I reached for some hard cover books with puppets, as you sat in my lap we talked, read stories, and made puppet movements and animal sounds, you responded by smiling, making noises, laughing, and grabbing the puppets. You were reluctant to move, or let me leave your line of sight. Your Educator asked me if I would like to feed you, your lunch while you were sitting on my lap. I offered you some lunch on a spoon but you refused, and pushed it away and snuggled closer. Your Educator explained that it was only your third day at the service and you might like to eat later, I recognised your choice not to eat so we sat together continuing to play with toys.

When I look back and think about what learning is possible, I was reminded by how much all the children enjoyed mimicking my words and imitating my actions. Which makes me wonder if children would be interested in listening and singing to nursery rhymes together. I believe from what I have observed, children are closely observing me in their presence, if I initiate this interaction hopefully it inspires and ignites some curiosity. Children have interests in animals which can help to guide this provocation.

ie. "Old McDonald had a Farm" "Incy wincy spider" "Five little ducks"

Reading together in groups, close serve and return or role play interactions gives opportunities to build relationships and practice language skills together. Providing mimicking animal sounds, pronouncing simple words and building small sentences.

The Banya room (Nursery 0-3 years) is a 12 place room the in- door environment is open, with high, narrow windows that bring natural light in and provide a view of blue skies and bright leafy tree tops. The environment is purposeful and intentionally designed to promote children's growth and development- becoming

The center and its community demonstrate incredible resilience and determination in overcoming a devastating natural disaster, with their commitment to their community and reaffirming their place as a center as a vital resource for their families.

Philosophies

Rochester Early Learning strongly believes in providing a holistic approach to learning and development. Holding the belief that all children are unique, competent, capable, and confident individuals. Providing a play-based approach provides children with agency in their own learning journeys - Being

Learning journeys are viewed as a collaborative effort between themselves and their educators, which fosters respectful and trusting relationships. A child's sense of belonging is nurtured through the secure, respectful relationships that have a deep understanding of mutual respect.

This document has posed evidence of a child displaying knowledge of the use of early sign language. Which has had me wondering if children in this room would like to explore and expand their knowledge of sign language to communicate their needs and desires with age appropriate Auslan. Or to communicate and make connections with objects, animals, songs and rhymes.

Using words to label and pictures for children to associate meaning ie. Words and Colours, Words and Actions, or Intstructions or Feelings

Building children sense of belonging continues to support their child's self-identity.

Creating a nurturing environment that recognise's children's backgrounds, abilities, and preferences are valued, and all children have equitable access to resources and experiences supports children's participation in learning and enhances development. Giving the opportunity to support different languages (Quintero, 2010) explains “Teacher’s that support student’s multiple languages and recognize ways that multiple knowledge sources identities and language forms can contribute to the formation of new relationship’s and meanings.” I have related this with children, families and their communities within Rochester Early Learning.

Conversations with parents helped me gain an insight into if their child enjoyed music, singing, or dancing. I noticed at the beginning that music was played in the background or during sleep time but children didn't seem to engage with it. Which made me wonder if they were interested or they just didn't know the songs that were being played. I wondered if they would have the same reaction if I began to sing in front of them. Would I get funny looks and laughed at or would I inspire children to do the same? Do I have the perfect opportunity to be a role model?

Over time as the days went by I began to sing quiet often, to see if my wondering was leading in a direction of thought. As we washed hands together we sang the instructional washing hands song, when it rained. Or generated from children's interest, I found songs with actions that children engaged in and thoroughly enjoyed them as they are heard singing laughing and giggling. Singing twinkle twinkle little star, happy birthday, old McDonald had a farm were just a few. As children became familiar with the daily interaction, more and more children would engage and children's attention span and memory increased. They remembered the songs we sang, actions and signed gestures we made. It was such an extraordinary feeling to see and hear without prompting children enjoying this meaningful moment.

