Implement communication support strategies and share

Access resources, activity ideas and advice for teaching communication and language to early years children.

Resources are split into 3 areas based on the educational programmes:

• Interactions
• Exploring Language
• Listening and Understanding

These resources will help you when reviewing your current curriculum to make sure you are meeting the requirement of the revised communication and language area of learning.

As you make changes to your curriculum, consider what you want children to learn first and plan opportunities for them to achieve this.

Improving communication, language and literacy in the early years

Language provides the foundation of thinking and learning and should be prioritised. High quality adult-child interactions are important and sometimes described as talking with children rather than just talking to children. Adults have a vital role to play in modelling effective language and communication. Use a wide range of approaches including shared reading, storytelling, and explicitly extending children’s vocabulary.

Early years preparing literacy guidance

Communication and language approaches

These approaches have very high impact for very low cost based on moderate evidence.

The EEF Early years toolkit

The ShREC approach 

Four evidence informed strategies to promote high quality interactions with young children

Supporting children to become better communicators is one of the most powerful things we do as early years educators. Oral language skills are fundamental to children’s learning, thinking and emotional wellbeing. Children who can communicate well can make friends, play, resolve conflicts and tell us how they are feeling.

The evidence tells us that we should prioritise the development of children’s communication and language through socially-meaningful interactions. Children thrive on conversation and discussion with people they have a strong relationship with, focused on things they want to talk about.

How can professionals support children's talking and understanding of words?

Speech and language skills are vital for all children. Without these skills they will not reach their full potential.

Professionals who work with children are key to identifying when they are having difficulties learning to talk and understand words. This includes early years practitioners, teachers and health visitors. Across the UK, for 1.7 million children learning to talk and understand words feels like an impossible hurdle - this increases to one in four for those children living in disadvantaged areas of the UK. It's therefore essential that you understand how to identify and better support these children.

If you have concerns about a child’s talking and understanding of words, you should use our Progress Checker, and talk to the parents or carers to decide how you can best support the child to develop these skills. Our series of factsheets list useful techniques to use on a daily basis with pre-school and school-aged children.

Speech and language for professionals

The Bradford Library service has 27 libraries across the district which are language rich environments and can help support families with speech and language development.   

Early Years Practitioners can access libraries too! Check out the following resources in libraries including:

Story Sacks – settings can borrow our extensive list of story sacks to support language development activities.

Book Ahead – library ticket for settings with no fines on late, lost or damaged books.  Up to 12 week loan period.

Class Visits – arrange for your setting to visit their local library.  Tickets for children can also be arranged.

Bradford Libraries Rhyme Challenge – during the 2022-23 Rhyme Challenge 98% of parents said the challenge had helped develop their child’s speech and language.  Is your setting ready to take the challenge?

The BBC's Tiny Happy People has a page dedicated to speech and language target areas, including:

• Early interaction and pre-verbal skills
• Object permanence
• Symbolic play
• Listening and attention
• Using sounds for engagement
• Understanding and expression
• Early comprehension
• Practising talk about the past and future
• Understanding conceptual language
• Expressive language
• Understanding of 1-2 word level
• Speech
• Useful links

Visit the speech and language targets page for more information.

Incredible Years Preschool have been funded to deliver a brand new programme for families with children aged 3 to 4 years.

The programme will be suitable for any family that would like a bit of extra help with child attachment issues, language development concerns, their behaviour, or confidence with social situations.

Many families may benefit from this support – this is the generation of babies who were born during or just before the Covid pandemic, where opportunities to socialise were limited during critical stages of babies’ development.

Families can self-refer or practitioners can make a referral with consent.

Find out more and apply by visiting our Parenting Programmes for Families page.

As part of our Family Hub Start for Life Programme we have funded BHT to provide support under 'Owlets'. Owlets is a small parent and child group focusing on learning language through play with practical ideas that can be used in the home.

Owlets runs over a period of six weeks in Family Hub and Community Venues and is aimed at children aged 18months – 4 years and their parents.

What to expect:

• Weekly themes around commination and language development.
• Practical ideas to take away and implement at home.
• A range of activities and resources set up each week designed to promote your child’s language development.
• Our team of Language Development Workers on hand each week to offer support and advice.

If you are concerned about your child’s language development and feel that you may benefit from attending an Owlets group please contact your Health Visitor who can refer you.

To find our more visit the BHT Early Education Facebook Page or contact us on 01274 730415.

You can also attend one of our Wise Owl Language Development Advice drop in sessions. These sessions are starting from October and details can be found on our Family Hub timetables and on our What's On calendar.