Making Thinking Visible for Young Learners
“What Makes You Say That?”
My nephew, niece and I have a tradition at meal times. We take turns sharing the three things we are most grateful for about the day. Shortly after we started this tradition, we had a meal with the whole family: parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters from both sides.
There were 11 of us altogether. As we were coming to the end of the dinner, Lily, my niece, who was four at the time, turned to me and said. “Let’s do the thankful thing.” I briefly explained to everyone at the table the plan and said that Lily would start to demonstrate. Everyone nodded in an agreement, and all eyes turned to Lily. After a few seconds of quiet, as Lily sat thinking, her grandmother leaned over and whispered something in her ear. Lily looked a little confused, but then went back to thinking.
From across the table, her mom whispered “Lily” to get her attention and then mouthed and acted out something that they had done that day, a possible answer. Lily’s eyebrows scowled a bit. Trying not to sound annoyed, I gently said, “Give her time, she’s thinking.” After a few quiet moments, Lily looked up and said, “I am thankful that daddy shaved his beard because now it doesn’t hurt when he kisses me.”
Not one person sitting around the table that night could have given Lily that answer.
So why the rush?
There seems to be a discomfort with silence. It is probably why we feel compelled to choose the first hand that shoots up after we ask a question. Or why we ask increasingly
closed questions: the kind that get us to an answer, or in many cases THE answer, we are looking for so that we can march forward to a predefined destination. We too rarely
assume this silence is the result of processing and thinking time.
And when we model speed, we quietly encourage it and give the impression that we value it. When we reward children who get things done quickly (e.g. with stickers, or playtime), we inadvertently tell them that fun and play is on the other side of learning.
The truth is, that when a child finishes a learning experience too quickly, or raises his/her hand within seconds of a question being asked, chances are the task was too easy and that they already knew the answer. What is the value in praising a child for
recalling something they already knew? What are the possible consequences?
We need to grapple with why we feel this discomfort with silence, and consider why this silence and a slower pace are so important, especially for our youngest learners.
Imagine this scenario: You have only a few more minutes before the end of the day, and you want to finish the book that you started. You have just asked a question prompted by some event in the book. One child raises his hand. You start to panic because this child is notorious for deviating/straying from the topic. You look around hopeful that another child, benefiting from the unexpected thinking time, raises his/her hand to save you. No such hand is raised. So, you reluctantly call on the student, with a caveat that mommies and daddies would soon be arriving. As anticipated, the child says something totally unexpected and seemingly unrelated and you say something politically correct, “Thank you, Samantha. OK, let’s see what happens next in the book.”
This was a common scenario in my classroom when I let time and my objectives determine my interactions with students. Too many years later, I had the opportunity to attend a session entitled: Creating a Culture of Thinking at Harvard’s Project Zero Institute. Amongst the many things I learned over those five days, this one sentence led to an unexpected transformation:
What makes you say that?
This is one of the many thinking routines that Ron Ritchhart et al., share in their book,
Making Thinking Visible. A thinking routine is defined as, “short, easy-to-learn, ministrategies that extend and deepen students’ thinking and become part of the fabric of everyday classroom life.”
But, this ‘simple’ routine became much more than that for me; it revealed to me the importance of allowing and encouraging children to make their thinking visible, and
to never underestimate a child’s capacity to make connections and find meaning.
Now when children say something that seems entirely disconnected, rather than avoiding them or worse, ignoring them, I simply ask, “What makes you say that?” or
some other question or prompt that allows the child to continue talking.
What I find over and over again, is that when given the opportunity to make their
thinking visible, children will almost always impress you. And when you take the time
to ask, what you show them is that you value what they have to say and that makes them so much more willing to share their thinking. When you have access to their
thinking, you know everything you need to be able to support them.
Valuing What They Say
How can you value what children have to say, while still honouring and acknowledging time tables for your class? Let’s face it, the school day has a beginning, middle, and end. Here are a few simple but powerful ways to honour children’s thinking while still getting things done:
1. Ask
“What makes you say that?” and then listen to what they say. Really listen, with your
ears, eyes, body, and response.
2. Post-it Notes
Sometimes a child will ask a question that you just can’t answer because
a) you don’t know the answer or
b) you don’t have the time. Take a post-it note, write down the child’s question or comment, and stick it on your whiteboard or computer screen. This action alone shows the child that you value his/her contributions.
3. Follow-Up
Take the time to follow-up and respond to the questions or comments that you put aside earlier. If it didn’t happen to be relevant to the whole group, you could follow-up individually with each student. However, there is a lot of good modelling when you come back to a question: it demonstrates to everyone that their thinking and questions matter.
4. Document
Take the time to record children’s thinking. When you are having a discussion as a class about a book, concept, idea or whatever it is, record what the children say. It slows things down a bit (which is great), and the act of writing it down validates their contributions.
5. Populate your Classroom
Be sure to bring books, objects, resources, and when possible, experts into your classroom that connect to the things children talk about and care about. This is a visual and tangible indication that you care about things that interest them.
We all have Objectives to Meet
Children’s voices are powerful and can reveal so much about their current understanding (or misunderstanding) and thinking. Finding ways to encourage and value children’s talk might be the most important skill a teacher can master. The more students are able to make their thinking visible, the more we truly know their level of understanding.