Rochester Early Learning's philosophy and my induction with my Director reaffirmed my thoughts of the vital importance of building secure attachments with children. I have related the foundations for this respectful relationship to Rinaldi, C. (2006, January 1). In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia. Building foundations for shared trusting relationships and deep understanding of mutual respect nurtures children's sense of belonging and provides a foundation for exploration and learning. My understanding is that listening is the basis for building this attachment.

Active listening, deep awareness, and the conscious suspension of my judgments and prejudices values children and provided me with new skills to make strong connections between each of the three observations. Children demonstrated they are effective communicators who have a voice, know how to listen, and want to be listened to by others. Displaying their developing language skills by communicating verbally by talking, crying, screaming, laughing and coos, making noises. Using non-verbal cues such as gestures, facial expressions, bodily movements, and pointing. To communicate for comfort, food, and assistance, but not limited too just these examples. As their co-learner "I wonder how children's language acquisition can be supported in the early learning environment?"

Links- Verbally and Non-verbally communication

Observation 1.- Verbally by crying, screaming, laughing and coos, making noises. Non-verbal cues such as eye-contact, facial expressions, bodily movements, and pointing.

Observation 2.- Verbally mimicking and talking, non-verbally using eye-contact, bodily movements.

Observation 3.- Verbally by talking, non-verbally using eye-contact, facial expressions, hand gestures (Auslan), bodily movements.

In this room the children observed: A- 11 months, G- 2 years 3 months, H- 22 months

Children currently have interests in 'Old McDonald', animals, dolls, books, dinosaurs, sensory exploration and songs.

Room Goals

• Gentle Interactions

• Independence

Vygotsky has shown us that language is also essential for developing children cognition. I have related this to observation 1. I was the more knowledgeable other engaging in mutually respectful interaction of serve and return, talking, making eye contact, smiling and reading together. Research has shown that this type of interaction helps to build strong healthy brain connections. This theory is also evident in observation 3. there was visual evidence that H was displaying his developing his knowledge of communicating verbally and using sign language. Which connects to also to Vygotsky’s ‘zone of proximal development’ H has acquired knowledge of simple signs from a “more knowledgeable other” (MSEd, 2023)   

In Observation 1. listening required using all my senses to observe the "whys". Not relying on my ears but also use my sight and my smell. Which also relates to John Bowlby's theory of attachment. That theorizes, "Children communicate with us through their eyes, the quality of their voice, their body gestures...they show us by the way they do things."

This is evident in observation 1. as A was crying and screaming loudly and showed non-verbal cues and signs of distress or feeling overwhelmed. In his facial expressions and jerky body movements. In observation 2 and 3 both children used their eyes first to initially make eye contact, to get my attention, followed by using hand gestures or verbally talking and using hand gestures with the use of sign language to communicate their need for assistance.

This theory does not recognize the active role of the child in language acquisition process, nor the maturity of the child. The process of language development is mainly determined by the length of training provided by the environment.

The actual ability to communicate is with the principle of linkage S-R (Stimulus - Response) and a process of imitation.

Piaget stresses the importance of play as an avenue for learning he believed, like Montessori that children should be given every opportunity to do things for themselves. As children are creating their own understanding of what is going on, without the explanation of an adult.

According to Piaget language reflects the development of their logical thinking and reasoning skills in "periods" or stages, with each period having a specific name and age reference.  (Jean Piaget'S Theory on Child Language Development, 2021)

With the theory that as children continually grow progressively, language development will occur at every stage of development as a result of experience and reasoning, Piaget believed that children are born with basic “action schemas,” such as sucking and grasping. Children use action schemas to "assimilate" information about the world. The children in these observations are in their sensory- motor period (0-2 years) language is "egocentric": the child will talk either for themselves or "for the pleasure of associating anyone who happens to be there with the activity of the moment." In observation 1. and 3. both children communicate for the pleasure and to assimilate information, this is evident in their facial expressions and hand gestures.

