Parents and carers along with nurseries and schools stimulate children’s early interest in literacy by exploiting play, stories, songs, and rhymes to provide lots of opportunities and time to talk with children about their experiences and feelings. 

Our pre-school children all take part in a high quality phonics programme called Letters and Sounds. This was published by the Department of Education and Skills in 2007.  Phase one of this programme is followed in the early years and it continues throughout primary school, up to phase six. The programme is designed to promote and develop your child’s speaking and listening skills. It equips them with phonic knowledge and skills, paving the way to make a good start on reading and writing. The Letters and Sounds documentation is available to peruse at all of our nurseries.

Talking and Listening
Phase one phonics activities are divided into seven aspects, environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body sounds, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds and finally oral blending and segmenting.

We plan lots of activities at nursery to give the children opportunities to develop their communication and language skills.

Mark making is the first step towards writing. Mark making in the early stages is closely linked to physical development. The more opportunities your child has to develop large and small movement in their arms, hands and fingers, the easier it will be to make marks with a variety of tools. Through their marks, children are communicating their ideas, expressing their feelings and developing their imagination and creativity.

Make time to listen to your child talking by turning off the TV or mobile phone.  Take the opportunity to encourage discussion - during the journey to and from nursery, whilst on the bus or out walking, in the car, during meal times and bath times.

Show that you are interested in what they are talking about, respond and challenge their vocabulary with questions.

Listen to music together and use household items to create instruments that make different sounds. Spend time enjoying reading stories together with your child every day and ask them to re-tell the story back to you. You may want to think about joining a library.

Sing and listen to rhymes together, encourage your child to make up their own rhymes.

Provide a variety of opportunities for your child to experiment with mark making using paint, pens, pencils, stamps, play dough, foam, sand and use them on a variety of surfaces such as paper, cardboard and material.

It is important not worry, relax and be patient with your child, remember to keep talking and encouraging your child.

Encourage your child to be involved in making decisions such as choosing their favourite story, going to the supermarket to choose paints, pens etc.

Let your child see you enjoying reading and writing.

Spread books around the house for your child to access if they choose to.

Read favourite books over and over again; really express yourself using different voices for different characters and using different facial expressions.

Make words together out of magnetic letters.

Create your own story in a scrap book using pictures and stickers.

Talk about what words mean with children therefore extending their vocabulary.