Know

Working with preschoolers is about so much more than planning lessons. Good teaching is all about relating, interacting, and enjoying time with children. In fact, this may be partly why you became a teacher. Your interactions present the best opportunities to help children learn.

You can turn your interactions into teachable moments throughout the day, every day. Teachable moments simply build on natural events in a child's day. As you get to know each child, you'll learn how to recognize and respond to these events. You do this by carefully observing children, providing an interesting learning environment, and using careful communication. Make the most of teachable moments by:

• Being a role model. Children are watching you to learn about the preschool classroom. When you wash your hands, read a book, or give a warm greeting, they notice.
• Noticing children's interests and needs. Experienced teachers sometimes talk about noticing "the rumbles": times when a child is on the edge of getting frustrated or angry. Perhaps the child exhales loudly, moves the materials a little too forcefully, or begins to look a little upset. These are moments when a sensitive adult can step in and help the child find a solution to the problem. Consider a few examples:

• Joining children in play. You can help children expand their thinking and try new things in play. If children are pretending to be servers at a restaurant, you can join play and order your favorite food. You can model language adults use at restaurants ("What's the special today?" "Can I have the check please?").
• Using open-ended questions. Open-ended questions have multiple answers, and encourage children to describe things in their own words and guide the conversation: "Will, why do you think the elephant is sad in the story?" "Tanisha, how do you want this to look when you're done?"
• Modeling the skills children need for an activity: "Hmm…I wonder where this puzzle piece will fit. I'm going to look at the shape and then try putting it in a few places. Nope, it doesn't go there. I'll try another spot."

Verbal Interactions: Communicate for Learning

As you get to know each child individually, you will learn a great deal about their development and their interests. Stay curious about what makes each child smile, laugh, or seem challenged, and use your own language to describe what you notice. This will help you use language in a way that supports cognitive development. Here are some things to keep in mind when it comes to verbal interactions:

• Use short simple sentences that are rich in vocabulary and descriptive language and are meaningful to them. For example, "You stacked two green blocks on top of the red block." Using the word "stacked" instead of "put" or "placed" introduces new language; using color names reinforces color identification; using "on top" is a directional word; and the number "two" supports math concepts; all of these expand learning in an appropriate way.
• Converse and ask questions during play and regular routines. Talk and ask questions about what they are doing with a toy (pushing, pulling, twisting) or experiencing in an activity (predicting, sorting, identifying). This type of interaction teaches math and science concepts and boosts vocabulary in a natural way. Take time to pause and notice what they are doing. Give them time to respond with their actions or words.
• Include a variety of words and introduce children to new objects or ideas. Snack can be a great time to introduce new words. Consider bringing in interesting fruits or vegetables that the children may not know. During outdoor time, use the real names for tools, plants, and surfaces. A large vocabulary will help preschoolers become successful readers one day.
• Be patient after asking a question or making a statement. Allow time to process what was said. Too many questions can impede the natural learning process.

How you talk to children makes a difference in their learning. One of the most powerful things you can do is use words that encourage. Take a few moments to compare the types of comments:

Which type of comment do you think gives the child more information? The statements on the right side of the chart have more meaning, and they introduce the child to complex ideas and vocabulary. They let the child know you noticed their learning, but they also encourage the child to keep going. It's OK to occasionally say, "Good job", but look for opportunities to describe what the child is doing and learning.

Just like it's important to notice and use encouraging words when children show you their learning, it's also important to use encouraging words when children struggle or are frustrated. Children learn by taking risks and trying challenging things. Sometimes they make mistakes. Caring adults make the most of these moments. Approach children with a warm tone and avoid criticism. You might say something like, "Tyrone, I can tell you are disappointed, but that was a good try. I think the tower just got too high and it fell down. What if we worked together to build the base a little wider?" or "It looks like that's a tough puzzle. Have you found all the edge pieces?"

Playing to Learn: Physical Interactions

It is often said that play is children's work. Play is the time when children explore their interests. Adults can increase learning by interacting with children during play in different ways:

• Adults can help children to expand their imaginary play by asking questions about what the child is doing or going to do.
• Adults can use play to model complex vocabulary words or focus on key skills from the curriculum. For example, an adult might comment on the "stethoscope" in the dramatic play doctor's office. Or an adult who knows children are working on identifying insects might provide magnifying glasses, soil, and plastic insects in the sensory table.

