Early Childhood Educ J (2008) 35:457461 DOI 10.

1007/s10643-007-0227-y

Promoting a Culture of Thinking in the Young Child

Angela K. Salmon

Published online: 15 December 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007

Abstract Conscious of the interplay between nature and nurture in determining a childs individuality and success in life, the author embarked a group of teachers in an action research project towards nurturing a culture of thinking in young children. Considering the positive effects of routines in early learning experiences, the research consisted in implementing thinking routines to engage young childrens minds in thinking activities. The study took place in two Reggio-inspired schools where participating teachers documented childrens work as part of their teaching. The documentation was a key element to make childrens thinking visible as they installed the culture and language of thinking in their classrooms. The study found that thinking routines build up positive attitudes about thinking and learning. By re-visiting their documented work children developed metacognitive and critical thinking skills which make them more alert to situations that call for thinking. Keywords Nature & nurture Thinking Thinking routines Culture of thinking Visible thinking Routines Thinking dispositions Metacognition Critical thinking Documentation Reggio Emilia Early childhood Social environment Developmentally appropriate practices Action research Connections Scaffold Engagement Childrens literature

The importance of creating a culture of thinking in the young child should be part of an early childhood agenda.
A. K. Salmon (&) Florida International University, 10981 NW 59 St., Doral, FL 33178, USA e-mail: salmona@u.edu

Although children share developmental characteristics, each child is unique and his or her individuality is a product of the interplay of nature and nurture. For Shonkoff and Phillips (2000), nature and nurture are inseparable and complementary. Instead of making the distinction between nature versus nurture, the latter scientists rather think of nature through nurture. Thus, the social environment plays an important role in nurturing a culture of thinking in children as they construct their understandings about the world. Working from a developmentally age appropriate perspective, this paper reports the adults role in cultivating a culture of thinking in young children while implementing Harvard Project Zeros (Project Zero 2007; Ritchhart 2002) thinking routines and engaging teachers in an action research project. The thinking routines promote childrens construction of knowledge by respecting the childs curiosity, needs, interests and prior experiences and building upon them (Fig. 1). The study participants were two early childhood faculty members, six pre-K-to rst grade teachers from two Reggio-inspired schools, a doctoral candidate and 70 children, ranging from 3 to 6 years of age. The purpose of action research is for teachers to improve their practices as they reect on events that happen in the classroom (Hendricks 2006). The goals of the study were to adapt several thinking routines (Ritchhart 2002; PZ 2007) to young children and explore the inner workings of childrens minds as they were engaged in these routines and make their thinking visible. As a result, the following questions led the research team focus: How can teachers make thinking more visible in their classrooms so that children can see their own thinking? And, how can teachers see thinking at work so they can understand it and improve it?

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Fig. 1 Children using See/Think/Wonder routine

Making Thinking Visible Although thinking is invisible, using the language of thinking and documenting childrens work are two powerful venues to make childrens thinking visible. For Rinaldi (2006), the use of documentation in the educational context is interpreted as a tool for recalling and reecting. In Reggio-inspired schools, teachers continuously document the work, providing a direct venue for making childrens thinking visible (PZ and Reggio Children 2001). For this reason, the participating teachers continuously documented their students at work and met with the research team on a weekly basis to revisit the documentation. The children were also invited to revisit their work using thinking routines. Thinking becomes visible when children are aware of their thinking and teachers chart progress by recalling events and evidence of childrens thinking. Visible thinking is any kind of observable representation that documents and supports the development of an individuals or groups thoughts and questions (Ritchhart et al. 2006).

