How through two way conversation with children, educators can help make children's thinking visible.
It is important for educators to have respectful relationships and engagement with children. Children learn new things and how to think through relationships with other children and with adults. Children need support to learn about working together with others, solving problems, resolving conflicts and listening to each other's side of the story (perspectives).
One way to build respectful relationships and to extend children's thinking is through Shared Sustained Thinking.
Shared Sustained Thinking
is when two or more individuals work together in an intellectual way to solve a problem, clarify a concept or evaluate an activity. Both parties must contribute to the thinking and it must develop and extend the understanding (VEYLDF p.36)
Basically it is about having conversations with the children and listening to them and letting them talk. It is also about talking about yourself with the children. These conversations give the children a chance to discuss and think about problems or challenges in a serious, extended way.
For example instead of simply telling off a young child for pushing another child, you might have a conversation with the child starting with "Tell me about how you were feeling when that happened". From there the educator and the child could work out a solution.
Another example of shared sustained conversation is when educators and children are discussing a new concept or idea. Rather than the educator only giving their opinion, they could ask the child for their opinion "What do you think about that?" or "What do you think might happen?", "What makes you say that?"
For some tools to help with developing shared sustained conversations, see posts on Open Questions and Thinking Routines.
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