When considering this perspective the child in observation 2. child G could be perceived as in the beginning of the pre-operational period, the language is described as "symbolic" children can venture beyond "here and now".

With little amount of oral language spoken other than mimicking and any other observations to support this theory it is difficult to assume this is correct.

Vygotsky argued that the children's cognitive development and language is closely related to the culture and the communities in which children live. I have related this arguing perspective to my observations as there is evidence they have occurred in the children's early learning community, there is a culture within their community and children are active participants in their community. There is an age-appropriate social aspect in all observations as children play parralel to their peers and interact non-verbally

Surrounding the environment with words or labels can be stimulating, without going over the top. It is a great way to place language in the physical environment for children to recognize, becoming more and more familiar which helps to memorize letter formation, attribute meanings to words. Pictures labels can also provide a relationship between a picture and its meaning. Labeling pegs or placemats with children's names all provide visual cues for children helping children develop strong language and communication skills.

Along with animals over time I introduced signs at transitioning and meal times. I observed H asking a child to stop, with the hand signal that made the connection to stop, which has also made me wonder if these child might be interested in signs for expressing feelings of sadness or happiness.

M told his peers his nan and pa lived in a house

I asked the children who lived in their house?

L pointed to the photos and told the group she lived with her mum, dad and sister

M told the group in his house lived his mum, dad, him and his brother.

I asked M if his mum was having a baby, he smiled and nodded. You must be going to be a big brother. Big brother he replies and smiles at his educators and peers.

I went round the small group of children and asked them who lived in their house. With help from the other educators each child had the opportunity to share something special about their family.

With the time I had left at the center. I was wondering about ways l could continue to value children and build respectful relationships with children and their families.

I think if I had more time this would have helped to make this provocation more meaningful. I believe it felt rushed and not as purposeful as I had wished. Maybe next if I consider this perspective from the beginning, I believe an inclusive environment takes time and a lot of consideration to be purposeful.

Parents Involvement: I had conversations over the duration of the two weeks about their child's interests, strengths, learning, and development. With the guidance and support from Rochester Early Learning and their team of educators, I was able to have access to children's 2 stars and 1 wish. (Parents wrote down 2 things of their child's strengths and 1 wish for their child's learning and development.) This feedback helped generate children's goals and the direction I planned. Conversations found that Child 1. was very new to the service, experiencing some separation anxiety, which reinforced the need for secure attachments with familiar staff and build his sense of belonging.

Child.2 had interests in dolls, singing, stories and was showing the desire to be independent. While her parents wish was to build her language acquisition,

Child 3. had strong interests in animals, outdoor play and old macdonald had a farm. He displayed interest and strengths in the use of sign language to communicate his needs, taught by his mum and other educators. His parents wish was to continue to build his self-confidence and language development, to support him to be a confident communicator.

When I spoke with parents and other educators about my thoughts and intentions, I was meet with excited facial expressions. This made me really happy and egar to learn myself about the possibilities of development and learning that could take place or make way for in the future.

Parent/ Educator Feedback- Parent Voices

"Its great to see things their learning about"- Parent

"What a great idea I will have to give that a go, its very creative"- Educator

There is research that suggests that the window of language acquisition and development takes place in the first five years and that there is benefits to teaching signing to hearing infants who have not yet developed vocal communication. According to  (Infants Link Language and Cognition, Whether the Language Is Spoken or a Sign Language, n.d.) cognitive developmental scientists discovered that sign language promotes cognition in hearing infants who are exposed to a signed language. (Cohen & Waite-Stupiansky, 2017) explains that Skinner proposed that "verbal behavior was not just spoken language, but also took the form of written language and sign language."

Babies and toddlers exposed to sign language not only have signs of improved cognition but also emotional development, self-confidence and increased self-esteem. Research suggests that babies and young children who are exposed to sign language have self-confidence and increased self-esteem.