Zero 2007). Preparing teachers to teach thinking dispositions is essential to cultivate a culture of thinking in children. Accordingly, thinking dispositions are developed through the use of thinking routines-short, easy-to-learn mental guidance. Before embarking in this journey, the adult participants began to explore their own denition, values, and beliefs about thinking. This was a good jump start for them to understand childrens culture of thinking. Ritchhart and Perkins (2004) stress that any program that aspires to teach thinking needs to dene positive thinking, not necessarily in an ultimate or comprehensive sense but at least in a practical operational sense. This is exactly how the thinking routines worked in this study. The teachers decided to use few routines during different activities and soon both teachers and children began to use a language of thinking throughout the day. For example, while writing their journal and listening to background music, one of the Kindergarten teachers asked the children to illustrate their ideas about thinking. Some of the children responses were: Thinking is when your brain starts going crazy and you can dream on clouds. This is a plane. I drew this because the music made me think of the sky and clouds. The music had waves, so I drew the ocean and doors. The same teacher continued the experience by asking the children to illustrate a routine. Amazingly their responses were connected to sequencing and cause-andeffect. For example: The rain comes out and then the rain stops and the sun come out and that is a routine. A routine happens in an order, like the alphabet, it always starts with A. A baby T-Rex rst comes an egg, then out of the egg comes a T-Rex baby, and it is a routine. This is a routine, rst you are a baby, then a boy, then a man. In these two activities, the teacher introduced the Connect/Extend/Challenge routine to the children. This routine is appropriate for connecting new ideas to prior knowledge. From this routine, children incorporated the word connection to their vocabulary and future classroom activities. Thinking routines are tools for thinking that support the development of students as self-directed learners and promote learning for understanding. In the study, it was evident that while teachers and children gained ownership and awareness of thinking processes, they began to shape their own culture of thinking. The thinking routines also support early childhood goals of providing children with developmentally age appropriate practices (Bredekamp and Copple 1997) as they engage children in making personal

Creating a Culture of Thinking Culture inuences all aspects of human development and it is characterized by a set of values and beliefs shared by a social group. For Ritchhart (2002), cultures of thinking are places in which a groups collective, as well as individual, thinking is valued, visible, and actively promoted as part of the regular, day-to-day experience of all the group members. A culture of thinking comes from social practices that create thinking dispositions. Thinking dispositions are inclinations and habits of mind that benet productive thinking and are teachable over time across diverse thinking situations (Tishman et al. 1995; Ritchhart 2002; Project

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connections and expanding on those. In the study children responded to the thinking routines, the teachers documented using videos, writing eld notes, and collecting childrens work.

Targeting Thinking Routines Routines are recurring events that are part of any classroom. Activities assume the feature of routine when they happen over and over. Teachers set greeting routines, math exploration routines and more. During play, children also reect the routines that are familiar to them. Routines benet learning because they build a sense of trust and condence in students when they begin to identify patterns that help them predict what is going to happen. When teachers establish good learning routines, students create patterns of learning. With all these ideas in mind, the teachers encounter the challenge of exploring how children incorporate thinking routines in their daily school and life experiences. Understanding the concept of thinking is a critical step towards engaging children in thinking routines. Take a moment to write down what you think about thinking. Now categorize your results. Some people organize their thoughts around how they plan things, concentrate, or make connections. As an adult this is not an easy task, but adults can express abstract thoughts using oral or written language. What about a young child? How can you help a young child think about thinking? Young children often express themselves in drawings. Drawing a tree, a house or a windy day is something a child can do, but drawing in abstract concepts such as thinking is not always easy because one simple problem with thinking is that it is invisible and our job is to nd ways to make thinking of young children visible (Perkins 2003) (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Making young childrens thinking visible

