This isn't true. Babies tell us very forcefully what they need. We may find it hard to listen or respond, but it marks the start of a dialogue which can lead to sophisticated discussions only a couple of years later.
Over the last two years, with Sure Start Unit funding, NCB's Early Childhood Unit has been working on Listening as a Way of Life, a project that gathers information on methods for communicating with very young children about the services they use.
The fact is that good early-years practice is about listening to children - with your ears and with your eyes, as one Montessori nursery school put it. It is about considering what they are "saying", and developing and reviewing activities based on that knowledge. This process becomes a way of life, which can encompass methods for asking children about their likes and dislikes, such as circle time discussions, rather than treating them separately. Ways of achieving this are outlined in a number of resources, such as NCB's groundbreaking book Listening to Young Children: The Mosaic Approach, by Alison Clark and Peter Moss.
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