When children play together, they are learning! In these interactions, children can learn to agree on different ideas and find solutions for problems. You can support cognitive development during peer play by:

• Providing opportunities for children to actively cooperate: For example, suggest a goal for a center, "Let's build a tower."
• Staying close by and supporting play: Some children may need more support during cooperative play. Preschool teachers should observe which children need guidance and intervene in helpful ways: "Juan, it looks like you want to help build. Ask, 'Can I play?'"
• Assigning roles: "Sasha, will you be the veterinarian first? Then Adam can be the veterinarian."
• Helping children decide on steps to achieve their goal: "What should we do first?"
• Modeling communication: "Thanks, Jacob, for bringing that block over here. Our tower is tall! Could you please bring another block?"
• Interpreting children's actions: "It looks like India wants to play store with you. What do you think she could do to help?"

The Role of Culture in Interactions

Understanding the meaning of the word "culture" in the context of this lesson is important. The word has different meanings to different people. For this lesson, we rely on Doge, Colker and Heroman, who wrote that "culture involves the customary beliefs, values and practices people learn from their families and communities."

Everyone has a culture. It influences how we communicate, how we interact, how we interpret what people do and say; it even shapes our expectations. Culture plays a large role in child rearing.

Think about all of the interactions you have daily with each member of each family, each child, co-teachers, program staff, and your director. Each of those people has a culture. So each day, you are interacting with many people, including preschoolers, who have their own values, beliefs and practices. And, you have your own culture. That is a lot to take into consideration, but you need to ensure that your interactions respect the culture of each and every child you serve.

Allowing negative biases to affect your duties as a teacher can negatively affect the development of the children you are entrusted with caring for. When promoting thinking skills, exploration, and problem solving, teachers demonstrate bias when they have toys for boys and toys for girls, guidelines that boys may get dirty but girls need to stay clean, dramatic play for girls and building with blocks for boys. These are examples of gender biases; other biases involve race, ethnicity, language, and special needs. Awareness of your own biases is the first step in supporting cognitive development by preventing these biases from negatively affecting the interactions you have with preschoolers.

Be aware of how your interactions support the learning of all children. Watch for evidence of bias like:

• Do you comment equally on girls' and boys' appearances and accomplishments?
• Do you praise African American boys for their athleticism more than their cognitive development?
• Do you comment on children's size (e.g., "He's going to be a football player")?
• Do you encourage girls and boys to play active games? Do you encourage girls to "be careful" while saying "boys will be boys"?
• Do you have conversations with all children-including those who may have speech and language difficulties or who are learning English?

When it comes to being culturally relevant, keep the following in mind:

• Preschool children need to learn about their world and their community. Their community includes their families, you and their other caregivers, your program, and neighborhoods.
• Support the home language by learning a few words from the child's native language to help them feel more comfortable.
• Maintain open communication with families on what materials you are providing to support their child's cognitive development.

When you offer culturally relevant experiences on a daily basis that are based on preschool children's real life experiences you are supporting their cognitive development.

See

Watch this video to see how teachers promote learning during everyday interactions.

Now let's take some time to think about how you can identify opportunities to join play or help children learn through interactions-just like the teachers in the video did. Watch this video to see an example of a moment when an adult might have helped support learning.

Do

It is important to recognize a teachable moment when you see one. Teachable moments are spontaneous. They make learning natural for the child. But it takes some skill to recognize and make the most of these moments. Here are some ways to interact with children that might lead to teachable moments:

• Observe each child and notice what sparks his or her interest: Does the child light up when you mention a certain activity or idea? Does the child tend to pick the same center most days? Is the child more engaged during a certain story?
• Improve the learning environment so that it interests children: Provide more challenging toys; hang up new shapes or pictures in the classroom; draw children's attention to new objects.
• Find opportunities to practice learning goals in areas that interest the children: Practice sorting in a kitchen area; identify colors at the art easel; or write letters on a birthday card.

Here are some additional guidelines you should know about interactions that promote learning:

• Stay close. Avoid speaking to a child from across the room. Move to where the child is, sit or stand at their eye level, and have a conversation.
• Use children's names in conversations and pronounce their names correctly. Make sure children know that you care about who they are.
• Ask open-ended questions to promote thinking skills. Open-ended questions do not have a specific answer. They give preschoolers a chance to use their own ideas to form a response. Open-ended questions are thought to be especially helpful with learning because children learn their ideas are valued, they become more confident in explaining how they got their answer, and they are able to respond at their own level.
• Observe children's play and interactions. Get to know how each child prefers to relax, what types of activities they tend to choose, and with whom they typically choose to interact.
• Listen when children ask questions or make comments, particularly about differences or stereotypes. Give children factual, respectful answers. Imagine you overhear a group of children discussing whether an African American child's skin is "dirty." Avoid saying things like, "Shhh. That's rude" when children notice differences. Instead, you might say, "Skin comes in all different colors because we have different amounts of pigment in our skin. Darker skin isn't dirty. It has more pigment in it than lighter skin." Then you could plan an activity in which children mix colors of paint to create their skin color.