Early Years Pupil Premium and early language

By Nancy Stewart, Early Years Consultant

12 September 2014 / Comments

 

Upcoming conference: 
Getting ready for the Early Years Pupil Premium

Nancy Stewart, Early Years Consultant will be speaking at the 4Children National Conference, ‘Getting ready for the Early Years Pupil Premium’ taking place in London on 23 October 2014. Visit the events page to book your place.

Statistics are one thing:  the fact, for instance, that at the age of five some children lag two years behind their peers in vocabulary.  Of course that isn’t where it starts; statistics show that by age two some children are already six months behind their peers in processing language, and their lower vocabularies at that age predict lower attainment which persists all through their school years.  Those children are likely to be growing up in economic disadvantage, so at age 3-4 will be eligible for the Early Years Pupil Premium.

Girl Dad

But children are not statistics, and working to make a difference requires early year’s practitioners to be able to see and respond to individual children and their experiences.  What does this language gap look like in action?  Mia, aged 20 months, arrives at her grandmother’s house bursting with news: ‘Mummy buy blue potty for Mia!’  Conversation ensues, where Mia is putting together ideas about people, places, time, and numbers (two potties, one for home and one for grandma’s house).

Meanwhile, Layla at 20 months rarely uses any words at all.  She communicates with smiles and gestures, and an occasional single word.  There is very little talk and almost no two-way conversation in her experience at all.

Which child is likely to arrive at nursery ready to understand and take part in play and group activities, follow a story or talk about their discoveries and experiences? Which is likely later to transfer their ease with talking into writing, reading and maths?

Language is a basic key to gaining knowledge, to thinking about ideas, to literacy, to interacting successfully with others.  So one of the most effective ways to support children to make good progress in their learning is to help those who may have missed out on the earliest stages of language development. The Early Years Pupil Premium could train early years practitioners to support language development in every day-to-day exchanges, plan language opportunities, and identify which children need individually targeted attention to open the doors to language.  Working with families to share approaches and bring talk back and forth from home to setting will multiply the impact of focusing on early language.

Supporting language development for individual children happens in action, in playful moment-to-moment exchanges.  But it can generate the statistics that will be needed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Early Years Pupil Premium.  Rich experiences which build language will also build other capacities which research shows are fundamental predictors of later success, such as motivation, curiosity, concentration – but these are difficult to measure.  There is no need to be side-tracked into supporting narrow skills which do not support children’s learning in the end.  Language development can be tracked and documented to demonstrate that putting talk at the centre of a programme has made clear measurable improvements which will enable children to flourish. 

nancy pictureNancy Stewart

Early Years Consultant

 

 

 

 

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