AbstractThis paper investigates the validity of claims that children provided with opportunities to work cooperatively and collaboratively in small groups will use talk to help them make meaning and enhance their cognitive understanding. Transcripts of children's talk in small groups are analysed to see how they use language to construct their understanding. The transcript shows children actively engaged in their own learning, arguing rationally, hypothesising, reflecting and evaluating their ideas. It shows how the children utilise their own ‘commonsense’ knowledge of the world and use it as a basis for developing a more explicit, systematised, integrated knowledge. The paper concludes that styles of structured, collaborative learning such as those described in the paper can provide a context for teaching and learning which takes account of the understanding we have of how children can use talk to make meaning for themselves in an educational setting.