How can ECE teachers respond? 

By Caterina Murphy, Senior Lecturer NZCA
Published in Iti Rearea July 2006

“Young children who are gifted can demonstrate very early in life their potential as creative and critical thinkers” Caterina says.

“One of the many issues for early childhood teachers that comes to the fore is how giftedness is defined. It is my experience, that the word can provide an unnecessary barrier as soon as it is verbalised. Defining giftedness is not easy and although all children are gifts, not all children are gifted.”

Caterina explains further, “I find the work of the renowned Canadian researcher Francois Gagne particularly useful because he defines giftedness as the ease and speed of learning that these children exhibit and he also differentiates between giftedness and talent. I agree with him that it is giftedness that is seen in early childhood but not talent which is age and training related” she says.

“As with all children, potential requires nurturing and support and I am very interested in how we as teachers can respond to the faster learning pace, the intense curiosity and advanced knowledge of gifted children.”

Real life study

In her research, data was generated from two young gifted children and five teachers, in one early childhood centre in the North Island of New Zealand. The children, both boys, were nominated by teachers as being intellectually and affectively gifted. “I interviewed each of the five teachers once, but the two children had to be interviewed ‘on the fly’ and in broken phases, primarily due to their high curiosity in how the tape recorder and video camera worked” says Caterina.

She spent four months observing the children. Findings showed that they had advanced knowledge and language, were perfectionists and could experience frustration during play. “I have recorded rich language-based data, to ensure that the child’s voice is strong throughout the study” she says. The research highlighted that both children were found to be highly imaginative children with an interest in abstract or conceptual thinking and ideas. Co-incidentally, both were ambidextrous. The children were highly curious with a love of learning, but boredom could be experienced. They exhibited a heightened interpersonal awareness and advanced sense of humour during play.

“The implications for teachers engaging with these children are interesting, because in order to co-construct learning with gifted children, we have to take into account how quickly and how easily they learn. It is a case of picking up our own pace of inquiry and further developing our critical thinking skills in order to stimulate and enrich the learning experiences of these children on a deeper and more advanced level. In particular, it may involve developing a deeper interest in abstract and conceptual themes, which appear to be of high interest to them” she says.

Play Patterns

The case study children enjoyed open-ended play, pretend play, solitary play and rules-oriented play. “One of the things that I found fascinating was that one of the boys appeared to be playing socially within a group, but in fact he was most often engaging in his own play quite separate from it. It was not unusual for me to observe solitary pretend play happening also,” she says.

The two children preferred their play not to be disrupted by noise, centre routines and transitions. “This is important for teachers to be aware of, as there may be many transitions and other interruptions in early childhood services; more than we realise. Interruption of their thinking was quite difficult for them when deeply engaged in play, particularly during building with construction materials which could be very detailed, elaborate and therefore fragile. At times, one of the children (who played alone for most of the day) hours were spent in one play area and disruptions were not well received. He utilised a great deal of space developing the most complex of structures,” says Caterina.

Of further interest to her were their interactions during play. “They preferred to interact with the teacher during play and they were observed ignoring or repelling their peers. When they did engage socially, dominance, leadership and competition were elements of that play” she says. “I found the relationship with the teacher (in particular with one of the boys) most interesting. He viewed her as his peer and cognitive match and entered into many peer-type conversations with her. He chose her as his play partner.”

Caterina intends to further explore this area of education and is particularly interested in the stories of teachers engaging with gifted children. “I am fascinated in the relationship between a child’s learning and development and the professional practice of the teacher.” She continues, “teachers are a significant element of the child’s learning environment and co-constructing learning in contextually meaningful ways, needs to cater for the ease and speed of learning of the gifted child.  I’m always keen to hear about how teachers experience that.”

 Since its completion, there has been much interest in the research from early childhood professionals around the country. Caterina says she is humbled by the interest in the research and hopes that it will further assist teachers to develop a deeper understanding of young children who are gifted as they engage within the play environment.

Caterina Murphy recently completed her Masters of Ed (Hons) thesis with Massey University in Palmerston North, exploring how young children who are gifted play in an early childhood setting. Caterina has specialised in this area at postgraduate level for the last five years.   She can be contacted through the base in Whakatane.