Are you a literacy advocate for babies and young children?

As you can see from the film clip below, focused on personal care routines and nappy changing, the practitioner is supporting and tuning in to the individual needs of the baby within their daily interactions. This respectful ‘attunement’ involves noticing and responding to communication exchanges, eye contact and body language.

The practitioner in this video clip is being intentionally reflective and responsive. Look at the wonderful way that the baby affirms and share their opinions in this film clip.

Let’s think about these care routines in more depth and consider the ethics of advocacy and agency within all our educational care routines. It is useful to remember that these essential care routines also support and enhance the communication, language, meaning making and connected experiences for babies and very young children in our settings, alongside attachment. As such, I argue, along with many other researchers that personal care routines have “pedagogical intentionality” (Tadeu and Lopes 2023 p, 59).

The ethics of care, within daily routines, such as nappy changing, toilet training, feeding, lunch time, dressing, sleep, and rest is fundamental to all the work we do with babies and very young children (Boardman 2024). To illustrate, Bussey and Richardson (2020) estimate that daily care routines of nappy changing, feeding and rest preparation can take up approximately 80% of the day for babies, young children and Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) professionals. Therefore, it is critical that we carefully consider (and perhaps reconsider in some instances) how these essential care routines are represented as respectful, ethical, and meaningful learning experiences.

Let’s think about these care routines in more depth and consider the ethics of advocacy and agency within all our educational care routines. It is useful to remember that these essential care routines also support and enhance the communication, language, meaning making and connected experiences for babies and very young children in our settings, alongside attachment. As such, I argue, along with many other researchers that personal care routines have “pedagogical intentionality” (Tadeu and Lopes 2023 p, 59).

Consider Noddings (2012), who advises that caregiving relationships within everyday care routines in settings ought not to be prescriptive, nor given or done to young children, but ought to be thoughtful and ethical, and as such interwoven within reflective practices, emotions, and feelings. In addition, given that care routines are valuable in building those necessary and mutually significant relationships, it is also important to refer to Page’s seminal work on ‘professional love’ (Page 2017, 2018). Page (2018, p. 133) advocates that many “policy cultures”, “processes” and “continuing professional development” opportunities are “infused with the notion of care as caregiving”, where professionals are often considered as “detached givers-of-care”. We are well aware that the graduate ECEC sector is already full of intelligent, reflective and judicious practitioners with oodles of knowledge and understanding about working with very young children. We now, more than ever, need to ensure that this is given due regard in all our education training pathways to support future practitioners.

The ethics of agency in care routines

Often, when we consider agency in relation to babies and young children, we are referring to the pedagogy and provision that enables all children to make choices and be involved in decisions about everyday activities or future events (which should also include their opinions on routines and play spaces). I do however appreciate that this can be a disconcerting concept for professionals in their daily practice. For example, why should we consider how we approach agency in changing a nappy when the child obviously needs to be changed for their own health and wellbeing and sometimes to support toilet training. I frequently have discussions with practitioners (and parents, carers and families) about offering choices and options to consider to young children within our care routines and explaining what is happening with the children (not to the children). Sometimes these conversations include the time-consuming elements of working in a busy nursery room. However, I maintain that this is essential pedagogy that every child has the right to enact. We should never be wiping children’s noses without discussing this with the child, organising their sleep times or whisking them up for their nappy to be changed without appropriate conversations and informed interactions. How we view care routines is fundamental within our intentional pedagogies.

Agency involves all practitioners:

• respecting each child’s right to be involved in all decision making;
• supporting and enabling the process of children being involved in directing their own learning experiences, so that babies and young children have choices about what happens to them, when and how;
• ensuring that we always provide real opportunities for young children to use their agency and have a voice or communicate their voice.

Manyukhina and Wyse (2019) describe agency within the curriculum as “the capacity to act”, with the “essential element” “to have real opportunities” for children to “exercise their agency” and therefore have a voice (p. 229). This is no different for babies and young children in respect of their care routines.

I appreciate this is not an easy concept, but it is a concept we continuously need to be reflecting and acting upon.

What might this look like in practice?

Let’s go back to the film clip and reflect on the many ways in which the key person involves the child in their care routines. Think carefully about agency here – what do you observe or not observe?

• Think about your pedagogy and provision – is agency visible and enacted?
• How can you protect the time and space required for personal care routines to be carried out in an unhurried atmosphere of warmth and nurture?
• Are there ethical challenges in giving children personal attention whist supporting the needs of other children?
• How do we ensure that mutual respect is demonstrated to children, when engaging in sensitive interactions?
• How are you providing space for the voice of the child to be considered, heard and enacted?
• Have you considered ‘professional love’ (Page, 2017) within your interactions/pedagogy?

