Creating the readiness to think together at KS1

WP_Query Object ( [query] => Array ( [page] => [name] => creating-the-readiness-to-think-together-at-ks1 ) [query_vars] => Array ( [page] => 0 [name] => creating-the-readiness-to-think-together-at-ks1 [error] => [m] => [p] => 0 [post_parent] => [subpost] => [subpost_id] => [attachment] => [attachment_id] => 0 [pagename] => [page_id] => 0 [second] => [minute] => [hour] => [day] => 0 [monthnum] => 0 [year] => 0 [w] => 0 [category_name] => [tag] => [cat] => [tag_id] => [author] => [author_name] => [feed] => [tb] => [paged] => 0 [meta_key] => [meta_value] => [preview] => [s] => [sentence] => [title] => [fields] => [menu_order] => [embed] => [category__in] => Array ( ) [category__not_in] => Array ( ) [category__and] => Array ( ) [post__in] => Array ( ) [post__not_in] => Array ( ) [post_name__in] => Array ( ) [tag__in] => Array ( ) [tag__not_in] => Array ( ) [tag__and] => Array ( ) [tag_slug__in] => Array ( ) [tag_slug__and] => Array ( ) [post_parent__in] => Array ( ) [post_parent__not_in] => Array ( ) [author__in] => Array ( ) [author__not_in] => Array ( ) [search_columns] => Array ( ) [ignore_sticky_posts] => [suppress_filters] => [cache_results] => 1 [update_post_term_cache] => 1 [update_menu_item_cache] => [lazy_load_term_meta] => 1 [update_post_meta_cache] => 1 [post_type] => [posts_per_page] => 10 [nopaging] => [comments_per_page] => 50 [no_found_rows] => [order] => DESC ) [tax_query] => [meta_query] => WP_Meta_Query Object ( [queries] => Array ( ) [relation] => [meta_table] => [meta_id_column] => [primary_table] => [primary_id_column] => [table_aliases:protected] => Array ( ) [clauses:protected] => Array ( ) [has_or_relation:protected] => ) [date_query] => [queried_object] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1541 [post_author] => 2386 [post_date] => 2025-02-12 13:02:04 [post_date_gmt] => 2025-02-12 13:02:04 [post_content] => When Let’s Think in English is introduced in a primary school, leaders and teachers often sense the potential to develop a whole school pedagogy based on the collective development of thought through challenge.  They see that Cognitive Acceleration (CA) grows from social, cultural classroom habits that create a dynamic fulfilment through learning together. If we can nurture these habits from age 6/7, can we do so with our youngest learners? Working with children age 4-6 holds a specific challenge and an exciting potential.  Essentially, Piaget helps us to conceive the challenge:

• Young children are ‘pre-operational’ or not yet capable of hearing a thinking voice in their head. They tend to need external props, objects, pictures and words on the journey to symbolise an idea in their mind.
• At this stage, children tend to be limited to egocentric perspectives: seeing the world only through the lens of their own feelings, instincts and experience. Moreover, their perception tends to be limited to noticing single variables in a situation or problem.

So if I can’t think without talking or manipulating objects and I am limited to seeing from my own perspective, collaborative problem solving will carry an additional challenge. However, Vygotsky helps us to understand and construct a way to work with and through the challenge:

• Young children need to verbalise their thinking for thought to come into being. Language at once transports and transforms thought.
• This ‘transformation’ can be accelerated through dialogic exchange with others who guide me to new ways of thinking.
• Other learners notice different aspects of a problem and share different perspectives, opening up the cognitive field of play for development.

Essentially, if I’m little, learning socially may be in some ways harder, but is exactly what I need to develop to become myself in the world.  I have tried to summarise this in the figure below.     As a Let’s Think in English Tutor, I have been lucky to work with a group of KS1 teachers and leaders on developing practical strategies to build the habits and rituals of the CA classroom with young children.  Our resulting guidebook carved out four territories for teachers to work and reflect on, as they journey to build a culture of thinking together.  The scope of each territory is summarised below. 1. Establish tangible new ways of working   Just as new ways of thinking must be externalised first through talk, so we need to tangibly externalise new ways of being and learning together.  This involves modelling basics like how a pair or trio of pupils sit together, using an object to support turn-taking, slowing down the process of listening not just as being quiet and using eye-contact but actively listening and repeating what another child has said in your own words.  Dialogue that see-saws from whole group to pair work to whole group makes significant self-regulation demands on young learners.  We advise building this see-saw initially as pairs within a guided group of six.   2.  Design tasks that stimulate challenge or conflict Children – in fact, human beings – are more likely to engage in collaborative talk when faced with an intriguing but not baffling puzzle: we seek to solve the knowledge gap.  Our group came up with a range of task types easily adapted to curriculum areas:

