Communication and Language, & Literacy Policy
Written and amended by Laura Dolby – July 2014
Adopted by Governor -
Every child has the right to an education that develops their talents. This education must nurture a child’s respect for themselves, others and their environment.
(UNCRC. Article 29)
Development Matters in The Early years Foundation Stage documentation states that…
‘Children are born ready and eager to learn, they actively reach out to engage with other people, and in the world around them. Development is not an automatic process; however it depends on each unique child having opportunities to interact in positive relationships and enabling environments.’
We aim to create an enthusiasm for all aspects of Communication and Language, and Literacy, in all its forms, from being motivated to share stories and wanting to explore emergent writing opportunities, to having the confidence to talk and become a purposeful communicator.We aim to create motivatinglearning experiences that support and extend their language skills such as singing, imaginative role play, talking times, drama and opportunities for detailed discussionsthrough the Aspiration Group. All areas of Communication and Language, and Literacy will be taught in a creative and imaginative way to stimulate and motivate the children to want to learn and hopefully inspire them to have the confidence to want to share their language with us.
As a school which places the rights of children at the centre of everything it does, we spend a great deal of time respecting the needs of every individual child in school – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Each curriculum area is taught with the needs of every child at its core and all Practitioners in school acknowledge the responsibility they have to provide a curriculum that is creative and stimulating. This curriculum nurtures all children and allows them to be successful and proud in all of their achievements.
We now have a qualified Early Language Lead Practitionerthat has become a specialist through the Every Child a Talker programme.She has achieved a level 3 OCN in this area and has worked closely alongside qualified speech therapists to support and understand the early development of language, in particular talk. This has enabled her to develop her skills and knowledge to enhance her literacy teaching further and to then disseminate this knowledge into the team and the nursery families, through sharing information, role modelling, training opportunities and initiating new learning opportunities to promote all children achieving in their talk.
The school has also embarked on a year long training programme linked to the Leuven University of Belgium, led by Professor Ferre Laevers and the Early Excellence centre. This has focused on detailed assessment techniques that look at children’s well being and involvement. All children will be assessed on entry to school and where extra support is needed in either areas, they will be set specific targets to help them to achieve. Some of these targets may well be linked to literacy support, particularly talking groups and this will be another way of monitoring their progress alongside the ECAT data and the nursery’s assessment and tracking systems. All team members will be involved in this process and will be responsible for communicating and monitoring different children’s targets to ensure they are being supported. For more information on this please see the Ferre Laever’s Policy.
All literacy provision is child centred and has its foundations in play and first hand experiences. All practitioners ensure that a broad range of literacy activities are always available, and are presented in creative and imaginative ways that promote a desire to want to engage and interact with them. Through these activities children are encouraged to engage in an enriching Communication and Language, and Literacy Curriculum, interacting and learning at their own level, nurturing and developing confidence and a love and enthusiasm for language in all its forms- non verbal, spoken, written and read. Literacy is promoted and developed both within the indoor and the outdoor learning environments and different areas have been specifically created to support and extend their learning. We now have a wide range of Communication Friendly spaces both in the indoors and the outdoors that are aimed at encouraging children to engage in talking with each other or using a space for reflection and quiet as a means to escape the busy and noisy nursery environment.
The literacy curriculum is developed extensively in the Communication and Language, and Literacy area. Here the children are encouraged to emergently write using a wide range of stimulating activities that promote their emergent writing skills. This can range from a variety of media i.e. pencils, graphite sticks and charcoal as well as trays of tactile materials such as glitter and sand for exploration with fingers and hands. Other areas also compliment this well, including the malleable area where a wide range of tactile materials encourage sensory exploration with hands developing muscles through squeezing, poking pressing, mark making etc. Children are encouraged to make marks outside with different materials such as; chalks, sticks in the mud, paintbrushes and water and these opportunities promote a real diversity for developing their emergent writing skills in ways that appeal to all children inclusively.
