Areas of Learning and Development
Adults, who ‘pick up and extend the meaning expressed in the child’s previous utterance’ (Wells, 1990:3). This process requires adults to show genuine interest in children’s ideas and conversation and to remember that during this process of developing learning through talk ‘Children are active constructors of their own knowledge’ (Wells,1986 : 65). Adults need to actively try to help children make connections between new knowledge and prior learning by recognizing misunderstandings and helping children to make the links through dialogic thinking in order to reach a shared understanding. Edwards and Mercer describe this condition of sympathetic co-construction as ‘mutuality of perspective’ (1987:95).
Adults can use a range of strategies to maintain children’s interest and attention and to extend interaction, for example recasting, expanding and labeling. This provides a scaffold for children and leads to increased collaborative discussion, particularly in the context of reminiscing about past events and seeking opportunities to use language in a familiar environment.
Adults can use a range of strategies to maintain children s interest and attention and to extend interaction for example recasting expanding and labelling This provides a scaffold for children and leads to increased collaborative discussion.