PEARLS of Practice: What Makes a Quality Interaction in the Early Years? - [Listen Along]

Read (Or Listen!) To My Brand New Article: PEARLS of Practice!

PEARLS - The Heart of Quality Interactions in Early Years

You can tell a lot about a setting just by tuning in to the way adults and children talk to one another. Are the conversations warm, playful, and full of curiosity? Or are they more about instructions and routines?

The truth is, the heart of Early Years isn’t the planning, it’s the quality of our interactions. And the great thing is, we don’t need expensive resources or complicated strategies to get this right. What children need most is us - present, interested, and willing to join in their world.

To make it simple, think of quality interactions as the PEARLS of your practice. Those small, shiny moments that, when threaded together, create something truly impactful for children’s learning and development.

So where do you find these ‘pearls’?

P – Presence

Being present is about giving children the sense that we are fully with them. Not half listening while thinking about the next transition, but right there in the moment.

And presence doesn’t mean spending half an hour with one child while the rest of the room runs riot. It can be just 30 seconds of undivided attention – crouched down, making eye contact, and showing genuine curiosity. Children know instantly if we’re distracted, and they also know when we’re really paying attention.

Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child talks about these micro-moments as “serve and return” – the back-and-forths that literally build brain architecture. Even the shortest bursts of presence make a difference.

Reflection: Do I offer children moments of my full attention every day?

E – Everyday Moments

We sometimes think the best interactions happen during a planned activity or a structured group time. But often, it’s the everyday routines that give us the richest opportunities.

Snack time, nappy changes, tidying up, getting coats on – these are all packed with chances to talk, laugh, and connect. A child crunching into an apple gives us the perfect moment to talk about sounds and textures. Walking to the garden together invites us to notice the weather, the sounds around us, or the patterns on the ground.

Ofsted’s Getting it Right from the Start review (2023) made clear that high-quality, frequent interactions are particularly important with our youngest children, and those interactions often happen during the simple, ordinary parts of the day.

Reflection: Do I see everyday routines as chores to get through, or opportunities to connect and learn together?

A – Attuned Responses

Being attuned is about picking up on what a child is really telling us, in their words, body language, or actions, and responding in a way that shows we understand.

It might mean babbling back to a baby, matching their rhythm and tone. It might mean noticing a three year old looking anxious and quietly moving closer to reassure them. It might mean spotting the excitement in a child’s voice as they tell you a long, meandering story, and listening right to the end instead of jumping in.

International research shows that when children experience consistent, attuned responses, they develop stronger attachments, which support confidence, resilience, and readiness to learn. It’s not the dramatic interventions that matter most; it’s the hundreds of small, attuned moments that add up across a day.

Something to think about - Do I tune in to what children mean, not just what they say?

R – Return (Serve and Return)

You’ll often hear people talk about ‘responding’ to children. That’s important, of course, but responding can sometimes be quite one-way. A child says something, we answer, and then the conversation ends.

Return is different. When we talk about serve and return, we mean keeping the interaction alive – sending the ball back so the game continues. The child serves with a word, action, or look; we return in a way that invites them to serve again. It becomes a genuine back-and-forth exchange.

The difference in practice:

• Responding only:
  Child: ‘A car.’
  Adult: ‘Yes, you are right. It is a car.’ (Conversation ends.)

• Serve and return:
  Child: ‘Car.’
  Adult: ‘Yes, a red car. Where’s it going?’
  Child: ‘To the garage!’
  Adult: ‘I wonder why it is going to the garage’ (Conversation continues.)

In the first example, the child got a response but no reason to carry on. In the second, the adult returned the serve and stretched the play into a conversation.

Why does this matter? Because research (Romeo et al., 2018) shows it’s the number of turns in an interaction, not just the number of words, that makes the biggest difference to language growth and brain development. Return keeps those turns flowing.

Something to think about - Do I ‘return’ in ways that keep conversations alive, or do I sometimes unintentionally close them down?

L – Language

Language is how children make sense of their world, and every interaction is a chance to enrich it. But we don’t need to go into overdrive and recite the dictionary! Just natural talk in the middle of play and routine.

Expanding what children say is one simple but powerful way to build language. If a child says ‘dog,’ we might reply, ‘Yes, a big fluffy dog, and it is running fast.’ We’re not correcting them, just adding more (just enough) words, more detail, and more opportunities for them to hear rich language.

Storytelling, rhyme, and humour are all brilliant tools for extending vocabulary and sentence structure. When children laugh at a silly rhyme or create a story with us, they are not only engaging and having fun, they’re learning how words work.

Something to think about - Are there enough opportunities in the day for ‘everyday talk’ that will enrich children’s vocabulary and thinking?

S – Support

Finally, quality interaction is about knowing when to step in and when to step back. Support isn’t about doing everything for children, it’s about offering the right nudge at the right time.

Sometimes that means scaffolding a play idea – ‘You’ve built a house. Tell me about who lives in your house?’ Sometimes it means giving a hint rather than a solution, ‘The tower keeps wobbling. What could we use to make the bottom stronger?’ And sometimes it means holding back altogether, letting children have a go, and celebrating their persistence (and their failure as well as their success!).

Vygotsky described this as the ‘zone of proximal development’, which is the sweet spot where a child can succeed with just a little help from us. Getting the balance right means children feel capable, not dependent.

Something to think about - Do I balance my support so that children feel encouraged, but also empowered to do things for themselves?

PEARLS…

• Presence – being fully with children, even in short bursts.

• Everyday moments – finding value in routines and transitions.

• Attuned responses – tuning in to verbal and non-verbal cues.

• Return (not just reply) – keeping conversations alive through back-and-forth.

• Language – enriching vocabulary and expression naturally.

• Support – balancing when to teach, when to scaffold and when to step back.

It is good to keep these little ‘pearls’ threaded through every interaction in your day, they are the things that make children feel heard, valued, and capable.