Essentially, I would like to maintain that care routines are crucial literacy opportunities and ought not to be perceived as rushed and necessary. Ailwood (2020) suggests that all these care routines are key learning moments which are essential to the curriculum and pedagogy.

The ethics of advocacy in care routines

Being an advocate for very young children, in general, is a crucial part of our professional role. I refer to advocacy here as:

• knowing, and understanding the children’s needs and interests, practicing and maintaining informed consent;
• enabling interactions and experiences, empowerment;
• protection of the rights of children, which also includes careful consideration of access and the child’s voice.

Consider if all your interactions are positive and encourage any and all communications, given that Murray (2019) suggests that listening to the child’s voice also includes the many different ways that children express their views – “laughing, crying, smiling, gaze, grasping, touching, pointing and uses of materials” (p 2).

Let’s think about how we can also make the most of the literacy opportunities that arise within these interactions.

Are you a literacy advocate for babies and young children?

A literacy advocate always offers plenty of opportunities for children to communicate, to take part in back-and-forth conversations – listening carefully and noticing responses. Resist the urge to anticipate individual children’s needs before they communicate their needs – talk, gesture and sign are effective ways to ensure that there are always two-way communications between infants and their key workers.

Care routines, alongside any other educational activity offer a wide variety of communication, language and literacy experiences for children as fundamental aspects of pedagogy, rather than routine ‘care-giving’ tasks to be completed. Think about the key communications involving eye contact, sensitive touch, affirmation, smiles, gestures, new language and repeated experiences of language in context.

Here are some important ways to nurture literacy advocacy in your setting:

• Sing songs, nursery rhymes, action songs, raps and share music during care routines;
• Teach new songs and rhymes, make up songs and rhymes with the children;
• Encourage back and forth communications and meaningful talk – not just narrative talk. Remember that too much talk can be overwhelming for some children;
• Talk about children’s interests and encourage gestures, language and conversations at mealtimes for example, or whilst waiting for meals to be prepared;
• Wait for children to initiate activities – perspective is important for children, follow the child’s lead;
• Consider a step-by-step approach to care routines to support children with their understanding about what happens next, so they can anticipate and help out, encourage independence;
• Make care routines interactive and fun – 1-1 time to look forward to;
• Encourage children to identify and point out objects of interest;
• Use books and storytelling within your care routines – talk about characters, favourite things;
• Consider making individual books, using images, photographs from home or favourite objects for use during care routines;
• Listen to and acknowledge all communications – when babies cry they are communicating;
• Encourage children in making choices together, provide choices and talk about these together;
• Provide a calm environment to encourage communication, speech and language. Sometimes nursery rooms can be busy places for some children;
• Talk to parents, carers and families about their routines;
• Share how you are supporting children’s communications through sounds, facial expressions and gestures either on a parent display board or in your daily online communications. Establishing and maintaining a strong family-setting partnership creates an environment for advocacy and agency.

Karen Boardman is passionate about ‘all things’ Early Childhood Education and Care, particularly literacy and early reading and working with under-threes. She is a strong advocate for babies and under-threes.

She have been working in the ECEC field for 40 years as a practitioner/teacher/researcher.

As Chair of TACTYC, Karen is able to continue to advocate for the field of ECEC.

Karen’s new book will be out early Jan 2024:

Early Literacy for under-fives (Sage, London)

Follow Karen on Twitter

References

• Ailwood, J. 2020. Care: Cartographies of power and politics in ECEC. Global Studies of Childhood. 10 (4). 339-346.
• Boardman, K. 2024. Early Literacy for under-fives. London: Sage (in print January 2024).
• Bussey, K. and., & Richardson, M. 2020. Attuned routine experiences. Early Childhood Australia, 8(3).
• Manyukhina, Y., & Wyse, D. 2019. Learner agency and the curriculum: A critical realist perspective. Curriculum Journal, 30(3), 223–243.
• Murray, J. 2019. Hearing young children’s voices, International Journal of Early Years Education. 27:1, 1-5.
• Noddings, N. 2012. The caring relation in teaching. Oxford Review of Education,. 38 (6),. 771–-781.
• Page, J. 2017. Reframing infant-toddler pedagogy through a lens of professional love: Exploring narratives of professional practice in early childhood settings in England. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. 18(4). 387–399. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949117742780
• Tadeu, B. and Lopez, A. 2023. Early years educators in baby rooms: an exploratory study on professional identities. Early Years. 43:1. 46-61. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2021.1905614
• Page, J. 2018. Characterising the principles of Professional Love in early childhood care and education. International Journal of Early Years Education. 26:2. 125-141.