The most important thing when taking literacy outside is not to replicate indoor experiences. Rather, it is about communication in all its forms on a grand scale, in an environment free from the tyranny of tables and chairs.
The outdoors offers unique opportunities for all aspects of literacy learning, and it is these that need to be explored first and foremost. Literacy outdoors is about exploring talk, reading and writing in ways that take full advantage of the space, weather and seasons. Young children's vocabulary, imagination and natural curiosity can all be enhanced significantly by time spent in the company of supportive adults, who can recognise and exploit the potential of this rich environment.
Many children feel more confident to talk, read and write outdoors. Freed from the routines and organisational structures of the indoors, children can move about more freely, be loud and make big marks. Everything can be done on a grander scale.
Resources for developing literacy outside need not be expensive, and the best resources, as with inside, will be open-ended and flexible. If such resources are used, then children's thinking, creativity and imagination will all be developed. Not only will speaking and listening be enlivened, but the ideas gained in imaginative play will offer a rich source of material for making up stories and writing within role play.
TALK
Young children will need a variety of contexts in which to talk, just as they do indoors. Children will, of course, talk on the go - planning their next activity, choosing resources, developing ideas and celebrating achievements. Talk can be enhanced by ensuring that children are able to be outside in all weather, which offers opportunities for talk about emotions and changes in the environment.
Clearly, it is important to offer spaces where children can sit and talk to one another, develop social relationships and simply have a chat. Spaces in which to sit need not be elaborate or expensive. Car tyres, railway sleepers and slices of log, for instance, all offer comfortable places to sit and natter. Simply providing carpet samples can mean that children can help themselves and sit wherever they choose.
Dens are essential for all kinds of outdoor learning, but most particularly for talk. Planning the den, gathering resources and building the structure will offer endless opportunities for problem-solving in ways that cross the curricular boundaries. When the den is built, it comes into its own; as a basis for role-play story and imagining, a den is second to none. There is something magical about a secret place where there is no room for adults.
When planning for talk outdoors, don't forget poetry, rhyme and song. Bathing children in the rhythmic tunes of such language not only enhances vocabulary and develops listening skills, but also brings an exuberant physicality to literacy that is not always practicable indoors. It is also a far more authentic way of developing phonological awareness than encouraging children to play with balls that have letters printed on them. Try to resist the temptation to swamp your outdoor area with sounds and letters, except where they are needed and have a real purpose.
READING
Understandably, many practitioners have a certain reluctance about taking books outdoors. Fear of books getting damaged, by the weather or the children, leads to reading material being trapped inside. If you want to make fair and valid assessments of the children, then reading material should be provided outside, where many children will choose to read.
Offer the widest range of materials possible. Make a basket available with tree, bird and insect identification books, so that children can see real purposes of non-fiction titles.
Embed reading into role play, building on children's interests and natural desire to imitate adults. Children really enjoy using the vehicles when outside and they can readily become a focus for reading.
Car manuals, atlases, The Highway Code and magazines about vehicles would all offer a rich context for outdoor literacy.
Remember to offer opportunities for stories to be re-enacted in the outdoor area. Many excellent children's books are set outdoors, and children will enjoy using props, puppets and small-world figures to recreate and inhabit these imaginary landscapes.
MARK-MAKING AND WRITING
The outdoors is ideal for enriching children's vocabulary, feeding the imagination and stimulating a whole raft of story-making activities. With regards to mark-making and the development of gross motor skills, the outdoors offers an environment in which mess just won't matter.
For a child, making your mark with a pot of coloured, glittery water and a large brush is far more exciting and enjoyable than sitting indoors trying to hold a pencil.
Take advantage of other opportunities, too. For example, offer sticks to use in mud, or fill a builder's tray with shaving foam alongside some grouting tools so that children can make a range of patterns.
It goes without saying that clipboards offer opportunities for writing on the move, and offering pencils that look like twigs will fuel the motivation to write.
Ensure you make links between the outdoor and indoor environment by creating a range of books about children's exploits outside for use indoors. Combining photographs with text dictated by the children is an effective way to increase your book stock and link talk with reading and writing.
- Helen Bromley is an early years consultant and literacy specialist
TOP TEN TITLES FOR OUTDOORS
Fiction
- Stick Man by Julia Donaldson (Alison Green Books)
- The Bog Baby by Jeanne Willis (Puffin Books)
- Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert (Harcourt Children's Books)
- Come Away from The Water, Shirley by John Burningham (Red Fox)
- Out and About by Shirley Hughes (Walker Books)
Non-fiction
- Grow it, Eat It (Dorling Kindersley)
- A Little Guide to Wild Flowers by Charlotte Voake (Eden Project Children's Books)
- My First Book of Garden Birds (RSPB)
- Caterpillar Butterfly by Vivian French and Charlotte Voake (Walker Books)
- This Bowl of Earth by Jan Mark (Walker Books)
FURTHER INFORMATION
- Literacy Outdoors by Ros Bayley, Lyn Broadbent and Helen Bromley (www.educationalpublications.com)
- Plant an Idea by Helen Bromley and Sally Player (ibid)
- Playing Outside by Helen Bilton (David Fulton)
- Mindstretchers has an inspirational range of products. www.mindstretchers.co.uk
- Early Excellence offers stimulating resources for outdoor literacy. www.earlyexcellence.com
CHECKLIST: BASIC RESOURCES
Take care when choosing resources for the outdoors. Remember to use those that enhance provision, not those that merely attempt to take appropriate learning activities outside. Literacy outdoors is not just about hiding letters everywhere.
SPEAKING AND LISTENING
- Mobile phones, replicas, or out-of-date real phones
- toy microphones
- tin-can telephones
- off-cuts of pipe or tube to use as megaphones
- hand-held voice recorders
- puppets
- story props
- pieces of fabric for dressing up
- A-Frames for den-making
- small-world figures for creating miniature environments
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READING
- A set of favourite stories available to use outdoors
- basket of comics and magazines
- story props
- songs
- playground rhymes, including skipping and clapping rhymes (involve parents and carers)
- laminated poetry/rhyme cards; poems about the weather, action rhymes, etc
- reading material to embed with outdoor role play, such as road atlases and car manuals
- alphabets; for example, make a washing line of laminated alphabet cards, or socks and hankies with letters attached; make an alphabet with the children by collecting objects or taking photographs
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MARK-MAKING AND WRITING
- Large playground chalks
- chalkboards attached to wall or fence
- boxes containing clipboards, pencils, pens, etc
- diaries
- calendars
- spiral-bound notebooks
- squeezy bottles filled with water - coloured/glittery water
- buckets and large brushes
- paint-trays and rollers
- slate and chalks
- supply of paper, card, masking tape
- author's and illustrator's toolkit
- sand and rakes, etc
- large rolls of paper - unused rolls of wallpaper will do
- small, folded origami books
- book-making equipment
- document wallets
- robust photograph albums
- paint large boards with blackboard paint, to use with chalks
- clipboards of various sizes, with pens or pencils attached
- Post-its
- large trays filled with cornflour and water paste
- grouting tools
