Imagine for a moment an early years setting where children spend more than half their time not talking. Does it seem likely? Well, that is exactly what researchers found when they observed a group of four-year-old children in a pre-school setting (Dickinson and Tabors, 2001).Their observations revealed that children spent 59 per cent of their time not talking at all. It is reminiscent of the popular Victorian saying, 'Children should be seen but not heard'.
It is beneficial for all practitioners to stand back for a while and just watch to see which children are always chatting and joining in with conversations, and which children choose to play alone or avoid any interaction. The results can be quite surprising.
The Early Years Foundation Stage states that children's learning and competence in communicating, speaking and listening, being read to and beginning to read and write, must be supported and extended (EYFS Practice Guidance, page 41). Children's communication development is the golden thread that runs through all areas of learning in the EYFS.
How to nurture this golden thread can be clearly seen in the journey that one setting took in responding to a visitor's passing comment, 'Isn't it quiet in here?'
In this example, all four principles of the EYFS can be seen in action.
A Unique Child
'Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.'
The practitioners in the setting started to listen carefully, being like 'flies on the wall', and to focus on those children who chose to spend much of their time playing alone or who were reluctant to participate in group or adult-led activities.
They noticed, for example, that while one child, Jordan, would always be outdoors, pedalling happily on his favourite bike and chatting to his friends, he only ever put two or three words together. Kyle, however, spent much of the time on his own, watching other children playing and often ignoring requests to join in with a group. Millie loved to be busy, helping with setting up activities or tidying away, but the staff often found it hard to understand what she was saying. When the staff really tuned in to her speech, they noticed that she often missed out the first sounds in words. By really tuning in to children's language, the staff began to build up a picture of each child's individual language needs.
Positive Relationships
'Children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person.'
The staff agreed that each of the key workers would make time to have a focused discussion with parents about their child's language development. They checked whether children had experienced any hearing difficulties and also talked about the language that was used in the setting and how it might be different to that used at home.
They learned, for example, how Jordan was never quiet for a moment at home, how Kyle had frequent ear infections and didn't always pick up what was being said, and that Millie was the youngest of a family of four siblings in a household where everyone else did the talking.
As they built up the jigsaw puzzle of each child's language development, staff realised that they needed to make significant changes if they were going to give children the very best opportunities that the setting could provide.
Enabling Environments
'The environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children's development and learning.'
Communication and language are best learned in a communication-enabling environment that nurtures children's:
- linguistic abilities - knowledge and use of the sounds and words of a language and the ways in which words can be combined into phrases and sentences
- non-linguistic abilities - non-verbal aspects, which include understanding of cultural conventions (eg eye contact, distance, gesture, turn-taking).
An audit of the communicative environment was carried out by the staff with their early years consultant. Following this, further training was planned where staff learned that the ways in which adults talk to and with children can have dramatic effects on the ease and speed with which children develop the ability to understand language and to use language to express their own thoughts and feelings.
The training, based on 'Communicating Matters', covered the following four key principles of adult-talk:
- Responding sensitively to children's attempts to communicate is the first step, whether the child is a tiny baby who communicates through smiling, cooing and crying, or an older child who communicates through looking, gesturing and talking
- Observing and commenting on the child's current interest helps develop the child's language and thinking
- Talking to children in language they are likely to understand matters. Children learn most readily from input that fits the language they already understand and takes them a little beyond this
- Taking time to respond. Sometimes when children are struggling with language, adults feel the need to say something - to jump in to repeat a question or provide the answer. Waiting for a response can feel quite uncomfortable, but sometimes it helps to count to ten in your head while the child is thinking about how to answer.
These four principles sum up the 'good language input' that the staff decided to put into practice.
Learning and Development
'Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates, and all areas of learning and development are equally important and inter-connected'
Following the discussion with Millie's mum, staff began thinking about how best to develop her ability to hear initial sounds. Some of the practitioners had recently attended a Phase 1 Letters and Sounds training day where the seven aspects of phonological awareness were introduced. It was agreed that the practitioners should increase the opportunities for children to explore sounds in everyday activities, both incidental and planned. They also decided to orally blend and segment simple words as part of the daily routine to help Millie and others 'tune in' their ears to the sounds in words.
The practitioners' observations provided great insight into children's background knowledge, skills and understanding, language proficiency, and thinking processes. Staff used this information effectively to plan and implement activities and strategies that could develop and extend individual children's communication skills.
Time for reflection
The vignettes of these three children help to illustrate just how important language is to early learning and development. Language helps children make sense, or not, of the world in which they live, and it introduces them to words and sentences and the different contexts in which language is used.
REFERENCES
- Dickinson and Tabors (2001), 'Fostering language and literacy in classrooms and homes'. Young children, Volume 57, Issue 2, pages 10-18, published March 2002
National Strategies resources
- The Early Years Foundation Stage. Ref 00261-2008PCK-EN. Download at www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/eyfs and www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/nationalstrategies
- Letters and Sounds, Phase One. Ref 00113-2008PCK-EN. Download from www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/nationalstrategies
- Social and Emotional Aspects of Development Practitioner booklet 00707-2008BKT-EN). Download from www.teachernet.gov.uk/publications, www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/nationalstrategies or call DCSF Publications on 0845 60 222 60, e-mail: dcsf@prolog.uk.com.
- Every Child a Talker Practitioner booklet 00854-2008DOM-EN. Materials to support and strengthen children's early language development by improving the quality of language provision in early years settings. See: www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/nationalstrategies.
QUESTIONS FOR LEADERS AND MANAGERS
- How carefully do staff observe children's interactions and responses, and really listen to them?
- What training and support do staff need in order to develop confidence in using good language inputs as well as understanding the development of language in young children?
- Does every child in the setting regularly experience good language input from the adults?
- How is children's oral language development being recorded and monitored?
- How involved are the parents in this?