The children now enjoy engaging in dough disco twice a week to continue to extend their physical dexterity, strengthening the movements in their hands and making key connections with their brains that will gradually impact on the control that they have in their emergent writing explorations. Dough Disco is a really fun and short session where each child has a small piece of play dough which they manipulate throughout a specifically chosen up beat Dough Disco track. A relevant Dough Disco play list has been created on the I Pod to create variety and keep the children interested and motivated to join in. The session is led by a Practitioner who role models different hand and finger movements throughout the track to ensure that their hands and fingers have a thorough workout and the children’s skills and control continue to develop.
The children also have the opportunity to engage in Squiggle, Wiggle Disco either through a general outdoor session or through a specific targeted session indoors. The indoor session is closely linked to the children’s Literacy target time and the movements explored resemble the letter formation patterns associated with the letter they have been focusing on during the week. Wally the Literacy puppet also joins in with the session as a continuity and reinforcement that continues to make connections for the children. The S quiggle Wiggle Disco programme is developed from Squiggle While you Wiggle by Shonnette Bason. It involves the children focusing on different writing patterns using both gross and fine motor movements. The children use both hands at all times and the session begins with big movements through dance, using ribbons, hoops, wands etc. They make these patterns to an upbeat disco track, following the Practitioner’s Lead. The same track is then repeated, but this time they have a mark making tool in each hand and big paper. The idea is that they transfer their bigger dance movements to more refined mark making movements that link closely to the writing patterns they have been exploring.
The children that have a specific Squiggle Wiggle Disco session have the opportunity to take home a Squiggle Wiggle Disco bag to share the experience with their family. This contains mark making tools, 2 dance props, an instruction sheet and a booklet that helps them to understand the importance of writing patterns and how they link to letter formation. The bags are very popular and have so far led to very positive feedback and lots of family enjoyment!!
Once a week big floor drawing is planned on the floor space inside to encourage the children to use their core muscles as they stretch out as they mark make. This is supported and role modelled by practitioners. The children’s core muscles are also developed through Roly Poly Friday and Yoga Bugs. See the Physical policy for more information. Core muscle development is essential as the children develop their posture as their writing skills progress.
Specific Literacy IPad explorations are promoted and planned for 3 times a week to support and extend the children’s literacy skills. These may use drawing and writing programmes, be a selection of downloaded photographs to stimulate talking, or may be listening to an animated story together. The I Pad is used to extend their literacy learning through the use of a different media, the explorations they engage with support and compliment the rest of the learning that is taking place around them. The I Pad is not used to play games upon as the team feel that this learning takes place extensively in the children’s home environment.
There are2 relaxing areas for the children to share books together and the children build relationships with Maisy Mouse, Sidney and Betty in Maisy’s Mouse House and enjoy sharing stories with Daisy Duck in Daisy Duck’s Story Den. Cushions, comfy settees, canopy spaces to go insideand relevant spaces for stretching out all help to create a stimulating and relaxing area to encourage the children to explore and engage with books, through looking independently or by enjoying sharing and storytelling with friends. Practitioners spend regular time in these spaces to engage with the children’s storytelling skills, enabling them to interact with them, role model for them and extend the children’s confidence and book skills incidentally, but effectively.
Retelling stories through storytelling and drama are created both indoors and outdoors to encourage the children to take on different roles as they act out familiar stories and rhymes with the support of costumes and props provided in the prop box and the imaginative story basket. Theseresources help to encourage and develop the children’s storytelling and narrative skills as well as develop appropriate recall and sequencing skills. It helps to bring favourite stories, new storiesor rhymes to life and supports the children’s confidence to talk and communicate together as they learn to negotiate and share within the communication process.
The imaginative story basket is introduced to the children at the beginning of the week and the children will share the story and look at the props inside the basket with the support of a Practitioner. This is a main focus in the literacy area as well as a focus for their story time to help them understand and grasp the characters, content, sequence and language patterns in the story. This is then developed and extended throughout the week through the nursery curriculum which focuses and reflects on aspects of the story for its content.