Confronting thinking from a young childs perspective is not an easy job because young children are concrete thinkers, consequently the thinking routines are a good resource for teachers not only because they are easy to learn, but because they are goal-oriented. Research (Katz and Chard 2000) recognizes the importance of purposeful activities involving routines as a way to evoke scripts or a memory of an event to engage young minds to strengthen their intellectual dispositions. In order to engage children in thinking and talking about thinking, the participating teachers had to create intellectual environments where children could develop their ability to think, discuss and explore ideas (Ritchhart 2002). In the classroom, the childrens rst responses to the question, What is thinking? were related to concrete objects or memories. For example, some children said that thinking was a pizza or a particular toy, while other children said that they were thinking about their mom, a brother who is ghting in Iraq or a party. Natural ways of making sense of the world actually stand in the way of more effective ways of thinking (Ritchhart and Perkins 2004). Adults learn about their children as they interact with them in daily routines. This interaction gives the adult the clues to nurture childrens natural thinking towards what is often referred to as high-end thinking or critical and creative thinking. The thinking routines do not require a particular set of materials. An Art work can easily engage children in thinking routines. One of the pre-kindergarten teachers used the Think/Puzzle/Explore routine (PZ 2007) to analyze Rousseaus Notre Dame painting. This routine encourages questioning and inquiry. Children were asked to consider the art work focusing on three questions: (1) what do you think you know about this artwork, (2) what questions do you have? And (3) what does the artwork make you want to explore? It was evident that children made personal connections that were a great venue for teachers to identify the childrens zone of proximal development (Vygotsky 1978) and scaffold their thinking and language. By using this routine, children began to talk about customs, housing and weather. It was noteworthy that this thinking routine engaged children in thinking activities that resulted in their desire to express their thoughts using oral language and drawings. Interestingly, since most of the children in the study speak Spanish as their rst language, the use of this thinking routine encouraged them to use their native and English language, like ndings reported by President and Fellows of Harvard (2006). This routine helped these three and four-year olds express their thinking in their rst language, giving the teacher a notion of what the children knew, and allowing her to scaffold their language and thoughts. A follow-up activity consisted of drawing what they saw from inside the classroom while the next day what they saw from outside.

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With the use of transparencies and markers the children drew what they perceived. Several days later, the teacher invited the children to re-visit their artwork using the overhead projector. The drawings revealed their thinking. For example, one child drew the street and the lake next to his classroom. In the projection, the street was on the right side instead of the left side. The thinking routine helped the child revisit his drawing and put it in the right position. This example shows evidence that the child was becoming a better observer. While sharing his drawing he showed signs of understanding the difference between left and right. One of the kindergarten teachers was frustrated with the poor responses of her students on any topic because their common responses were, I dont know when asked to draw or write what thinking was all about. She said, What can I do if I ask them to draw what they are thinking and they always say, I dont know? The study group decided to look for tools that might help this teacher cope with these vague responses. Childrens books are excellent aids for multiple situations, so we began our search. The rst powerful book that we found was The Dot by Peter Reynolds (2003). It is about Vashti, a frustrated artist who thinks that he cant draw, but his teacher asked him to draw a mark and see where it would take him. The teacher in the story celebrated those rst attempts to draw at least a dot. This was the venue that sets this child on a journey of self-expression, artistic experimentation, and success. Research (Katz and Chard 2000) suggests that children learn by interacting with their own rst hand experiences and true environment. After reading this book, the children began to see the world from a dots perspective, which means that they instigated a search for dots in the environment; the children were able to transfer the notion of dot from one context to another. The children took pictures of their ndings. This dot awoke the childrens curiosity and learning desire as they played with ideas around a dot. While searching for dots in nature, their friends, classroom and toys they began to use the See/Think/Wonder routine (PZ 2007) which consists of shaping their thinking with the following questions: What do you see? What do you think about that? What does it make you wonder? This routine engaged children in conversations that reected their understanding about science and math concepts. After this experience, the teacher never complained again about the I dont know response from the children. This routine provided students with a model and pattern of behaviors that permitted them to explore, observe, look below the surface, visualize, clarify ideas or perceptions, and make connections (Fig. 3). Likewise, when the rst grade teacher noticed that her students responses to What is thinking? were narrow,

