Tag: teaching strategies

What Does “Intentional Teaching” Actually Mean?

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

A question I still hear educators get wrong — and it matters more than you think.

Walk into almost any early childhood setting and ask an educator what intentional teaching looks like. Chances are, they’ll describe a lesson. A planned activity or an explicit instruction moment. Children sit at the table and follow the teacher’s instructions. That’s not quite what intentional teaching means . The the confusion has real consequences for children’s learning.

Let me explain.

Intentional teaching in the EYLF

Contemporary theories in early childhood education highlight the role of interactions, rights of children, and children’s agency. Learning is largely child-centred. So the focus of all the frameworks, such as EYLF and My Time, Our Place and this state version, such as the Victorian framework are on so-called intentionality. Intentionality is not the same as direct teaching. It’s not explicit teaching, so please do not confuse these terms. You also probably have heard the term intentional teaching, which means being intentional, being thoughtful and purposeful in your actions as a teacher, making decisions. This is the definition from EYLF 22 page 66.

Intentionality is also linked to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. In particular, Professional Standards 3 requires educators to draw on a range of teaching strategies to plan and implement effective teaching and learning. Children also learn in their own ways through interaction with others, with the environment, with other children, but they interact and act in ways that lead their learning, and that’s when intentionality shows up in their play. Sometimes they set up their own challenges, sometimes they challenge other children, sometimes they’re problem-solving and doing something intentionally.

For example, I remember I had a child who would go around with me to do the final checkup before closing down because he was often late to be picked up, and we would do it, and he enjoyed this kind of learning. He was intentional.

Children can also lead their own learning. Sometimes they ask for experiences to be set up. For example, I had an American child who was very much into learning about artists. Maybe they do go to museums a lot or maybe they had experiences living in the world in different places. So I set up a Monet-inspired art space which supported his exploration. So agency is quite linked to intentionality.

Children use agency to investigate and learn as well as expect the right to be listened to and taken seriously, as we know from the UNROC convention. So we can be intentional in many ways. For example, we can be intentional through our conversations with children, the words we use. And if you’re struggling with that, I have a guide on what to say when.

https://payhip.com/b/XdBc7

We can ask questions, yes, so we can participate in substantial thinking, a concept developed by Siraj Blatchford in 2003. Educators listen carefully, ask questions, and make comments to promote deeper thinking and extend learning. When educators are intentional, they use specific language in conversations to talk about size, patterns, and other concepts. They talk about processes such as writing and painting. They model art techniques, and they scaffold children’s learning. This is what intentional teaching.

So what does it actually look like in your practice?

The power of imaginative play

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

Have you ever sat and watched children playing, wondering how they can shift from one scenario to another so quickly, and yet somehow keep it all together? From the outside, it can look random or even chaotic, but inside their world, there is an order and meaning that makes perfect sense to them.

Vygotsky theory of play

Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist. If you have watched my videos on Vygotsky’s theory, where I compare Vygotsky to Piaget, or when I unpack Vygotsky’s theory in more depth, you’d probably know that Vygotsky’s social-cultural theory, also called the cultural-historical perspective, values play a lot!

According to Vygotsky, children’s pretend or imaginary play is very important. He described it as a leading activity for development (Vygotsky, 1973, p. 103). Through actions and interactions with others, children become aware of what they could do and could not do on their own. I really like this definition because I have observed my niece involved in very complex play. I have also watched many young children playing throughout my career as an early childhood teacher, as a mum, as an early childhood educator, as a playgroup facilitator and as a storyteller. Sometimes I sit back and watch children as they play. I can see how their scenario changes, but it all happens in a way that, while it might seem messy from the outside, is internally very structured. That is where Vygotsky’s theory comes into play.

The features of pretend play

According to Vygotsky, pretend play has three features.

Number one, children create an imaginary situation. As he says, the child pretends as if this stick is a horse or as if this block is a phone.

Two: they take on this situation and then act out roles. They usually assign these roles to each other. For example, they might say, “I am going to be a policeman, you are going to be someone who is running away”, or “I am going to be a cat and you are going to be a mum at home.”

Three: They follow the rules they have created, and usually these rules come from the social and cultural context of the roles. The imaginary situation allows children to engage in a pretend rather than a real world.

Honestly, my niece really lives there. She loves pretending. She is at that stage. She is eight years old, and the wondrous world of imagination is really mesmerising. I watched her a lot this summer. In this world, in pretend play, an object can be separated from its meaning. Object substitutions are possible, reflecting an important element of cognitive development (Smolucha & Smolucha, 2021).

