Sharing Children’s Learning

One of the most frequent queries we have received through the Longford Leaders in Quality Initiative is around the best way to share children’s learning with their parents. It is our experience that this is an area that early years providers and practitioners find challenging.

While this a real challenge for practitioners, there are so many advantages for sharing learning with parents that cannot and should not be ignored. These include:

Parents –

■ feel valued and respected

■ are more involved in their children’s learning and development

■ can share information about their children

■ feel their family’s values, practices, traditions, and beliefs are understood and taken into account

■ feel comfortable visiting the setting, talking to, and planning with practitioners

■ know more about their children’s experiences outside the home and use this information to support their learning and development more effectively

■ understand why early childhood care and education is important

■ have increased confidence in their own parenting skills.                                              (Aistear, 2009)

Parents provide children with their first learning experiences and they help ensure that children reach important developmental milestones such as sitting, walking, becoming toilet-trained, talking, cutting, doing up buttons, cycling, reading, and so on. As children go on to spend time in out-of-home settings parents continue to support their learning and development. This is more effective when parents complement children’s experiences in a particular setting. Likewise, learning is more meaningful when practitioners use information from parents about children’s interests, skills, abilities, and dispositions as a starting point for new experiences. Below are some ways in which parents can support their children’s learning and development at home, and how practitioners can help them to do this.

The Aistear Siolta Practice Guide has two really helpful resources with practical tips on how to share learning with parents for children aged 0-3 and 3-6 along with some excellent videos and tip sheets all of which are accessible here. Longford CCC encourages you to read both of these documents. We urge you to contact the Support and Development Team for support on implementing this in practice. We are more than happy to provide one to one support in this area at your request. Please contact us here to make an appointment.