Getting Boys Up and Running in the Early Years

Creating stimulating places and spaces for learning

Julie Cigman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317508144
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Getting Boys Up and Running in the Early Years addresses the fact that boys do less well than girls in all areas of learning in the Early Years and continue to lag behind girls in assessments throughout their school careers. This book draws on current research to provide practical advice on ways in which Early Years practitioners can create positive learning environments for all children. It explores how best to match provision to all children's learning styles, aiding their progress in personal, social and emotional development, communication and language, and physical development. Final chapters show how learning in all other curriculum areas can follow, in a carefully designed environment.

Key points explored include:

• the environment we can create to enable both boys and girls to become confident and autonomous learners
• ways that practitioners can evaluate and enhance provision to improve levels of well-being and involvement
• physical development and the value of active, challenging and adventurous play
• practical ways to stimulate language development
• planned activities and rich experiences that support holistic learning in an inspiring environment.

Giving clear guidance on helping boys to meet high expectations in a playful and creative way, Getting Boys Up and Running in the Early Years is an essential read for anyone working to create a positive foundation for boys in Early Years education.

1	Creating an enabling learning environment for boys and girls

Introduction

Jack, a sturdy 13-month-old, takes his fingers away from his mother’s outstretched hands and balances precariously for a few seconds. He takes one step, and another, and another . . . until he is halfway across the room. As he takes his first steps, he holds his arms high up in the air and claps his hands above his head, smiling triumphantly.

Jack knows that he is making his own personal history, and he knows he is doing something momentous. Never mind Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon, here is Jack taking his very first independent steps on Earth! So what experiences did he have to give him the motivation, the confidence and the perseverance to take on the immense challenge of moving from a vulnerable newborn baby to a mobile toddler, in just over a year?

In this chapter, we explore this question by investigating how all children learn in the first few years of life, and we look at evidence that shows how learning dispositions impact on children’s ability to learn. We also ask questions about similarities and differences in the way children develop and learn.

What do we know about how all children learn?

Learning from birth . . . early brain development

Lifelong cognitive and interpersonal skills are ‘heavily shaped by learning’.

(Eliot 2012: 6, 7)

In the first years of life, the brains of babies and young children are developing at an astonishing speed, making 700 to 1,000 new connections every second. Early life experiences, including secure relationships and a stimulating environment, determine the healthy development of the young brain, while risk factors that restrict brain development include emotional stress, neglect and poor nutrition. The environment we provide for our youngest members of society, at home and in Early Years settings, is crucial.

At the age of 3 years, a child’s brain is twice as active as an adult’s brain and it has a remarkable plasticity – the ability to change in response to experience. Learning happens when synaptic connections are made between neurons, and plasticity allows the environment to sculpt young children’s developing brains, influencing which connections are made, and which less well-used connections are ‘pruned’.

Environmental factors influence what children learn – children’s growing knowledge – and they also help establish how children learn – children’s attitudes to learning and their beliefs about their identity within their family and in society. This places great responsibility on parents, carers and educators to be positive role models to young children and to be aware of some of the limiting messages that children meet as they step out into the world, so that they can counter them.

Social referencing: learning from other people

As children become increasingly socialised, they absorb messages at home from siblings, parents and the extended family, and then in the wider world from television, books and toy advertising, about how they should behave in order to gain approval. Nancy Stewart (2011: 39) describes this process as ‘social referencing’.

Wesley, aged 8 months, is sitting in his high chair playing with a cardboard tube. He puts his mouth on one end and makes some sounds, then he loses interest and puts it down. His mother takes the tube and she makes some sounds into the end of the tube and offers it back to Wesley. He hesitates, then takes it and plays with it. Then he hands the tube back to his mother. She takes the tube and makes some sounds and hands it back to him. He watches her carefully, hesitates, then he ‘sings’ into the tube.

His mother claps delightedly, and they take turns singing into the tube.

This wonderfully positive interaction between Wesley and his mother is two-way, as his mother models social behaviour and Wesley responds in an early ‘protoconversation’ (Malloch and Trevarthen 2009), watching and taking turns. Wesley’s enjoyment delights his mother, and Wesley responds to his mother’s encouragement, strengthening the bond between them and encouraging Wesley to practise his new skill.

Through social referencing, children develop a belief system that influences how they respond to everyday experiences and more formal learning opportunities. Wesley is discovering that he can explore and experiment and try new things; he feels secure, knowing that his mother is there to share his learning and encourage him to try new things; learning isn’t predictable in the big world that he is entering, but it is fun and safe and manageable.