Children enact roles in play, and they show emotions associated with these roles. For example, if a baby is your role in play, you might cry or crawl after your peers and the “mum” and other people who are involved. Pretend play is a context where children can explore and express a lot of emotions. I have seen this — from fear to reasoning, from frustration to being very happy. This is an important step in emotional regulation.

Imaginative play is very important!

While children engage in pretend play freely, for more than 20 minutes or even one, two, or three hours, and create their own rules connected to their roles, they are developing, according to Vygotsky. They are learning within their zone of proximal development.

To sum up, I recognise play as an important process. The EYLF states that it is play-based and it is part of our curriculum framework, but quite often, people do not understand that to develop scenarios and roles, children need time. As an early childhood educator and teacher, I advocate for opportunities for children to discover, create, improvise and imagine. This should be supported by intentional actions of educators, which means they must have time and space for it.

What do you think about imaginative play?

Nature based teaching strategies

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

🌿 What If the Forest Was Your Classroom? 🌿

Imagine if the best teaching strategy wasn’t in a book… but beneath your feet, rustling in the leaves, buzzing in the air, and whispered by a curious child asking “Why do worms wiggle?”

At Storykate, I believe learning comes alive when we slow down, listen deeply, and reconnect with the world around us.

That’s why O love these powerful teaching and learning strategies inspired by nature pedagogy and thought leaders like Carson, Moss, Rautio, and Pelo. From walking with children (Malone, 2019) to attuning with animal kin (Young & Bone, 2020), these approaches invite us to teach with the land—not just on it.

✨ Some of our favourites:

  • Observation of Nature – Rachel Carson taught us to see wonder in the smallest things.
  • Slow Play – Honour the rhythm of childhood.
  • Sensing Ecologically – What if we taught through sound, smell, and soil?
  • Collective Inquiry – Learning is more powerful when it’s shared.
  • Oral Storytelling – Our first teaching method, and still one of the most powerful.

These aren’t just strategies. They’re invitations to be more present, more playful, and more purposeful in how we teach.

💬 Which one speaks to you today? Tell me in the comments.

Why do we need intentional teaching in early childhood education and care?

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

Do you know how Storykate is a big fan of socio-cultural theory by Lev Vygotsky?

I’ll give you an example of why I believe that scaffolding and teaching cultural tools are important in my philosophy as well.

I like Vygotsky not because he was a Soviet psychologist but because he provided us with his framework that still works, so according to social-cultural theory, social interaction and cultural transmission are important sources of knowledge.

When I was at university, we were given an example of how young street vendors in Brazil learn to count really well while selling goods, and these children did not go to school.

Is it a proposition not to go to school?

Does it mean that mathematical skills can be learned through observations or practice? Yes, and no!👩‍🎓

Hear me out!

The researchers were quite interested in the skills of the street vendors; they could easily perform simple arithmetic with 98% accuracy while buying and selling, including 2 and 3-digit numbers. They did addition and subtraction fast and well. When they were asked to write it down or understand arithmetic with mathematical notation, in other words, written down, they didn’t fail exactly, but their accuracy dropped to 37%. I like this example! Australian school children can perform the following two problems, and solve them. A boy wants to buy three chocolates that cost 50 coins each. How much money does he need? And the second problem is, ‘Another boy wants to buy 50 chocolates, this costs three coins each. How much money does he need?’

You can replace coins with cents or whatever currency you are using; if you think about it, it’s just a very simple problem from the point of an adult learner.

School children solve the problems with multiplication: 3×50 and were able to solve the second problem really well because they knew and understood that 3×50 = 50×3; they knew equations. In contrast, the children from the streets, the young street vendors from Brazil, were not able to use this fast method, so they used addition in both cases.

It means that teaching explicitly through scaffolding is what we have teachers for, including preschool teachers. Teachers help to move fast, solve problems more effectively, and learn cultural tools through interaction. Children at school learn how to do the equations and how to do multiplication because they went to school. Children should talk about how they solve the problem because they learn by reasoning. According to Vygotsky, the teacher also scaffolds this type of learning by modelling, providing prompts, and practicing. What about vendors? They learn it through practice, which is a wonderful way to learn as well, according to modern scientists like Marilyn Fleer, who is also a supporter of social-cultural theory. Concepts can be better introduced even at the preschool level if you are intentional.

Scaffolding is an important teaching strategy and we MUST use it in addition to play or self-paced learning.

WHAT DO YOU THINK, EDUCATORS?