Facilitating children's communication in problem-solving activities with a coding toy: teachers' semiotic mediation in early childhood education and care.

This study investigates the role of teacher mediation in facilitating children's communication during problem-solving, play-based coding activities with Kubo, a screen-free coding toy, in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings. Following an initial observation involving nine kindergarten teachers and 36 children, a workshop was held to identify elements that teachers considered relevant for facilitating children's use of verbal and non-verbal communication. Key mediation elements, such as multimodal communication, planning, time, humor, and reflective questioning, were identified during the workshop and applied in a subsequent observation with the same participants.