4 Ways to Promote Engagement

If you’re an early childhood educator or care provider, you may sometimes wonder how to get infants and toddlers more engaged in the activities you provide. From the book Unpacking the Infant–Toddler Pyramid Model, by Amy Hunter, Mary Louise Hemmeter, Kathryn M. Bigelow, & Neal M. Horen, here are four big ideas for promoting children’s engagement during your everyday routines.

Support Curiosity

Children are naturally curious! Bring attention to what children are noticing throughout the day. Describe what children are looking at and guide them to interact with materials or people of interest, when support for engagement is needed. Rotate materials and offer opportunities to explore novel environments and materials.

Follow a Child’s Lead

When young children appear interested in a toy, a person, or an activity, follow the child’s lead to promote engagement. Observe children interacting with a toy and join the play while expanding on the toddler’s language and social skills by modeling new vocabulary words and asking open-ended questions.

Provide Choices

To support choice mak­ing, explicitly offer a limited number of choices and include one highly preferred choice and one less preferred choice. Avoid offering an array of choices too frequently—this can be overwhelming and result in stress and confusion. Once a child has made a choice, honor the choice and engage the child in play with the selected material.

Model and Prompt

Introduce new materials or activities and prompt a child who is not engaged to start playing. For example, after observing an infant sitting up confidently, introduce a shaker by modeling how to shake the toy and handing it to the child for a turn. Ensure that children sustain their engagement by introducing novel toys or new peers as appropriate.

Try these ideas to capture the attention of babies and toddlers during activities and other daily routines—and share with parents and other family members so they can keep their children engaged at home!