting is more appropriate for that, a one-to-one interaction or play in a small group?
  • How would you guide the new girl?

 

Core component 4: Carefully observe children’s play, before you join in.

 

Playing with children offers opportunities to support and stimulate the quality of both play and language. However, if you don’t carefully coordinate with the children’s meanings, your contribution can disrupt the play and the children’s engagement.

• Always take the time to explore what children are playing. What are they doing? What are they saying? Spend some time as a spectator on the sidelines. Try to get a feel for the children’s experience. Where is their attention focused? What are they observing? What seems to be important to them? To what extent are the children in contact with each other, and what is going on within that contact? When there is low engagement or a lower level of play than you are used to from these children, your contribution can be welcome. But you can also join in when children are engaged, as long as you are willing to go along with their story, as a co-player.
• Take the time to spend a longer continuous period with a group. It’s more effective to spend 5 or 10 minutes in the game once than to spend 1 minute five times. That causes upheaval.
• Don’t let yourself be easily distracted by other children. Make clear agreements with children, and perhaps your colleague, about ‘being unavailable for a while’.
• Join in with the children’s reality, at their level. If children can’t follow you, they no longer take any initiative.
• Keep observing the children after you join the play. How do they respond? To what extent is contact created? Look carefully; listen carefully. What initiatives do they take? What is meaningful to them?
• You are by no means always necessary to the play. Sometimes everything works. In that case, stay on the sidelines and enjoy watching the children. That will teach you a lot about them.

Important:

Giving quick suggestions to every group without having really seen what was going on is counterproductive. Alternatively: take the time and space to observe and guide play in one place (Singer & Tajik, 2014).

Source:

*Singer, E. and M. Tajik, Verhogen van de spelbetrokkenheid, invloed van je eigen gedrag. Het Jonge Kind, November 2014.

For the video

Context

Sanae is sitting in on Milo and Janne’s play. Janne is very focused and Sanae decides not to disturb her. She takes on the role of spectator, and only joins in the play when Janne takes the initiative to involve Sanae in her game. Then she takes on the role of co-player. In this way, she re-engages Milo with the game, after he had been losing interest in it.

Questions whilst watching

• Can you see the difference in Sanae’s attitude in each of the two roles of spectator and co-player?
• What happens just before the moment when Sanae joins in? What do the children do?
• Would you have chosen the same moment to take on the role of co-player?
• What effect does Sanae’s decision to join in have on Milo’s play? Where is his attention focused?

Reflect together

• Do you sometimes take on the role of spectator in order to observe children’s play? What is your goal when you do that?
• Can you give an example of a moment when you really don’t want to disturb children’s play by joining in?
• Do you also have an example of when joining in actually deepened the play?

 

Core component 5: Follow the children’s stories: step into their make-believe world.

 

Why make-believe?

Make-believe play immerses children in their imagination. Although they know they’re playing, in a sense they experience the make-believe world as ‘real’, ‘natural’. That is decisive for their engagement. Accept the children’s ideas and solutions.

In interaction in Play, we aim to guide play by taking on the role of a co-player. You play with the children as an insider, not as an external overseer. Acting as a co-player brings you closest to the enjoyment from within the play. If you want to join in children’s play, it is important to maintain or even reinforce their make-believe world. You can do this by first carefully observing how the children are playing (see core component 4). Connect with the children by stepping into their make-believe world; become immersed in the play narrative.