• Power of prediction: Set the context (a story, an experiment, a change), pause, predict what will happen, explain prediction, reveal the outcome, reflect. This pattern is particularly apposite in stories before moments of plot twist or surprising character development.
• Would you rather? Taken from two wonderful books by John Burningham that set imaginative dilemmas (Would you rather a pig borrowed your clothes or an eagle stole your dinner?) These can be devised and fed into all sorts of topics: e.g. Settlements: Would you rather build a house in the woods or by the sea?
• Talking points. Used extensively by the Thinking Together Oracy Cambridge team – present children with a statement with which they agree or disagree e.g.
• Red Riding Hood deserved to be eaten.
• The little car will go fastest down the slope.
• Rank order: give pictures of 3 options. Which character is most to blame?  Which object is most useful for living in the woods?

  3.  Develop new modes, goals and moves in teacher talk   The way that we think aloud, wonder, explore and weigh up ideas provides the sea in which children’s ideas can swim, form and reform.

• Modality: Children sense very intuitively the mode of teachers who are exploratory and open to new ideas in their own discourse.

Think how a more closed stance to arrive at a specific answer can be opened up with the following teacher cues:

• Let’s come together and see what ideas we have in the room…
• Dani, could you share your group’s idea?
• Are there more reasons why we could agree with this?
• Is there a group with a different idea?
• Now we have listened to two different ideas, has anyone changed their mind?

 

• Fascination and focus as feedback: The highest form of evaluation for children’s ideas is to give their ideas time and attention:
• Thank you, this is a new idea. Can you show us the moment in the book that made your group think that?
• Can anyone build on this group’s idea? Is there more to say about this?
• Most groups have said X but this group have suggested a new idea Y. “Let’s all talk about why they might have thought that.”

 

• Supporting clarity and elaboration: Since children’s ideas are being effortfully transposed into language, they often need support to make them more fully formed and available to the rest of the group:
• You think he’s sneaky because…?
• Who could give us another word for sneaky?
• Is there another reason why he is sneaky?

 

• Orienting and monitoring ideas: Since capturing ideas through words is emerging in this phase, teachers need to draw ‘markers in the sand’ as it were to help children grow into metacognitive beings – aware of and tracking their own thought
• So far we have two ideas in the room: We have X and we have Y.  Let’s keep going and see if one seems more possible than the other - or
• Go back to your group and talk about which idea you most agree with: X or Y

  4.  Monitor and nurture new modes in pupil talk Once basic group work and turn taking routines are in place, teachers spoke of sharing manageable progression steps with their young learners to build from surface social interaction to an exchange of ideas.  The group devised a simple taxonomy from CA research to support classroom teachers to formatively assess stages and steps in the efficacy of collaborative problem solving through KS1.   As before, a desirable behaviour would first be modelled by the teacher and perhaps be set as an explicit target with an oral scaffold e.g being able to disagree respectfully:

• I think differently because…
• That’s a good idea, but I think…

  The CA Piaget plus Vygotsky theoretical prism helps us to understand that creating the readiness to think together is essential, not just desirable in the early years at school.  Our current Let’s Think in English network of schools has shown us how teachers can practically, thoughtfully and strategically build that readiness. If readers are interested in reading the full ‘Creating readiness’ handbook, do get in touch! [email protected] With thanks and credit to teachers and leaders at: Four Marks C of E Primary, Hampshire The Nebula Federation, Norfolk The Fryern Federation, Hampshire Ryefield Primary, Uxbridge     [post_title] => Creating the readiness to think together at KS1 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => creating-the-readiness-to-think-together-at-ks1 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2025-02-12 13:02:27 [post_modified_gmt] => 2025-02-12 13:02:27 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://letsthink.org.uk/?p=1541 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [queried_object_id] => 1541 [request] => SELECT wp_posts.* FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_name = 'creating-the-readiness-to-think-together-at-ks1' AND wp_posts.post_type = 'post' ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC [posts] => Array ( [0] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1541 [post_author] => 2386 [post_date] => 2025-02-12 13:02:04 [post_date_gmt] => 2025-02-12 13:02:04 [post_content] => When Let’s Think in English is introduced in a primary school, leaders and teachers often sense the potential to develop a whole school pedagogy based on the collective development of thought through challenge.  They see that Cognitive Acceleration (CA) grows from social, cultural classroom habits that create a dynamic fulfilment through learning together. If we can nurture these habits from age 6/7, can we do so with our youngest learners? Working with children age 4-6 holds a specific challenge and an exciting potential.  Essentially, Piaget helps us to conceive the challenge:

• Young children are ‘pre-operational’ or not yet capable of hearing a thinking voice in their head. They tend to need external props, objects, pictures and words on the journey to symbolise an idea in their mind.
• At this stage, children tend to be limited to egocentric perspectives: seeing the world only through the lens of their own feelings, instincts and experience. Moreover, their perception tends to be limited to noticing single variables in a situation or problem.

