The UNESCO report on How Children Learn [2002] defines the term ‘self-regulation’, their sixth principle of how children learn, as being about the ability of children to monitor their own learning, to understand when they are making errors, and to know how to correct them. Self-regulation requires reflection, in the sense of being aware of one’s own beliefs and self-checking new information against those beliefs. While the idea of being able to plan and self-monitor learning may be more for school going age children, the idea of self-checking understanding is definitely something pre-schoolers can, and indeed must, use to make sense of the world and the things that we seek to teach them.
You may have noticed your child tentatively trying out words in sentences they have heard you or others say. You may have witnessed them seeking to playback and assert concepts to you as facts. What they are doing is checking that their understanding is correct and seeking correction, clarification or verification from you. If they get something wrong in this checking context, it is important to correct them and not indulge the incorrect usage, concept or pronunciation, no matter how cute it is. But do it gently and in a positive fashion or you risk them withdrawing from this process of checking.
This can be very hard because the mispronunciation might be especially adorable. When our son was 3 he used to refer to our utility room (or wet kitchen) as the “utiliTV” room and the area of central London called Piccadilly as “Piccally-Dically”. It is important too not to laugh at the child or ridicule them by way of correction but simply to pronounce the word correctly as a question back to the child to guide them in self-correction.
Related to the above principle is that of Restructuring Prior Knowledge, the seventh principle. This is about unlearning received wisdom and misunderstanding of how things work or are. In this case it is important to address any misconceptions a child may have that could inhibit new learning, as we know that children relate new concepts and knowledge to that which is already known so that they can assimilate the new learning and understand it.
When there is a clash, the new thing will be harder to take on board if the old knowledge and understanding is not amended. In such cases, for Early Years, we cannot rely on self-correction but must help the child change their existing understanding in line with the new information.
Indicated Action
Help your children self-correct by gently guiding them to the correct usage of words, phrases and concepts. This can be done by repeating the correct pronunciation immediately after the mispronunciation. In either a self-correcting driven or prior knowledge correction situation we can encourage discussing a concept and ask children questions to guide them to an adjusted understanding rather than simply correcting them. In this way they are forced to consider the ideas rather than simply accepting our declaration of what is truth.
Use observations and experiments that have the potential of showing to them that some of their beliefs can be wrong and need updating. Educational videos can be an additional useful tool to aide self-checking for children as they will compare what they know to what the videos show. You will find them practicing pronunciation and using dialogue from the videos in conversation with you, again to check with you that they have understood. Videos are not a replacement for this important interaction with parents and teachers but are another source of both new learning and self-checking, although be mindful that they may also be a source of errors or beliefs that need to be challenged. Indeed this is a useful lesson on the art of critical thinking and self checking.