• When you play make-believe with children, take on a role and stick to it. Act and talk in a way that fits naturally with your character.
• The play narrative is connected to the roles being played.
• Just like the children themselves, as a co-player you will sometimes follow more and sometimes lead more.
• When you first join in, follow the children’s initiatives. Follow what happens. Respond to the other players in character, but without steering the play. Your actions and language add depth to the setting. Incorporate details into actions, or use role-based language the children are not yet using. That is a very natural part of the role you play.
• It can work well to play the same character as a child, especially with young children, such as both being customers or both being shopkeepers. Then you can leave the initiative to the child, and occasionally add something.
• When children need more variation or a greater challenge, give a new boost to the story. Then your role becomes more that of a leader. Sometimes briefly, sometimes for a longer time. Although you may take the lead for a while, don’t become dominant. Stay in contact with the children, make sure everyone is immersed in the same story and that your pace is not too fast. Challenge the children, but give them the space to decide whether or not to follow your initiative. That keeps the play mutual.
• When you have to stop playing, think of a simple reason why your character is leaving. For example: Joyce, a teacher, comes into the paper factory and asks if there is any paper. She’s a writer and she needs paper for her new book. She can’t stay long to help, because she has another appointment.  That makes it easier for children to continue playing.
• Reinforce the make-believe world through your use of language. This increases children’s engagement and makes for a better connection between children.
  • Talk in terms of ‘I’ and ‘we’. “Could I have some sugar?”, “We’re going on holiday.” (and not: “It looks like you’re going on holiday.”)
  • Talk to children as if they are their characters: “Where are we heading, driver?”, “The cakes are going to burn, daddy”, “Could I just talk to your colleague?”
  • Use role-based language: language that fits well with your role in the make-believe world.

Important point 1:

• Make sure you don’t attract all the attention to yourself when you join the play by being over-the-top and standing out. Be careful not to speak with a loud or strange voice, behave in a dominant way or make a big entrance “Well, now I’m finally here!”. Children will often find this funny or fascinating for a while, but they stop taking the initiative themselves and lose their own story. This behaviour makes the contrast between your presence in and absence from the play too marked.
• Try to shape your role in a natural way. Don’t make a drama out of it, and make sure you generally stay in the background.

Important point 2:

• Try not to comment on the play from outside, for example by giving explicit instructions or hidden directions: “Cut up the cake now” or “What do we have to do before we can go on a journey?”.
• Stay in your role. Look for natural expressions that fit your role: “Ooh, that cake does look tasty. Shall we eat it all up?” Or: “Please may I have a piece of cake?”

Important point 3:

• Try to avoid using instructional language or asking checking questions. That’s the language a teacher uses to get to ‘the right answer’, for example: “What’s that called?”. You should even avoid this sort of language when you’re playing the role of teacher in the play narrative.

For the video

Before we watch this video, we’ll explain the context of the play. Then we’ll ask you some questions and invite you to relate the video to your own practice.

Context

Sanae is an educational staff member in a daycare centre. She is playing with two children in the house corner, and the children are being doctors. Milo, the boy, and Janna, the girl, like to play together. Milo talks easily, while Janna is quieter. The teacher (Sanae) takes her sick child to the doctors. Before, she mainly focused on Milo, because that way she could at least start a conversation. Now she’s focusing on Janna because she is the quieter of the two children. She tries to challenge Janna to talk and play.

Questions whilst watching

• How does Sanae join in the children’s game? What does she do, and how do the children react? Can you see how Sanae stays in character?
• Can you see how Sanae tries to challenge Janna to talk? What exactly does she do? This is how Sanae combines this core component with core component 3.

Reflect together

How do you join in the children’s make-believe play?

• Do you manage to stay in character, for example by talking in terms of ‘we’ and ‘I’?
• For instance, you can address the child in her role: Sanae addresses Janna as ‘doctor’.
• Use role-based language that fits with your role; as when Sanae says, “I’m getting worried, doctor”.

A professional’s experience

Sanae wasn’t used to playing a character in a game – she really had to work hard to learn how to do that. “It feels weird to play a role. But once you’re in character, it just happens.”

Core component 6: Create space for children’s contributions and follow them.

Give children the space to contribute their own ideas, even if their contributions surprise you or if you don’t (yet) understand them. It is necessary to language development for children to talk actively and on their own initiative: this gets their language learning mechanism * going. Space is created when the professional stops talking. If you don’t properly understand a child, use your role to show your surprise or lack of understanding: “Er, I don’t understand.” “How is that possible?” Accept the children’s ideas and solutions.

