One of the newest Government agendas is focused on narrowing the gap between the most and least disadvantaged children and families in society. In a bid to counteract poor achievement in basic skills, and also in response to the Rose Review on current teaching of reading and writing, the Primary National Strategies team has produced the 'Letters and Sounds' guidance.
This is a phonics teaching package, full of useful ideas and advice aimed at improving outcomes for children's learning. Practitioners working with the very youngest children should pay close attention to the messages in this new guidance, alongside those of the Early Years Foundation Stage, to help give children the best start in communication, language and literacy.
Birth to three matters
At the heart of the EYFS guidance is the idea that early years practitioners are expected to observe children's skills, behaviour and interests and plan through a range of daily routines and experiences to extend their knowledge and expertise.
It also emphasises the importance of seeing early child development as a continuum from birth to five years. Therefore, it gives equal weight to each of the stages of development through which children progress.
A keen practitioner working with the youngest children needs to have a very sound knowledge of how they learn and what is expected of babies and toddlers as they grow.
The implementation of the EYFS in September should encourage practitioners who work with children up to three years old to feel more responsible for supporting their acquisition of language.
Strong emphasis on making careful observations of developing skills and behaviour means that practitioners should focus on what children do and how they interact. Practitioners are likely to become a great deal more self-aware through this process and to question the way they engage, listen and respond to children. This will have a positive effect on children's communication skills and their emotional well-being.
Babies love to chatter
Babies are curious. They love to copy the expressions and mannerisms of caring adults and other children around them. Practitioners should ensure that babies in their nursery are at the centre of the action so that they hear and see what everyone else is doing.
For this reason, it is very useful to organise the children into family groups of all ages. It allows the older children to act as role models for the younger ones and for the babies and toddlers in the group to enjoy the company of older friends and observe their activities.
It is also so much more stimulating for babies to hear and see what is going on around them. They like to copy behaviour that is being praised and rewarded. A busy and effective nursery is one in which children are fully engaged, where adults provide a rich environment that supports learning.
The Letters and Sounds guidance stresses the importance of active learning, involving children in practising speaking and listening, learning about repetition, rhythm and beat.
It highlights the need for adults to have high expectations of children's achievement in expressing themselves and developing an extensive vocabulary. Daily routines should be used to encourage conversation which will stimulate creativity. Adults must be mindful of the importance of treating each child as an individual, observing and assessing needs and planning accordingly to support children's self-expression.
Babies and young children will prosper on the positive relationships that the key worker system provides. This closeness builds confidence and self-esteem. It gives children the opportunity to copy consistent adult role models and imitate their speech and language patterns.
An enabling environment is one in which there are rich opportunities for children to share books, learn rhymes and sing. These are the most significant influences on language acquisition because they stimulate the imagination, promote memory skills and extend vocabulary.
Good practice
The earlier that babies are exposed to these experiences, the sooner they will begin to enjoy the warmth and closeness that sustained and regular communication offers. Watching adults talking and being expressive is fascinating for babies, so make sure that they are fully involved in activities with you and older children.
Babies pick up facial expressions and gestures as well as the tone and pitch of voices long before they can interpret what is being said to them. Sit face to face with babies and enter into meaningful dialogue, taking time to listen and talk to each other, giving them the opportunity to think and to respond through movement, gesture and noises. This is the sound of babies finding a voice and trying to live up to the expectation of making themselves understood.
Always remember that babies are born intelligent and that adults can easily slow their development by using 'baby talk' instead of real words. Avoid using terms such as 'doggy' or 'choo-choo train', and make sure that you use sentences to describe what you see and talk about, rather than single words or phrases.
Words and initial sounds
An excellent way to help children enjoy language is to play with words and sounds, making them laugh.
1. Use alliteration (when words begin with the same initial sound), or rhyming words that end with the same sound. Make up your own sentences or short poems using incongruous and ridiculous juxtapositions. For example:
'The big pig in a wig danced a jig' (rhyme)
'The cuddly cat sat on a curly cucumber' (alliteration)
This play with words is helpful because it raises babies' and toddlers' awareness that words can conjure images. Also, they learn that ideas can be expressed to make sense of what you see or to challenge what you think of as impossible.
2. Play physical games using children's own names in familiar songs and rhymes so that they feel important and fully part of the group. For example: 'Peter hammers with one hammer ...', 'David hammers with two hammers ...', 'Sally hammers with three hammers', and so on.
3. Extend children's vocabulary and memory skills by reading books or singing songs that have repetitive refrains, such as 'Old McDonald Had a Farm', 'The Wheels on the Bus' and 'Miss Polly Had a Dolly'.
4. Make special efforts with younger children to speak to them about very familiar routines, such as going to bed, having a bath, getting dressed and eating. The daily events they experience with their family are the most important activities in their lives. They relate to them closely and measure most other experiences against them.
Conclusions
If you believe that language development is the ability to express what you see, think and imagine, then babies and toddlers are capable of all these cerebral processes. They love to make you happy and share in your enjoyment of their innocent and mischievous behaviour.
Use rich language, books and rhymes to consolidate the development of their communication skills and stimulate them to want to make sense of their world, to categorise the experiences they have and to label the objects and people that are familiar to them.
These are the really significant messages that should be taken from the Letters and Sounds guidance and, if they are properly implemented, should make a crucially positive difference to every child's ability to communicate.
LINKS TO EYFS GUIDANCE
- UC 1.1 Child Development
- PR 2.2 Supporting Learning
- EE 3.2 Supporting Every Child
- L&D 4.1 Play and Exploration
- L&D 4.2 Active Learning