So if I can’t think without talking or manipulating objects and I am limited to seeing from my own perspective, collaborative problem solving will carry an additional challenge. However, Vygotsky helps us to understand and construct a way to work with and through the challenge:

• Young children need to verbalise their thinking for thought to come into being. Language at once transports and transforms thought.
• This ‘transformation’ can be accelerated through dialogic exchange with others who guide me to new ways of thinking.
• Other learners notice different aspects of a problem and share different perspectives, opening up the cognitive field of play for development.

Essentially, if I’m little, learning socially may be in some ways harder, but is exactly what I need to develop to become myself in the world.  I have tried to summarise this in the figure below.     As a Let’s Think in English Tutor, I have been lucky to work with a group of KS1 teachers and leaders on developing practical strategies to build the habits and rituals of the CA classroom with young children.  Our resulting guidebook carved out four territories for teachers to work and reflect on, as they journey to build a culture of thinking together.  The scope of each territory is summarised below. 1. Establish tangible new ways of working   Just as new ways of thinking must be externalised first through talk, so we need to tangibly externalise new ways of being and learning together.  This involves modelling basics like how a pair or trio of pupils sit together, using an object to support turn-taking, slowing down the process of listening not just as being quiet and using eye-contact but actively listening and repeating what another child has said in your own words.  Dialogue that see-saws from whole group to pair work to whole group makes significant self-regulation demands on young learners.  We advise building this see-saw initially as pairs within a guided group of six.   2.  Design tasks that stimulate challenge or conflict Children – in fact, human beings – are more likely to engage in collaborative talk when faced with an intriguing but not baffling puzzle: we seek to solve the knowledge gap.  Our group came up with a range of task types easily adapted to curriculum areas:

• Power of prediction: Set the context (a story, an experiment, a change), pause, predict what will happen, explain prediction, reveal the outcome, reflect. This pattern is particularly apposite in stories before moments of plot twist or surprising character development.
• Would you rather? Taken from two wonderful books by John Burningham that set imaginative dilemmas (Would you rather a pig borrowed your clothes or an eagle stole your dinner?) These can be devised and fed into all sorts of topics: e.g. Settlements: Would you rather build a house in the woods or by the sea?
• Talking points. Used extensively by the Thinking Together Oracy Cambridge team – present children with a statement with which they agree or disagree e.g.
• Red Riding Hood deserved to be eaten.
• The little car will go fastest down the slope.
• Rank order: give pictures of 3 options. Which character is most to blame?  Which object is most useful for living in the woods?

  3.  Develop new modes, goals and moves in teacher talk   The way that we think aloud, wonder, explore and weigh up ideas provides the sea in which children’s ideas can swim, form and reform.

• Modality: Children sense very intuitively the mode of teachers who are exploratory and open to new ideas in their own discourse.

Think how a more closed stance to arrive at a specific answer can be opened up with the following teacher cues:

• Let’s come together and see what ideas we have in the room…
• Dani, could you share your group’s idea?
• Are there more reasons why we could agree with this?
• Is there a group with a different idea?
• Now we have listened to two different ideas, has anyone changed their mind?

 

• Fascination and focus as feedback: The highest form of evaluation for children’s ideas is to give their ideas time and attention:
• Thank you, this is a new idea. Can you show us the moment in the book that made your group think that?
• Can anyone build on this group’s idea? Is there more to say about this?
• Most groups have said X but this group have suggested a new idea Y. “Let’s all talk about why they might have thought that.”

 

• Supporting clarity and elaboration: Since children’s ideas are being effortfully transposed into language, they often need support to make them more fully formed and available to the rest of the group:
• You think he’s sneaky because…?
• Who could give us another word for sneaky?
• Is there another reason why he is sneaky?