• Allow silences to fall. Silence gives children the opportunity to think on their own about what they’re going to do and how they can put that into words.
• Give active listening responses, such as “Mmm”, “Oh?” and “Really?”, or repeat what the child said. That shows the child that you’re following what she is saying and doing, and you give the initiative back to the child.
• Don’t keep on asking questions. When you ask lots of questions, you are deciding the direction and content of the conversation. Children develop better in play and language if they actively join in and make a contribution on their own initiative. This makes them more autonomous.
• Only ask questions when necessary, and at those times ask an open question and then be quiet. Asking the occasional open question can give a boost to both play and language. By going quiet after you ask the question, you give the reins back to the children.
• Introduce the occasional provocative comment. A provocative comment goes against what the child thinks or assumes. That works even better than an open question, because then children are completely free in how they respond and how they formulate that response.
• Use surprise. Showing surprise is a special way to give the children space. For example, surprise can be expressed as an open question: ‘What? How is that possible?’, but also as a statement: ‘that’s impossible!’ or ‘I don’t understand’. A short, minimal expression such as ‘Huh?’ also functions as an expression of surprise. This isn’t the surprise of a professional who doesn’t understand what a child means, but the conscious use of surprise to challenge children and to give them the space to keep talking and playing (Damhuis de Blauw and Brandenbarg 2004).

Important:

• At this stage your focus is not on vocabulary development, when you mainly put into words what children are doing, but on language development in the broad sense of interaction.
• You can use items and actions that promote the use of words in a natural way to stimulate the acquisition of vocabulary.

 

 

If you want to be able to talk to children, it helps to be aware of all aspects of what is known as the language learning mechanism. Language and thinking develop when language is on offer, when there is enough space for the children themselves to talk and when children receive feedback from teachers about what they say. Children do not in fact learn language by first learning words and then practising them. Language learning mainly takes place informally whilst talking, during a conversation. Think about how young children learn their first language: by communicating with their father or mother.

Important:

• It is important not to fill silences by talking, but to allow silence to fall and not to move on too quickly to the next question.
• Young children need time to think about what they want to say and how they want to say it. In this case, you need interaction skills that allow you to create a lot of space for the children to think and to speak, even if they do that with individual words, or with the occasional word and lots of gestures. In that kind of communication, children gain more language through learning by doing. 

For the video

Context

Sanae is an educational staff member in a daycare centre. Milo and Janna are playing next to the baby bed. The bed is broken and the children want to fix it. The children already have an idea of how they want to do that. Their method may well not be the one Sanae would use, but she joins in with the children’s actions and ideas. She coaxes the children to talk.

Questions whilst watching

• Which of the strategies for creating space does Sanae use? (such as allowing silence to fall and not continually asking questions)
• As an equal co-player, Sanae also picks up a tool, the saw, which elicits a response from Milo. How does Sanae create space for Milo to elaborate? Can you see what happens when Sanae reacts with surprise?

Reflect together

• Do you ever stay quiet when you join in children’s play? When does that work well?
• How would you consciously use surprise to challenge children to talk?

Professionals’ experience

• “We realised how much we were talking. That was an important learning area for us”.
• “We were filling the silences ourselves. We know we shouldn’t do it, but it’s so hard not to.”

Damhuis, R., De Blauw, A. & Brandenbarg, N. (2004). CombiList, een instrument voor taalontwikkeling via interactie. Praktische vaardigheden voor leidsters en leerkrachten. Nijmegen: Expertisecentrum Nederlands.

 

Core component 7: Connect children to each other.

 

With Intertaction in Play, your focus is on ensuring that children don’t just talk to you, the professional, but that they mainly talk amongst themselves. We can all think of situations when a child says something to you, you answer and then you ask a question of another child. Those are very brief one-to-ones. By doing this, professionals can really hamper the conversation between children. There is no space for the children to actively participate, contribute their ideas and talk to another child.

