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Everyone interested in how young children learn will be fascinated by this week's Special Report, 'Positive thinking', in which Professor Iram Siraj-Blatchford looks at the results of the Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years project. One of the most significant findings is that 'sustained shared thinking' is vital for effective early years practice. Yet the open-ended questioning by practitioners which is part of this is being used far too little. The settings involved in REPEY had already been identified as among the best by the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education project, but observations of staff-child interactions found that open-ended questions made up only 5.1 per cent of the questioning used.

One of the most significant findings is that 'sustained shared thinking' is vital for effective early years practice. Yet the open-ended questioning by practitioners which is part of this is being used far too little. The settings involved in REPEY had already been identified as among the best by the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education project, but observations of staff-child interactions found that open-ended questions made up only 5.1 per cent of the questioning used.

Children's language development is already causing great concern, and if they are not encouraged to respond to open questions there will be an adverse effect on their language, cognitive and problem-solving skills.

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