Communicative skills develop when there's something meaningful for children to communicate about-when they are taking an active role.

We are doing earlier and earlier to children what we shouldn't do later.

In both cooperative learning and project work, the teacher encourages children to talk to one another. This helps them pay attention to each other's efforts and ideas. Children take to these kinds of exchanges very readily, but the teacher really needs to encourage this interaction.

Provide lots of opportunities for children's natural curiosity to manifest itself. With very young children, our role is one of supporter and guide.

In cooperative learning, you have a purposeful, meaningful, and authentic context in which children can sharpen their communicative skills.

Of course children benefit from positive feedback. But praise and rewards are not the only methods of reinforcement. More emphasisshould be place on appreciation--reinforcement related explicitly and directly to the content of the child's interest and efforts.

Science is a particular way of thinking about things.