Playgrounds of learning - Valuing competence and agency in birth to three-year-olds

IN THE EARLY CHILDHOOD education and care (ECEC) sector there has been a plethora of literature about practice with children in the birth to five age group )Arthur, Beecher, Dockett, Farmer, Richards, 1995; Dickett & Fleer, 1999; Fleer, 2003, 2005; Hutchins & Sims, 1999; Grieshaber & Cannella, 2001; Press & Hayes, 2000; Stonehouse, 1988). There is also lilterature about how particular types of ECEC practice assists in promoting intellectual competence, agency and resilience in these young children. However, current research about how to scaffold and value metalinguistic and metacognitive competence and agency in the birth to three age group appears to be scant (Page, 2005). This paper uses data from interviews and videotaped observations of young children and their families to begin to unpack how learning experiences for birth to three-year-olds happen within particular social contexts. An interpretive and theorectical bricolage (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003; Levi-Strauss, 1966) of theory and literature is used to interrogate this data, acting as a means of informing epistemological understanding about how practice within particular social contexts constrains or enables children as competent and capable learners. The authors argue that a tendency to underestimate the metacognitive and metalinguistic ability of infants and toddlers delimits understanding of what is possible for them within play and learning contexts. Finally, a model of practice is developed that focuses on appreciating and enhancing such abilities in this age group.