The educator intentionallyThe educator acts in a planned, thoughtful and purposeful way. facilitates children’s interactions with one another. They encourage children to listen and use language for sharing and building on ideas, reasoning and responding to others.

We found very limited evidence about collaborative talk in the early years, although it is well-evidenced in older age groups. Initial research in the early years looks promising in relation to children’s communication and language.

Educators may benefit from developing the quality of their practice through professional development, which was often a feature of research that included this approach.

In the studies we found, educators often used problem-solving to promote collaborative talk. They encouraged children to share their ideas, listen to each other, develop their reasoning and build on the ideas of others.

There is significant variation in how this approach is described in the limited evidence available. It was often only one part of teaching that supported children’s communication and language development.

The evidence does not tell us which practices are likely to be effective, so educators should use their professional judgement to decide which practices are appropriate for the context of the interaction.

Educators may wish to consider some practices from Teaching and Modelling Vocabulary, Teaching and Modelling Language, and Creating a Community of Collaborative Learners, as they are likely to be relevant to this approach. For example:

• Questioning: using questions to encourage children to think about and use knowledge – for example, to share their ideas with each other
• Recalling: using language to describe a previous event or experience – for example, describing one or more of the children’s previous experiences
• Commenting: articulating an observation to highlight information – for example, about one or more of the children’s actions or ideas.

Due to the limited evidence base, we cannot yet provide more specific recommendations for implementing this approach.