As practitioners, we have to tap into our own and others' creativity to ensure that young children's voices are heard. There has to be time to listen and to watch our children develop and learn.
Simplicity
There was always an emphasis on simplicity in the contexts in which we observed the children. For one teacher, Christine, this meant giving the children as much time as they needed to explore a tiny 'wild' corner of an asphalted playground. For me, it meant a return to using my simple wooden 'treasure chest', made as a student.
Spontaneity and serendipity
Spontaneous conversations and the serendipity of accidental discovery are, obviously, difficult to capture on tape or video, so we made non-verbatim recordings of such incidents in pocket notebooks or on Post-it notes.
Silences
The teachers realised how important it was to also observe the children's non-verbal communication. The children's silences were also recorded in notebooks and on Post-it notes.
Video recording
No video recording was involved, as it could not capture the detail of the context and action being recorded. The human eye and written observation, however, could.
Chosen child observations
Chosen child observations linked to tape recordings, context notes and holistic case studies were the main methods used. The design of my first observation schedule was based on Professor Kathy Sylva's 'target child observations' on the 'Oxford Pre-school Research Project' in 1980.
Ethical considerations
We adopted child-controlled and child-friendly methods throughout, were aware that some children had serious reservations about recording, and gave every child the option to switch off the recorder at any time. Children should always know that they do not have to be recorded, filmed or photographed. In reality, only one child and one mother refused to agree to recording.
Under Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 'the child has the right to express his or her views in all matters affecting the child and the child's views shall be given their due weight'. With that in mind, respect was shown to all the children and other participants who participated as equal partners. The children, their families and practitioners gave their informed consent for the tape recording, conversational interviews and written records. The tapes of the children were included in their records, and everything else was open for families to read or copy.
Participatory methods
Many of the children, particularly the shy ones, preferred to talk via a soft toy rather than directly to an adult. We used three toy kangaroos, Kangas, in our research. The first had a microphone in its pouch held by little Joey. If the children did not want to be recorded, they simply put Joey in his bed on a shelf well out of recording range. The second was much loved, bathed with the dolls and shrank!
The third now houses a digital mini-recorder which is much more useful and accessible for this kind of practitioner research. A child can remove a mini-recorder with ease and make their wishes for privacy clear. The contents of mini-tapes can be transferred to cassettes and included in the children's own learning diaries or their records if the setting wishes.
Treasure chest
With Kanga alongside, spontaneous conversations between the children as they sorted through my treasure chest were remarkable. The children soon asked to take the chest home and fill it with their own special things, which provided some surprising contributions from formerly reticent talkers.
Child photography
The older children had made a model of their school to help the new children find their way about. Their plans also included two electronic toys, one of which they decided they wanted to use as a BBC outside broadcasts camera van. Perched on top was a camera which they encouraged the four-year-olds to use to photograph things that they liked best and least about school. The photographs and spontaneous conversations between the children were particularly revealing.
Conversational interviews
Following on from taking photographs outside, the children turned a small library into a 'recording studio', where the children interviewed each other, their families and all the teachers who could spare the time. Their interviews gave some interesting insights into the prolific language of some children who hardly spoke in class.
I then used their 'studio' for conversational interviews, conducted in the style of the popular chat show programme of the time - with a hat as my only prop. As soon as I put on the hat, the children told me their honest opinions of school, rather than what they thought I wanted to hear.
Conversational interviews have a framework of relevant questions but allow time for deviations if the children initiate ideas or ask questions. These conversations gave the greatest insight into the children's feelings and thoughts - especially when they talked about talking.
Dreamtimes
The spoken language of four-year-olds remains the focus of my ongoing research. Throughout, I have tried to develop methods that put no pressure on reluctant talkers. I have also, with the help of FERN (Family Education Resources Networks) and SPARC's (Southants Play and Resources Centre) arts workshops, tried to create, with the children, interesting spaces and more imaginative ways through which the children can 'voice' their feelings and express themselves.
One such method was our Millennium dreamcatcher. Such collaborative work is time-consuming, but it reaps rich rewards in terms of the emotions expressed and deep thinking revealed. While weaving Indian nightmare catchers, I was able to learn of the children's wishes, dreams, fears and experiences, good and traumatic, including abuse.