Browsing by Subject "http://www.yso.fi/onto/yso/p282"

The aim of the study. In preschool, children talk daily with peers and educators. This study examines the children's thinking and communication skills mainly through the concepts that Neil Mercer and his colleagues have defined. In light of earlier studies on the subject, an exploratory talk is especially meaningful in developing children's social and cognitive skills. In an exploratory talk, the children talk together using different methods to find agreement. This kind of discussion means they are thinking together. The aim of the study was to find out how children in early childhood education think together. The earlier study focused mainly on the school context; therefore, this study focuses on the early childhood education context. The main questions in the study are the following: what are the factors that make thinking together possible and what is the role of an educator? Methods. The research material consists of 25 episodes that were chosen from material filmed in two groups of 5-year-olds, with two days per group. In all of these episodes, there is interaction between the children and between an adult and the children. The episodes were categorised in groups depending on the way the children talked during the discussions. The main focus was on the exploratory talk. The main results. Three things made thinking together possible: the conversational culture in the group, the disagreements in conversations and problem solving, and a calm space for playing and immersion in the discussions. The role of the educator was incoherent. Either the educators were not present in the discussion events or they mostly interrupted them. The main problem was the quality of interaction. The questions the educators asked were simple right or wrong kinds of questions. When the children asked more thoughtful and open-ended questions when talking to each other, it led them to think together. These results are important, because transferring them to practice in early childhood education may support children's interaction, discussion and thinking skills, as well as developing a conversational culture in preschools.