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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2009
James, age 5, comes into the kitchen just as his mother has taken some cakes out of the oven. There is a loud, metallic “Crack.”
James: Who did that?
Mother: I expect it was that tin contracting
James: Which tin?
Mother: The one with your pastry in
James: Why did it make that noise?
Mother: Well, when it was in the oven, it got very hot and stretched a bit. I've just taken it out of the oven, and it's cooling down very quickly, you see, and that noise happens when it gets smaller again and goes back to its ordinary shape
James: Oh! was it a different shape in the oven?
Mother: Not very different. just a little bigger
James: Naughty little tin. you might get smacked - if you do it again
(Wells, 1986, p. 59)My central argument in this book is that education should be conducted as a dialogue about matters that are of interest and concern to the participants. This is how children learn about the world as they simultaneously learn to talk before they go to school; the above is just one of many spontaneously occurring examples of learning and teaching in the home that were captured on tape in my earlier study of first language development (Wells, 1985, 1986). Surely we should enable children to build on that firm foundation by encouraging their desire to understand and their willingness to observe and experiment, and to read, write, and talk with others about what interests them.
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