Observing Communication

As a teacher, I often have volunteers, parents, interns and pre-interns in my classroom interacting with the children. Yesterday, I had a new pre-intern come into my classroom. This is a literacy pre-internship, one of the first of many internships in the classroom. It is often interesting to observe their interactions with the children in the classroom, it being their first experience in a classroom setting, especially the pre-interns who have had little experience in an urban setting. Before school started my pre-intern and I talked, she told me she grew up in a small rural town and this was her first experience in a classroom setting as well as in an urban environment. She seemed excited to meet the children and begin interacting with the children. As the children hung up their coats, changed from boots to shoes, and collected needed papers from their backpack she stood next to me eagerly greeting each student. In her greeting she used a positive, upbeat tone of voice, the children seemed to quickly take a liking to her. One child even grabbed her hand and guided her to her seat, expressively describing the morning breakfast routine. At this point she got down to the child's level and used simple words and short sentences to to speak with the child. When the child was finished eating and excused from the table, she beckoned the pre-intern to come to the group carpet to read with her. I overheard her praising the child for her reading skills and providing the child with unknown words. She looked at the student smiling and nodding as the child was speaking to her. Children are often eager to spend time with an adult that is keen to listen to them (Stephenson, 2009). She provided the child with a sense of comfort and through her encouraging words she increased the child's positive sense of self and gave her the confidence to move further into the book.

Overall, I thought she did an excellent job interacting with the children and reacting to their comments, questions, and concerns. Teacher talk is a learned character trait that takes practice and consistent reflection. The conversation she had with the little girl throughout breakfast and while reading were reflections of her understanding of early childhood development. Language used by teachers should also reflect seven primary functions of communication; encouraging participation, responding to children's needs and ideas, managing the class or providing a necessary instruction, fostering children's language, conveying ideas, assessing children's knowledge and promoting children's thinking (Rainer Dangei & Durden, 2010). She did a great job responding to the child's needs and ideas. She could have, however, probed for deeper thinking while the child was reading. Instead of telling the child the word, she could have assessed the child's understanding of decoding strategies to allow the child to decode the word on her own. “Teacher talk that challenges children to use and build their cognitive skills is one of the most important functions of language” (Rainer Dangei & Durden, 2010, p. 5).

As I reflect on my own communication with regards to communication with young children, through experience and schooling I have gained the skills necessary to interact positively with young children. However, I realized that I need to continue honing in on skills and strategies that I have already obtained as an educator to increase more thought provoking questions and conversation and to promote children's thinking to go beyond one-word responses to make connections, compare and hypothesize (Rainer Dangei & Durden, 2010). Another skill that I need to continue to work on is listening with regards to communication with children. As the academic rigor of the kindergarten classroom increases I sometimes find myself focused more on the curriculum than on actually listening to what the children have to say. Children, like adults, want to be heard and need affirmation of their thoughts and ideas. Listening can provide valuable information and insight into what a child is thinking, feeling, learning, and the way a child sees and understands the world.

References:

Rainer Dangei, J., & Durden, T. R. (2010). The nature of teacher talk during small group activities. YC: Young Children, 65(1), 74-81. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Education Research Complete database. http://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=47964033&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Stephenson, A. (2009). Conversations with a 2-year-old. YC: Young Children, 64(2), 90-95. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Education Research Complete database. http://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=37131016&site=ehost-live&scope=site