Children are interested in other children, and between the ages of 2 and 6 they increasingly move away from playing alongside each other and start playing with each other. But not all children find it equally easy to make contact. They have to feel safe and be in a familiar environment. Play is extremely important to the development of relationships with other children. It enables children to practise interactions.

How can you, as a professional, engage children with each other?

• Pass on children’s questions and remarks to other children. Don’t always answer a child’s question yourself. Pose the question to other children, non-verbally indicating that you expect a response from them; you can do this by looking enquiringly at them and not saying anything yourself.
  “Did you hear that?”
  “So we don’t know how to get home?” (+ look around at other children),
  “Can we ask the pilot?”
• If any children are watching, engage them in the play. Sometimes children watch other children’s play. You can engage them in the play by telling them what’s happening. This can make a child feel that she has been invited to join in. For example, you might say to a child who is watching or who just arrived:
  “We’re trying to put the cake in the oven”
  “Janneke says she wants to take the bus”.
• You can also refer directly to playing together: ‘Maybe you could do it together.’
• Or you could refer to the roles and actions that necessitate cooperative play “Hey, mummy, have we already paid the gentleman?” This allows you to stay in character as a child going shopping with your mother at the same time as suggesting a setting children have to act out TOGETHER: customer and shop assistant.
• You can address a question to all the children:
  “How are we going to solve that?”
  “What now?”

Important:

• Carry out all these actions in character during the play (see also core component 5: follow children’s stories). It’s more important to be an ordinary participant in the conversation who occasionally adds something or challenges the children to think more deeply.

For the video

Context

Three toddlers have made food and are now eating. Francisca (that’s me) sees that it looks as if the children have now finished playing this game, so Francisca joins them at the table with a wonderful box: she consciously introduces a new stimulus. In this way, she attempts to get all three children actively engaged with this new stimulus. If you didn’t know the context, you would think Francisca was being too dominant in this video. This context in particular needs a new stimulus: she tries to get the children to think about what sort of box this could be (note: it’s a machine for making cupcakes).

Questions whilst watching

• Can you hear how Francisca tries to elicit ideas from each child?
• How does she draw the children’s attention to each other’s ideas?
• Francisca also uses core component 5: Follow the children’s stories: step into their make-believe world, and core component 9: Deepen and broaden the play. Can you see how, in her role as visitor, she doesn’t really know what the box is for either, and wants to investigate that together?

Reflect together

• Francisca decides to introduce a new stimulus in the cupcake-making box. What would you do in that situation?
• Have you ever had the experience that mutual play stops and the children start playing individually? How would you intervene in that situation?

 

Core component 8: Seize opportunities in the make-believe world to challenge children to use (complex) thinking language.

 

Talking helps the children to get to know the world better by making them think about what they see, do and experience. You think inside your head, where other people can’t see. We want children to use make-believe play to learn how to actively discuss, actively contribute their ideas and actively join in. When you’re discussing something with someone else, language is a useful tool: it enables you to tell the other person what you think. By putting your ideas into words, you make those ideas clearer and more concrete: language makes your ideas sharper. So language and thought go hand in hand (Mercer & Littleton, 2007).

Children learn that concept best in a meaningful context, through exchanging ideas with each other and with you, the professional. Conversation is necessary to achieve that, including during make-believe play. Make-believe play challenges children to compare, reason, draw conclusions, etc. Whilst playing, they learn the language they need in that setting. We call this complex thinking language.

We make a distinction between simple and complex language thinking functions.

You can use language to identify and describe things. We call these processes simple language thinking functions:

• Identifying objects or actions: Nienke asks the dentist: “What are you doing?” Haifa: “He’s opening that hand.” Nienke understands that Haifa means: “The dentist is opening your mouth with her hands.”
• Describing attributes: Nienke asks: “An injection? Does that hurt?” Haifa: “No, it doesn’t not hurt at all!”