Fig. 3 Children searching for dots

she decided to introduce concept thinking by reading to children Oh the Thinks You Can Think by Dr. Seuss (1975). This book provoked much positive conversation in the class. Thinking became an inquiry in this classroom; children began to talk about thinking frequently. Amazingly, each time that I (one of the university faculty members) arrived at the school, the children commented among themselves that the Thinking Lady was there. Their conversations guided some of them to associate thinking with the brain. In an effort to talk about thinking, the children represented their thoughts with sophisticated drawings, some related to brain functions. Some children wrote complex stories using imagery. While trying to nd out what thinking is, the children decided to draw a face with a thinking bubble, placing their ideas into it. One child said that there should be two faces, one for boys and another for girls because boys and girls think differently. The use of Oh the Thinks We Can Think led the students to work on the Point of View routine (PZ 2007). This routine consisted in brainstorming a list of different perspectives and then using this script skeleton to explore each one with questions such as: (1) I am thinking of...the topic...from the point of view of...the viewpoint theyve chosen. (2) I think...describe the topic from your viewpoint. Be an actor...take on the character of your viewpoint. (3) A question I have from this viewpoint is...ask a question from this viewpoint. What new ideas do you have about the topic that you didnt have before? What new questions do you have? According to the teacher, this routine was perfect in order to eliminate childrens worry of being wrong or right. It opened their minds because it helped them make appropriate connections. The teacher frequently used this routine for her language arts class. The childrens responses to childrens books showed evidence that they were making good and strong connections between the reading and their thinking.

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Conclusions and Future Explorations The interplay of nature and nurture determines the childs individuality and uniqueness. The adults role is to nurture the childs natural disposition to learn by engaging his/her mind in thinking dispositions towards cultivating a culture of thinking. When teachers install the culture of thinking in their classrooms, children get used to seeing the world below the surface and from different perspectives such as the children who began a whole journey to explore a dot in their environment. The study found that when thinking is part of the daily routine, children become alert to situations that call for thinking, and, as a result, they build up positive attitudes toward thinking and learning. A few of the thinking routines developed by Project Zero researchers (PZ 2007; Ritchhart et al. 2006) were implemented in young children across disciplines and during various activities, including play. The use of thinking routines promoted thinking dispositions in children favoring their desire to think out of the box and build a culture of thinking. The teachers were able to engage their students minds in ways that strengthened their thinking dispositions by respecting their interests, needs and developmental characteristics. When children revisited their work, they became better observers and sought clarication. When children are aware of their thinking processes, they develop dispositions of good thinking and become more critical and able to expand their expressive repertoire (writing, drawing, dancing, and singing). Developing dispositions of good thinking results in a better understanding of the world, allowing children to learn more and perform better in school. Experiencing the potential of thinking routines in early childhood, teachers should explore venues to adapt Project Zero (2007) thinking routines to young children from a developmental age appropriate perspective.

References
Bredekamp S., & Copple C. (Eds.) (1997). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs. Revised Edition. Washington, DC: NAEYC. Hendricks, C. (2006). Improving schools through action research: A comprehensive guide for educators. Boston: Pearson Allyn & Bacon. Katz, L. G., & Chard, S. C. (2000). Engaging childrens minds: The project approach (2nd ed.). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Perkins, D. (2003). Making thinking visible. New horizons. Retrieved August 20, 2007 from http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/ thinking/perkins.htm. President and Fellows of Harvard College (2006). Artful thinking: Stronger thinking and learning through the power of art. Retrieved July 15, 2007 from http://www.pz.harvard.edu/ Research/ArtfulThinkingFinalReport.pdf. Project Zero (2007). Visible thinking. Retrieved August 20, 2007 http://www.pz.harvard.edu/Research/ResearchVisible.htm. Project Zero, & Reggio Children (2001). Making learning visible: Children as individual and group learners. Reggio Emilia, Italy: Reggio Children. Reynolds, P. (2003). The dot. Cambridge, MA: Candlewic Press. Rinaldi, C. (2006). In dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching and learning. London: Routledge. Ritchhart, R. (2002). Intellectual character: What it is, why it matters, and how to get it. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Ritchhart, R., & Perkins, D. N. (2004). Learning to think: The challenges of teaching thinking. In K. J. Holyoak, & R. G. Morrison (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of thinking and reasoning (pp. 131). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Ritchhart, R., Palmer, P., Church, M., & Tishman, S. (2006). Thinking Routines: Establishing Patterns of Thinking in the Classroom. Paper prepared for AERA Conference. Seuss (1975). Oh, the thinks you can think. New York: Beginner Books A Division or Random House Inc. Shonkoff, J., & Phillips, D. A. (Eds.) (2000). From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early childhood development. Washington DC: National Academy Press. Tishman, S., Perkins, D., & Jay, E. (1995). The thinking classroom: Learning and teaching in a culture of thinking. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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