A music area promotes an enthusiasm to engage in percussion exploration and music making as well as singing and enjoying music together. There is a music hut and a music cube to get cosy inside on the cushions and a small carpeted space to enable a small group to enjoy exploring music together. Practitioner interaction promotesand develops the children’s listening skills, encouraging them to listen to a wide range of music, poetry, rhymes and stories and engage the children in the development of spoken language through singing and storytelling. Once a week the children enjoy singing hands, a music time that promotes and develops their ability to sign as they sing through Makaton. Music is also regularly explored in the outdoor environment where the I Pod is taken outside for the children to dance and move around to with a range of resources available to them such as percussion instruments and ribbon sticks to enhance their rhythmical music skills. They have the opportunity for a different musical focus every day. The children can also access music and rhymes through the Learning Platform at home where they can choose to listen to themselves and their friends singing a wide range of nursery rhymes through the rhyme challenge programme. This promotes singing and sharing in music time at home with their families.
Singing favourite, familiar songs on a regular basis is so important for developing children’s talk, particularly for those children who have limited language skills. This is due to the rhymes already having the language to practice readily available to them, meaning that they don’t have to word find so have the confidence to join in and just enjoy exploring their language through song. Children with limited language are regularly observed singing whole nursery songs with very little difficulty, but the confidence to join in and share successfully in this language experience with their peers. Those children that are identified as being less confident talkers have the opportunity to take a singing sack home. This contains an instrument, a play microphone, a song, a hand puppet related to the song and a nursery rhyme book. It aims to promote the importance of singing at home and help to support and develop their spoken language and narrative skills.
Opportunities for imaginative development are promoted through the children leading their own role play. Practitioners may support their imaginative play by sensitively engaging and challenging the play, but continuing to ensure the children lead it themselves. This may happen as a result of a big construction they are creating, or dressing up clothes that they choose to wear, or exploring a particular space such as the mud pie kitchen.
There is a permanent role play area inside which is called Grandpa Joe’s House and this area stays as a constant resource for the children to explore many different areas of play, supporting and extending their Communication and Language skills. Similar role play also happens incidentally in the outdoors in area such as the mud pie kitchen, the big outdoor sand pit and picnic tables, dens and grassy areas of the garden. There are emergent writing opportunities within the imaginative and role play areas to promote purposeful mark making that the children can then use to communicate to others around them i.e. creating menus and timetables, taking orders on small note pads and making appointments in diaries. These experiences help children to make strong links with the marks that they make, helping them to develop their awareness of written print and engaging with it purposefully through their play as they use for communication. Practitioners engage with the children’s imaginative and role play, helping to develop and nurture confidences and extend their language opportunities through role modelling and introducing new vocabulary through their interactions. Practitioners help to develop conversations and scenarios with the children, role modelling and interacting as theynurture,support and extend the children’s play. It is vital that Practitioners observe the children’s play first and tune into the language that is already happening within it. Practitioners should always aim to allow the children to continue to lead their own play and talk, not begin to take over and then lead the play themselves. Their role is to be supportive and extensive and their main aim is to enhance and develop the language already happening and look for opportunities to role model alongside to promote and introduce further language skills.
The children all have a specific daily story time. These groups are divided into three and all progressively develop from one to another. Specific children may stay in certain story groups for longer due to each story group being carefully planned to support their needs. The story groups are carefully planned and have a different focus for each session. Some developspecific skills such as ECO and Sustainability, Respect and Emotional awareness skills and others simply promotea love for stories, encouraging simple interactions with story books and songs. The children all have a character to relate to in their story groups and these are Daisy Duck, Maisy Mouse and Rainbow Fish. The children also have a poem of the week that they help to emergently write and illustrate. This poem is explored every day encouraging the children to develop a love for poetry and rhymes and supports their ability to recite poetry together with the use ofactions and signs where appropriate.
The children are encouraged to photocopy & display the poem in each story area with the support of a nursery practitioner. A child who shows confidence in their story telling takes home a story sack to share with their family. The following week they have the opportunity to do the group story, using their story sack, with the support of a nursery practitioner. Their story telling is discretely videoed using the I Pad and the parents are encouraged to view and celebrate the progress and excellent achievement of their child.