You can also use language to put your ‘thinking’ into words; for that, you need complex language thinking functions that express means-end relationships, or cause-effect relationships that put things in chronological order or clarify a line of reasoning or comparison, and so on. You can see examples of this in the dentist video:

• Means-end relationship: Nienke asks: “An injection? What for?” Haifa answers this complex question with: “Er, when you’re better.” (Which means, roughly: “Because an injection will make you better.”)
• Reasoning: Haifa tells Nienke that she should lie down. Nienke asks: “Why?” Haifa: “You just do. I have to too if my tooth had out.” Haifa means: “You just do. Because I had to do that too when I had to have my tooth out.” You can see from this that even toddlers whose language skills are not yet well developed can express complex relationships, even if they don’t use all the associated signal words such as ‘because’. 

Young children also express complex relationships through exclusively non-verbal language, pointing or gesturing, or by putting individual words together: that little, that big (comparing: pointing to the small car and the big car). They learn signal words such as because and so as they go along. As a professional, of course, you include these words in your feedback: Yes, of course, because that one is a lot bigger! You stimulate the development of play and language most effectively when you challenge even very young children to use complex thinking language. 

Thinking language doesn’t have to develop by building up language thinking functions; there is no one correct ‘order’ in which these skills have to be acquired. Through playing and talking, children learn to use the language forms that fit with their wider knowledge of the world. The content children include in their play and in their thinking and speaking becomes gradually more complex. For instance, if a child wants to make the best slide for toy cars, you might suddenly hear her say: “If you make it steeper, the car will roll off faster.” 

How can you stimulate complex thinking language?

• Challenge children to do, to think and to talk. When you want to challenge the children, it helps if you, the educator, are aware of the different cognitive language functions. This will help you to raise both the language and the play to a higher level. 
• Pick up the children’s thinking language: pass it on to the other children, or encourage them to expand on it. Ask for details or about their reasoning. Keep an ear out for the children’s thinking language!
• Challenge them to use thinking language, for example by showing surprise or using a provocative statement (see also the interaction strategies in core component 5: follow children’s stories). A provocative statement is a comment that goes against a child’s expectations. For example, the professional may say something that cannot possibly be true, says or does something she shouldn’t, or casts doubt on the child’s statement. The child MUST respond or protest in one way or another. This is a very open form of challenge.
• Make sure you use thinking language yourself.

Important:

• Remember that thinking language is still play language. Don’t turn it into a lesson. In other words: don’t ask any ‘checking questions’ you already know the answer to, but rather be curious and be open to being surprised: ‘What are you doing now, dentist?’ ‘Why?’
• At the same time, make sure you don’t stray too far from the play or slow the pace.

Sources:

Damhuis, R., De Blauw, A. & Brandenbarg, N. (2004). CombiList, een instrument voor taalontwikkeling via interactie. Praktische vaardigheden voor leidsters en leerkrachten. Nijmegen: Expertisecentrum Nederlands.

Mercer, N. & Littleton, K. (2007). Dialogue and the development of children’s thinking. A sociocultural approach. London: Routledge.

 

For the video

Context

Haifa (3 years old) has called the dentist for Nienke (nursery school educational staff member). Haifa has just been to the dentist herself, and the dentist took out some of her front teeth. In this play setting, Nienke focuses on two of the toddlers in her group: Haifa and Denise. Another girl comes into the picture from time to time. This is her second time at the nursery school and she is observing everything Nienke and the other children do. Nienke will pay her attention at another time, but for now she just lets her watch quietly.

Questions whilst watching

Reflect together

• What does Nienke do and ask to elicit (complex) thinking language from Haifa and Denise? 
  • Think back to a play setting you have experienced. Give some examples of thinking questions you used. (See document about simple and complex language thinking functions)
  • What thinking questions do you ask most often?
  • What thinking questions would you like to add to your repertoire/use more often?

A professional’s experience

Nienke is surprised at how easy it is to elicit such complex thinking language from Haifa, and how much initiative both children showed. Sometimes she only had to say ‘huh?’, with a surprised expression, and the children started doing and explaining everything.

 

Core component 9: Deepen and broaden the play.

