Birth – 11 months / • Enjoys looking at books and other printed material with familiar people.
- Listen to familiar sounds, words or finger play.
- Show reflex responses to sensory stimuli e.g. ‘jumps when the jack in the box appears’
- Listen to distinguish and respond to intonations and the sound of voices.
- Quietens or alerts to the sound of speech.
- Responds differently to different tones of voice or speech sounds.
- Is calmed by soft speech or song.
- Move arms and legs and increasingly use them to reach for, grasp and manipulate things.
8 – 20 months / • Handles books and printed material with interest.
- Respond to words and interactive rhymes such as ‘clap hands’.
- Enjoy looking at picture books.
- Enjoys listening to stories over and over again
- Looks at pictures in books without needing adult input.
- Enjoys picture books and simple stories. Recognises favourite characters.
- Enjoy babbling and increasingly experiment with using sounds and words to represent objects around them.
- Locates the direction sounds come from by looking appropriately in the direction of the sound.
- Recognise the voices of key people in their lives.
- Associates meaning with some environmental sounds e.g. turning to look at the phone when it rings.
- Bounces rhythmically when being sung to or when listening to music.
- Begin to make marks
- Show sensory awareness through mark making.
- Show reflex responses to sensory stimuli e.g. run fingers through the sand.
- Holds pencil or crayons using a palmer grasp and begins to scribble.
- Show sensory awareness through mark making.
16 – 26 months / • Interested in books and rhymes and may have favourites.
- Show interest in familiar stories, songs and rhymes.
- Understands and follows stories read to them.
- Have favourite stories and characters.
- Listen to and enjoy rhythmic patterns in rhymes and stories.
- Sings along with favourite action rhymes (although words may not be clear.)
- Imitates intonation of what they hear.
- Examine the marks they and others make.
- Scribbles spontaneously and makes dots on paper.
- Begin to imitate circular scribble and draw vertical lines.
22 – 36 months / • Has some favourite stories, rhymes, songs, poems or jingles.
• Repeats words or phrases from familiar stories.
• Fills in the missing word or phrase in a known rhyme, story or game, e.g. ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a …’.
- Respond to a range of pictures and props.
- Show an interest in handling and manipulating books.
- Join in with repeated phrases in a story.
- Bring a book or picture to an adult to share with the adult leading
- Turn to familiar favourite parts of their favourite book.
- Shares a book with adults or other children, making comments about the events and pictures
- Listen to and enjoy rhythmic patterns in rhymes and stories.
- Sings along with favourite action rhymes (although words may not be clear.)
- Notices a deliberate mistake in story telling or a rhyme
- Respond to new mark making materials e.g. Mark selects a piece of coloured paper that he has not used before.
- Performs some actions using trial and error e.g. Paints and then paints over again to rework his picture
- Respond to familiar writing materials.
- Scribble writes including ‘V’ shape and vertical lines.
- Respond to new mark making materials e.g. Mark selects a piece of coloured paper that he has not used before.
- Performs some actions using trial and error e.g. Paints and then paints over again to rework his picture
30 – 50 months / • Enjoys rhyming and rhythmic activities.
• Shows awareness of rhyme and alliteration.
• Recognises rhythm in spoken words.
• Listens to and joins in with stories and poems, one-to-one and also in small groups.
• Joins in with repeated refrains and anticipates key events and phrases in rhymes and stories.
• Beginning to be aware of the way stories are structured.
• Suggests how the story might end.
• Listens to stories with increasing attention and recall.
• Describes main story settings, events and principal characters.
• Shows interest in illustrations and print in books and print in the environment.
• Recognises familiar words and signs such as own name and advertising logos.
• Looks at books independently.
• Handles books carefully.
• Knows information can be relayed in the form of print.
• Holds books the correct way up and turns pages.
• Knows that print carries meaning and, in English, is read from left to right and top to bottom.
- Bring a book or picture to an adult with the child leading.
- Show anticipation in response to a familiar or repetitive event.
- Show anticipation and respond to several events, phrases or actions
- Understand the concept of a word.
- Puts 3 pictures in correct order to represent sequence in familiar activity or story.
- Builds stories around toys e.g. farm animals climbing an armchair ‘cliff’ and having to be rescued.
- Listens eagerly to stories and request favourite stories over and over again.
- Concentrates and listens for more than 15 minutes in adult led activities that they enjoy.
• Ascribes meanings to marks that they see in different places.
- Select independently and appropriately from a variety of writing/mark making materials.
- Find more ways to use tools and materials.
40 – 60+ months / • Continues a rhyming string.
• Hears and says the initial sound in words.
• Can segment the sounds in simple words and blend them together and knows which letters represent some of them.
• Links sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet.
• Begins to read words and simple sentences.
• Uses vocabulary and forms of speech that are increasingly influenced by their experiences of books.
• Enjoys an increasing range of books.
• Knows that information can be retrieved from books and computers.
Early Learning Goal
Children read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read. / • Gives meaning to marks they make as they draw, write and paint.
• Begins to break the flow of speech into words.
• Continues a rhyming string.
• Hears and says the initial sound in words.
• Can segment the sounds in simple words and blend them together.
• Links sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet.
• Uses some clearly identifiable letters to communicate meaning, representing some sounds correctly and in sequence.
• Writes own name and other things such as labels, captions.
• Attempts to write short sentences in meaningful contexts.
Early Learning Goal
Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible.
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