 

• Orienting and monitoring ideas: Since capturing ideas through words is emerging in this phase, teachers need to draw ‘markers in the sand’ as it were to help children grow into metacognitive beings – aware of and tracking their own thought
• So far we have two ideas in the room: We have X and we have Y.  Let’s keep going and see if one seems more possible than the other - or
• Go back to your group and talk about which idea you most agree with: X or Y

  4.  Monitor and nurture new modes in pupil talk Once basic group work and turn taking routines are in place, teachers spoke of sharing manageable progression steps with their young learners to build from surface social interaction to an exchange of ideas.  The group devised a simple taxonomy from CA research to support classroom teachers to formatively assess stages and steps in the efficacy of collaborative problem solving through KS1.   As before, a desirable behaviour would first be modelled by the teacher and perhaps be set as an explicit target with an oral scaffold e.g being able to disagree respectfully:

• I think differently because…
• That’s a good idea, but I think…

  The CA Piaget plus Vygotsky theoretical prism helps us to understand that creating the readiness to think together is essential, not just desirable in the early years at school.  Our current Let’s Think in English network of schools has shown us how teachers can practically, thoughtfully and strategically build that readiness. If readers are interested in reading the full ‘Creating readiness’ handbook, do get in touch! [email protected] With thanks and credit to teachers and leaders at: Four Marks C of E Primary, Hampshire The Nebula Federation, Norfolk The Fryern Federation, Hampshire Ryefield Primary, Uxbridge     [post_title] => Creating the readiness to think together at KS1 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => creating-the-readiness-to-think-together-at-ks1 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2025-02-12 13:02:27 [post_modified_gmt] => 2025-02-12 13:02:27 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://letsthink.org.uk/?p=1541 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) ) [post_count] => 1 [current_post] => -1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 1541 [post_author] => 2386 [post_date] => 2025-02-12 13:02:04 [post_date_gmt] => 2025-02-12 13:02:04 [post_content] => When Let’s Think in English is introduced in a primary school, leaders and teachers often sense the potential to develop a whole school pedagogy based on the collective development of thought through challenge.  They see that Cognitive Acceleration (CA) grows from social, cultural classroom habits that create a dynamic fulfilment through learning together. If we can nurture these habits from age 6/7, can we do so with our youngest learners? Working with children age 4-6 holds a specific challenge and an exciting potential.  Essentially, Piaget helps us to conceive the challenge:

• Young children are ‘pre-operational’ or not yet capable of hearing a thinking voice in their head. They tend to need external props, objects, pictures and words on the journey to symbolise an idea in their mind.
• At this stage, children tend to be limited to egocentric perspectives: seeing the world only through the lens of their own feelings, instincts and experience. Moreover, their perception tends to be limited to noticing single variables in a situation or problem.

So if I can’t think without talking or manipulating objects and I am limited to seeing from my own perspective, collaborative problem solving will carry an additional challenge. However, Vygotsky helps us to understand and construct a way to work with and through the challenge:

• Young children need to verbalise their thinking for thought to come into being. Language at once transports and transforms thought.
• This ‘transformation’ can be accelerated through dialogic exchange with others who guide me to new ways of thinking.
• Other learners notice different aspects of a problem and share different perspectives, opening up the cognitive field of play for development.

Essentially, if I’m little, learning socially may be in some ways harder, but is exactly what I need to develop to become myself in the world.  I have tried to summarise this in the figure below.     As a Let’s Think in English Tutor, I have been lucky to work with a group of KS1 teachers and leaders on developing practical strategies to build the habits and rituals of the CA classroom with young children.  Our resulting guidebook carved out four territories for teachers to work and reflect on, as they journey to build a culture of thinking together.  The scope of each territory is summarised below. 1. Establish tangible new ways of working   Just as new ways of thinking must be externalised first through talk, so we need to tangibly externalise new ways of being and learning together.  This involves modelling basics like how a pair or trio of pupils sit together, using an object to support turn-taking, slowing down the process of listening not just as being quiet and using eye-contact but actively listening and repeating what another child has said in your own words.  Dialogue that see-saws from whole group to pair work to whole group makes significant self-regulation demands on young learners.  We advise building this see-saw initially as pairs within a guided group of six.   2.  Design tasks that stimulate challenge or conflict Children – in fact, human beings – are more likely to engage in collaborative talk when faced with an intriguing but not baffling puzzle: we seek to solve the knowledge gap.  Our group came up with a range of task types easily adapted to curriculum areas:

• Power of prediction: Set the context (a story, an experiment, a change), pause, predict what will happen, explain prediction, reveal the outcome, reflect. This pattern is particularly apposite in stories before moments of plot twist or surprising character development.
• Would you rather? Taken from two wonderful books by John Burningham that set imaginative dilemmas (Would you rather a pig borrowed your clothes or an eagle stole your dinner?) These can be devised and fed into all sorts of topics: e.g. Settlements: Would you rather build a house in the woods or by the sea?
• Talking points. Used extensively by the Thinking Together Oracy Cambridge team – present children with a statement with which they agree or disagree e.g.
• Red Riding Hood deserved to be eaten.
• The little car will go fastest down the slope.
• Rank order: give pictures of 3 options. Which character is most to blame?  Which object is most useful for living in the woods?

