Research School Network: Listen, Chat and Play Together – How to approach high quality interactions with children in the early years. By Nicola Owen, ELE and Head of School at Spixworth Infant School

Since 2010, I have been teaching, leading or advising in EYFS across a range of age groups. It has become clear to me that the quality of communication and interaction with young children was key to enabling them to understand and engage with the world around them. The progress made by all children, but particularly children considered to be from a disadvantaged background, was anecdotally fast and impressive within this age range through this type of high-quality learning and support.

High quality interactions (and the joy of spraying water!)

In my very first post as a Reception class teacher, I had a young child who kept splashing and soaking everyone outside in our garden with a hosepipe, spraying water out everywhere, instead of using it as intended to fill a water tray. This child was clearly enjoying themselves but causing chaos and upsetting everyone around them in the process. This happened several times over the course of a few days. Staff kept reminding them to ​‘behave’, ​‘be safe’ or ​‘follow instructions’ but this was not working and the same actions were repeated, or the hosepipe was withdrawn from use. So, I decided to quietly observe the pattern of behaviour and, as I did, I realised that this child had never experienced a hosepipe, and certainly did not know how to use it. So I set about embracing this interest, interacting and engaging with the child sensitively by explicitly modelling and demonstrating how to hold it, use it, how to keep the ​‘nose’ pointed down when turning on the tap and walking to the water tray. We worked together to ensure that not just this child, but all children, understood how to use the hosepipe at school. The child continued to have fun, learn about water but never again splashed everyone in the process!

This is a simple example, but we have all experienced situations like this where high-quality interactions have made a tangible difference. These interactions are so powerful in building the knowledge, skills, vocabulary and cultural capital of all children, but have the most immediate impact on children who have not had these opportunities previously.

Sustained Shared Thinking

This process also gently reminds us all that patience in interactions and observations often reveal deeper and more pertinent gaps in vocabulary, knowledge and life experience for some children in our care.

​‘Sustained Shared Thinking’ was, and still is, a term used to describe this process. Several practitioners and academics have used this phase, or variations of this, in their writing over many years, this includes Siraj, Kingston and Melhuish in Assessing Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care (2015). The principles of this approach to early education are the foundation of this EEF area of research.

Ensuring all staff are skilfully prepared for this type of teaching and learning is crucial to ensuring all children can meet age related expectations by the end of the EYFS and beyond. For many years I tried to train staff to use ​‘Sustained shared thinking’, or ​‘ping pong’ or ​‘serve and return’ models to try to describe how high-quality interactions with young children work best. However, I had varied results.

Julie fisher in Interacting or Interfering (2016) describes the conditions and stages needed to achieve high-quality and productive interactions. Summarising these she states, ​‘Through their [children’s] responses, effective practitioners consolidate, extend and provoke children’s thinking, and they need to know their children well, and have observed them with care in order to pick the right strategy at the right time.’

The ShREC Approach

I am not the first, and will definitely be not the last, to promote the benefits of using the EEF’s ​‘The ShREC Approach’ (March 2022) to support the development of high-quality interactions between adults and young children. The evidence-based model summarises the key elements of high quality interactions that have a clear impact on young children. This planning tool arose from the EEF’s ​‘Preparing for Literacy’ guidance report (2018).

The EEF describes the purpose of this document:

​‘High quality interactions often look effortless, but they are not easy to do well. So, to support early years professionals, we have distilled the evidence into the ShREC approach. This provides us with a simple and memorable set of specific, evidence-informed strategies which we can embed into everyday practice. We can use these strategies with every child, every day.’

This has been invaluable in providing a simple and clear model for practitioners to aim for more successful interactions with young children.

Using this approach as part of staff induction and ongoing professional development has proved very effective resulting in young children feeling supported, listened to and secure, ready to be successful in all their learning.

References

Education Endowment Fund (2018): Preparing for Literacy Guidance Report

Education Endowment Fund (2021): Preparing for Literacy – Additional Planning Tool: High Quality Interactions in the Early Years, The ​‘ShREC’ approach

Education Endowment Fund (2021): Preparing for Literacy – Additional video: High Quality Interactions in the Early Years, The ​‘ShREC’ approach – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJSfZRtUMXk

Fisher, Julie (2016): Interacting or Interfering

James, Fliss (March 2022): EEF Blog – The ShREC approach – 4 evidence-informed strategies to promote high quality interactions with young children

Siraj, Iram, Kingston, Denise and Melhuish, Edward (2015): Assessing Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care