 

See the play as a story. You can give the story more colour and detail (deepen), but you can also make it longer or add a new chapter (broaden).

• Start with picking up on children’s ideas that arise out of the play: get the children to take them further and go along with them, so you build up the play narrative together. If their engagement starts to drop off or if the play is stagnating, use your character in the game to enrich it.

There are many ways to contribute to play:

• Deepen the action by adding details or using language the children have not yet shown. Stay in the moment; don’t push the narrative forward in time. Deepening the action is comparable to adding extra sentences to a paragraph on the same topic. 

Example: Tessa asks more in-depth questions to focus on the fact that the vets have come up with a ‘treatment plan’ for the cat. What will you all do next? What will you investigate? And if the vets decide that the cat has to stay the night with them, ask for an explanation: So you want to keep him in, but why? The children respond with: Then we can see how he is in the morning. But the cat’s owner wants to know more: But what are you actually going to look at? I’d really like to know…

• Introduce another action to take the story a bit further on in time. Stick with the narrative; give it a logical next turn. This is like starting a new paragraph in the story.

Example: It’s not included in the filmed example, but a bit later in the play, Tessa contributes another action by asking: So where is the cat going to sleep? To which the vets join forces to look for a suitable cat-hospital basket.

• Give the story a nudge, a big, fairly unpredictable stimulus. Add a completely new chapter from time to time if the children are losing engagement and the narrative seems to be over. 

Example: If the children’s engagement with the play significantly decreases, as a professional you can also add a ‘big’ stimulus that sends the narrative in a new direction. For example, Tessa could come back the next day to pick up her cat, only to discover that the cat has run away, or the cat has eaten another patient – the goldfish.

A new direction like that can restore the excitement and challenge and stimulate the children’s imagination. This kind of bigger, more dramatic contribution can sometimes be helpful, but as a professional you should then immediately step back to give the children the space to develop their own initiatives.

Important:

• It can be helpful to take time beforehand to think about potential actions, roles and narratives that could arise. However, beware not to stick too strictly to your own plan if the play goes in another direction. The story and experience of the children are the most important things.
• Join in with the children’s story and their knowledge/experiences. Children need ‘coathooks’ to hang new experiences on. When they feel familiar with certain play settings, that creates space for the professional to introduce something new.
• Only broaden or deepen the play when that is really necessary – don’t be too dominant. Only add something if the game really seems to be flagging, or if a further step would be in the interest of developing play and/or language. Continue to observe the children carefully, and go along with what they’re doing.

For the video

 

Context

The cat is poorly. Tessa (nursery teacher) takes him to the vet. The doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong with the cat. In her role as ‘owner of the cat’, Tessa suggests that the vet could call her colleague over. This broadens the play into a conversation between the two vets and (the owner of) the patient. The vets are a bit shy in front of the camera; they’re usually more talkative.

Questions whilst watching

Tessa broadened the play by asking the vet to consult her colleague, so they could discuss treatments for the poorly cat.

• What does Tessa do next to further deepen the play?
• What thinking language does that elicit from the children? 

Reflect together

• What new direction would you give the story? What do you hope/expect it will elicit from the children in terms of thinking language and actions?

A professional’s experience

“I see myself struggling! It’s very important to constantly and consciously focus on these interactive skills; once you’ve broken them in, you can use them easily and naturally in your day-to-day interactions in the group.”

 

 

Core component 10: Use a problem, or create a problem.

 

A problem challenges children to use complex thinking language. If you surprise the children with a problem, and put them off their stride (cognitive conflict), they will react ‘naturally’ and spontaneously with communication. Moving forward from there, you can use the problems the children themselves contribute.