  3.  Develop new modes, goals and moves in teacher talk   The way that we think aloud, wonder, explore and weigh up ideas provides the sea in which children’s ideas can swim, form and reform.

• Modality: Children sense very intuitively the mode of teachers who are exploratory and open to new ideas in their own discourse.

Think how a more closed stance to arrive at a specific answer can be opened up with the following teacher cues:

• Let’s come together and see what ideas we have in the room…
• Dani, could you share your group’s idea?
• Are there more reasons why we could agree with this?
• Is there a group with a different idea?
• Now we have listened to two different ideas, has anyone changed their mind?

 

• Fascination and focus as feedback: The highest form of evaluation for children’s ideas is to give their ideas time and attention:
• Thank you, this is a new idea. Can you show us the moment in the book that made your group think that?
• Can anyone build on this group’s idea? Is there more to say about this?
• Most groups have said X but this group have suggested a new idea Y. “Let’s all talk about why they might have thought that.”

 

• Supporting clarity and elaboration: Since children’s ideas are being effortfully transposed into language, they often need support to make them more fully formed and available to the rest of the group:
• You think he’s sneaky because…?
• Who could give us another word for sneaky?
• Is there another reason why he is sneaky?

 

• Orienting and monitoring ideas: Since capturing ideas through words is emerging in this phase, teachers need to draw ‘markers in the sand’ as it were to help children grow into metacognitive beings – aware of and tracking their own thought
• So far we have two ideas in the room: We have X and we have Y.  Let’s keep going and see if one seems more possible than the other - or
• Go back to your group and talk about which idea you most agree with: X or Y

  4.  Monitor and nurture new modes in pupil talk Once basic group work and turn taking routines are in place, teachers spoke of sharing manageable progression steps with their young learners to build from surface social interaction to an exchange of ideas.  The group devised a simple taxonomy from CA research to support classroom teachers to formatively assess stages and steps in the efficacy of collaborative problem solving through KS1.   As before, a desirable behaviour would first be modelled by the teacher and perhaps be set as an explicit target with an oral scaffold e.g being able to disagree respectfully:

• I think differently because…
• That’s a good idea, but I think…

  The CA Piaget plus Vygotsky theoretical prism helps us to understand that creating the readiness to think together is essential, not just desirable in the early years at school.  Our current Let’s Think in English network of schools has shown us how teachers can practically, thoughtfully and strategically build that readiness. If readers are interested in reading the full ‘Creating readiness’ handbook, do get in touch! [email protected] With thanks and credit to teachers and leaders at: Four Marks C of E Primary, Hampshire The Nebula Federation, Norfolk The Fryern Federation, Hampshire Ryefield Primary, Uxbridge     [post_title] => Creating the readiness to think together at KS1 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => creating-the-readiness-to-think-together-at-ks1 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2025-02-12 13:02:27 [post_modified_gmt] => 2025-02-12 13:02:27 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://letsthink.org.uk/?p=1541 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [comment_count] => 0 [current_comment] => -1 [found_posts] => 1 [max_num_pages] => 0 [max_num_comment_pages] => 0 [is_single] => 1 [is_preview] => [is_page] => [is_archive] => [is_date] => [is_year] => [is_month] => [is_day] => [is_time] => [is_author] => [is_category] => [is_tag] => [is_tax] => [is_search] => [is_feed] => [is_comment_feed] => [is_trackback] => [is_home] => [is_privacy_policy] => [is_404] => [is_embed] => [is_paged] => [is_admin] => [is_attachment] => [is_singular] => 1 [is_robots] => [is_favicon] => [is_posts_page] => [is_post_type_archive] => [query_vars_hash:WP_Query:private] => a5262597ec38f9fd3cb18451b21de416 [query_vars_changed:WP_Query:private] => [thumbnails_cached] => [allow_query_attachment_by_filename:protected] => [stopwords:WP_Query:private] => [compat_fields:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => query_vars_hash [1] => query_vars_changed ) [compat_methods:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => init_query_flags [1] => parse_tax_query ) )