Nursery World - Positive Relationships: Home learning

Parents play a crucial role in helping children learn to
communicate - but there is not a one-size-fits-all approach, says Penny
Tassoni.

While many children are doing well with their language and so begin Reception with fluent speech and language, there is a concern about the rising number of children who are not fluent at four years old. As a result, there has been a focus on children's speech and language in the past few years.

In England, projects such as Every Child A Talker have been rolled out, while locally many speech and language teams have developed their own resources.

The reason for the focus is easy to understand - the level of children's language can impact on their life chances.

Fluent language is linked to reading and writing and so any delay can make it hard for children to learn. It is also linked to healthy emotional and social development and so building friendships and controlling emotions becomes harder with delayed language.

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