How good are your children's listening skills? Many childcare practitioners I meet believe that in recent years there's been a steady deterioration in children's ability to listen attentively. This is worrying, because if children can't listen then their language development will suffer and so will their ability to learn.
This is why the BBC is producing two new pre-school series to help develop language and listening skills. The first, a 28-part radio series called 'Listen and Play', was launched this month. A CBeebies television series, 'Razzledazzle', follows next spring.
But why are such programmes necessary? For the past few years, I've been part of a group of independent educational consultants working on the Foundations of Literacy project. We've concluded that changes in our culture since the 1980s have led to a decrease in the time adults spend interacting with young children, which could have serious long-term effects.
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