How to use children’s interests in the learning environment

Know your learners well – observe them, communicate with them and liaise with their parents/carers to identify their focused interests.

After you have identified these areas of focused interest, you can:

• embed their interests into activities and/or routines
• provide individualised learning activities
• monitor changing interests and make suitable adjustments use these interests to motivate them using the Premack principle

The Premack Principle is a positive reinforcement strategy where a preferred activity is offered as a reward for the completion of a less preferred task.

Motivating learners

Use a learner’s area of interest to motivate them to complete less-preferred tasks by using the Premack principle. This is where the learner is supported to complete a less-preferred task (e.g. washing hands after toileting) before playing with their focused interest. 

Make sure you:

• optimise learning by making it fun
• show the order of activities using photos or other visual supports
• clearly describe/show the child what the expectations are
• reinforce ‘first and then’ (e.g. “First, wash your hands…Then, you can…”)

Example

• Prepare photos or other visual cues of washing hands and your learner’s area of interest, for example play-dough
• Place the visual support next to the hand-washing basin
• Show and tell the child “First, wash your hands for the whole time I sing the ‘Wash your dirty hands’ song. Then, you can play with the play-dough”.

OR

“First we will read a book on the mat, and then you can play with play-dough”

Embedding special interests into the early childhood curriculum

When planning, consider which of the learner’s interests might be appropriately embedded. 

Example:

An educator is motivating a child to sit with their peers at story time. As the child has a focused interest in horses, the educator starts and finishes the activity with a book/song about horses. The educator also encourages the child to sit next to their preferred peer and makes the session brief, so it always ends with success.

Adapting individualised tasks

Using a learner’s area of interest does not have to be time-consuming. You can adapt the task to offer choice for the individual learner to link it with their area of interest.

Example:

The child’s individualised goals are to increase daily play with a variety of activities at ECEC and increase interaction with peers. Having observed that the child has an interest in dinosaurs, the educator adds toy dinosaurs to the playdough activity. The child is encouraged to sit with a preferred peer at this new activity and prompts both children to share and interact through turn-taking activities. 

It works better if you:

• make the less preferred task fun and engaging
• make sure it’s developmentally appropriate (e.g. the time required for the less preferred task)
• allow enough time for the learner to enjoy and engage with their interest after completing the less-preferred task
• regularly assess and review whether the use of an area of interest is helpful and what further adjustments may be needed next time.

It doesn’t work if:

• a focused interest is used to punish the learner (e.g. taking away access to the focused interest)
• you change expectations partway through using the Premack principle – this is likely to increase anxiety and decrease trust.
• you are inconsistent in your use of the strategy
• you stop using the visual and structured support before the child is demonstrating independence
• you attempt to reduce or eliminate the child’s focussed interest