Sadly, not all children receive positive messages and reinforcement of their behaviour. Compare Wesley’s experience with that of Stevie:

Stevie’s mum came to pick him up from his day nursery. When he saw her, his eyes lit up and he ran towards her, waving a painting that he had done that afternoon.

Stevie’s mum gave the painting a quick glance and said: It’s a bit black, isn’t it?

She lifted Stevie up and strapped him into his buggy, pushing the painting into her bag.

When we are conscious of the messages that children pick up through social referencing, we can use the plasticity of the young brain to protect the developing child against limiting and negative influences. Providing encouraging and positive influences helps children to build a positive self-identity and it broadens their options and learning opportunities.

Learning that ‘I can’: developing a sense of self-efficacy

Arlo, aged 11 months, edges along a bench, holding on tightly as he isn’t too steady on his feet yet. He’s trying to reach his cup, which is at the far end of the bench. He takes a few steps, then he looks round at his mother to check that she’s there. She smiles encouragingly so he edges further along until he reaches his cup. His mother celebrates with him: Hey, you’ve done it! Well done!

Balbernie (2011) emphasises the importance of this early phase of life for establishing powerful learning dispositions. Supported by his mother, Arlo is developing a sense of self-efficacy, which Bandura describes as a person’s belief that they can make things happen (in Stewart 2011: 16).

Self-efficacy is a fundamental element of learning at any age. It challenges the view that ability is fixed and cannot be changed (Claxton 2008), and instead draws on the understanding that learning is a process which is challenging and involves hard work, even for exceptional achievers like Michelangelo.

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.

(Michelangelo)

Children who have a strong sense of self-efficacy have an ‘I can’ attitude to learning. They derive satisfaction and intrinsic motivation from the process of learning and this lets them rise to challenges rather than being overwhelmed, even when learning is a struggle. They are willing to try new things and they are able to learn from mistakes.

Children with a weak sense of self-efficacy can find new learning daunting and are likely to give up when things become difficult. They believe that learning is a question of talent and ability: if they find learning difficult, they must lack ability, so there is no point in making an effort.

So how do children develop a strong sense of self-efficacy? Children learn a lot through mimicry, and positive self-efficacy is learned from positive role models in the context of an emotionally safe and structured environment with adults who show genuine interest and encouragement. Adult expectations of children also play an important role in children’s developing belief system about their effectiveness as learners.

We saw how Arlo already has a strong sense of self-efficacy:

• He is secure enough to try new things, knowing that help is there if needed.

• He has been allowed to set his goal himself, and to achieve it in his own time.

• His mother shows that she has belief in his ability to achieve his goal.

• She encourages and praises him when he does things for himself, and when he achieves something new.

From home learning to school learning: some questions to consider

• Do the young children that you work with have equally strong male and female role models for learning? Are they more likely to see women than men reading and writing? (National Literacy Trust 2012)

• Do your children’s parents have equal expectations for boys and girls in different areas of learning? Is there a general expectation that boys are better at tasks involving physical activity and dexterity, while girls are better at reading, writing and drawing?

Mindsets for learning: learning that ‘I can get better at this, if I work at it’

Self-efficacy is one element in Carol Dweck’s work on mindsets for learning. Babies are born knowing very little, but they have a vast capacity to learn and they aren’t daunted by the size of tasks such as learning to talk or walk. Babies don’t start off questioning if they have the innate talent and human qualities to be successful in the world. They rapidly pick up beliefs about their abilities as learners from people around them who reflect back at them: either ‘you have the human qualities to learn all kinds of interesting skills and information’; or ‘you don’t have the human qualities to do very much with your life.’ As we grow older, how many of us face the challenge of learning a foreign language with the ease that babies learn to talk?

Dweck (2012) identified two mindsets in her research into how children respond to new challenges in learning: a growth mindset, where children believe in their ability to achieve something new: ‘If something is difficult, I must work harder and then I’ll have learned something new.’ In contrast, children might develop a fix...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Getting Boys Up and Running in the Early Years
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Creating an Enabling Learning Environment for Boys and Girls
• 2 Pink, Blue or Purple: Gender Identity and Early Learning
• 3 Pushing Back the Boundaries for Learning
• 4 Creating Irresistible Spaces for Play and Learning
• 5 Becoming a Confident Mover
• 6 Becoming a Confident Communicator
• 7 Planning for Cross-Curricular Learning
• 8 Creating Spaces and Places to Get Boys Up and Running
• Conclusion
• References and Further Reading
• Index