• Look out for problems pointed out by a child: use your role to pick up on them. Don’t be too quick to help, and take your lead from the children. Nienke is playing with Haifa and Denise in the house corner, eating an ice cream. Haifa says: “it’s going it’s going going to melt”. Nienke: “oh noooo! I can see it” (gestures that the ice cream is dribbling on her hands). Haifa: “you have to, have to very fast” (mimes licking). Nienke: “really fast. Oh, my hand is getting dirty. And sticky. Urgh!”
• Don’t be too helpful. Don’t do the thinking for the children. Get them to think for themselves and be curious about how children solve problems. Accept the children’s solutions and ideas, even if you don’t think they’re logical. Let the children experience for themselves whether and how their solution works. Example: Nienke is getting sticky hands from the melting toy ice cream. Haifa calls the dentist to resolve the situation and Nienke goes along with it.
• Use your character in the play to identify a problem that has arisen from the play.
• Use your character to introduce a problem that fits with your shared story.
• You can challenge children who cannot yet use language, and who mainly use actions, by picking up on a problem that arises from those actions, or contributing a problem to those actions. In the video, educational staff member Nienke has a problem: sticky hands. She thinks it’s dirty. She invites the children to discuss solutions, because it’s so sticky. Denise responds non-verbally. She picks up a washing up brush and uses it to clean Nienke’s sticky hands. Nienke responds; she looks happy and says ‘wow, this is great, what did you do?’ Denise picks up the brush again and holds it up, ‘that’ she says. ‘What’s that?’ Nienke asks. Denise doesn’t know the right word, but she makes a brushing motion to show what you can do with a washing up brush. Nienke adds language: ‘You use that to brush things.’ Denise starts cleaning Nienke’s hands with the brush again, and Nienke puts her actions into words: ‘And now she’s brushed my hands clean’. 
• If children mainly respond non-verbally, put those reactions into words. Careful: if you are too quick to put children’s actions into words, you run the risk of depriving the children of the motivation to talk for themselves.
• Only introduce a new problem once the children have resolved the previous one, when their own sub-objective in the play has been achieved. Once Nienke’s hands are clean, she can introduce a new problem.
• Should you ask why-questions? Within the make-believe world, a why-question can be a good way to elicit thinking language, but only when your character in the play doesn’t understand what’s happening, and not to check the children’s understanding. Be careful with why-questions – children may feel they have to defend what they said or did, which pulls them out of the play. Instead of asking a why-question, you could use non-verbal methods: looking thoughtful or surprised. This can prompt children to take the initiative to give an explanation.

Important:

• Don’t milk a problem for too long. This will make children lose interest or give up.

Source:

• Damhuis, R. & E. van der Zalm (2014). Maak een probleem- Zone- Jaargang 13, no. 4.

For the video

Context

Nienke is in the house corner, visiting Denise and Haifa. The third girl is also nearby, the one who is new to the nursery school and prefers to stay near Nienke and observe everything that happens.
Nienke and the children are eating an ice cream. Haifa: ‘it’s going to melt’. Nienke sees an opportunity, and connects the problem of the melting ice cream with the play. Oh no! Her hands are getting sticky, and she asks for a solution. Haifa thinks they should call the dentist. Nienke accepts this solution, which at first glance is not self-evident. She knows that Haifa has recently been to the dentist; she had problems with her teeth and the dentist had to take out two front teeth. Nienke understands that Haifa wants to share this experience and give it a place in her play. Denise looks around the house corner and picks up the washing up brush to resolve the problem of the sticky hands. Nienke turns her full attention to the two girls’ play. She also notices that the third girl is waving the pan around. She’ll focus on that another time.

Questions whilst watching

• Who introduces which problem? 
• In the game with the ice cream, Nienke communicates both verbally and non-verbally with the children. See how she does that when she recognises / identifies problems, and how she links the children’s solutions back to the play.
• Can you see what effect Nienke’s actions have on the children’s play and language?  

 

Reflect together

• Problems are opportunities. Think about how the children like to play in your own house corner. What problems can you use or create to make the play even more interesting? You can also use the design of the space – examine it critically. What materials are already there that could help to create a problem, or what materials could you add to identify or create a problem?

 

A professional’s experience

“Now I know I don’t have to think in too complex terms. Even a little problem like a melting ice cream can make the play that much more interesting. Problems are there for the taking, you just have to see them.”