Nursery World - Target practice

Practitioners may find it difficult to link their understanding of how children develop with the demands of the literacy strategy, and need to examine their practice carefully Children grow, learn and develop at a staggering rate in early childhood.

Children grow, learn and develop at a staggering rate in early childhood.

But the rate of expected change in children's writing during the period of the Foundation Stage, from early marks to complete sentences, demands a pause for thought. What type of early years education is going to ensure that most children at the end of their reception year, aged from just five to nearly six, can write sentences with correct spelling and punctuation?

It will not have many links with the long tradition of early years education in England. It won't be much like what other young children are doing around the world either. But it will appeal to the panicky culture that surrounds children and their learning in present-day England. The answer to pretty well every problem in society, like adult illiteracy, seems to be that we should try to cram more and more into young children - Jand then look for ways of doing it even earlier.

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