I am currently writing another book for Bloomsbury Education, titled Grow Slow, with Gemma Goldenberg. Like Take Action on Distraction and Take Learning Outdoors, it translates developmental neuroscience into practical guidance for early years educators. This time, the focus is on 0-2s.

Grow Slow starts by talking about how early learning often does not look like learning at all. A baby staring at a shelf, a nine-month-old banging a spoon on a table, a two-year-old insisting on eating the same food over and over again are not empty behaviours - but, rather, crucial drivers of early brain development.

In this book, we explain why babies' and toddlers' brains learn differently. They learn through slow, repeated, predictable, sensory-rich experiences; through movement, rhythm and co-regulation. 

The book is called Grow Slow because its central message is that, when it comes to early development, less is more. Our brains are prediction machines. We first learn to predict through doing or experiencing the same thing, over and over again. These slow, apparently simple experiences build the foundations for later attention, language, emotional regulation, movement, social understanding and learning.

The book is not about giving practitioners another long list of milestones to chase. Nor is it about turning baby rooms into classrooms. Instead, it is about helping adults to understand and support the extraordinary learning that is already happening through these everyday moments.

As with our previous books, Grow Slow will combine accessible neuroscience with realistic practical guidance for early years settings, helping practitioners see babies and toddlers not as children waiting to learn, but as powerful learners already at work.