Year R Stay and Play Talk

Why?  Communication is the number one skill. Without it, children will struggle to make friends, learn and enjoy life

Talk in the Early Years  Communication and Language Listening & Attention Understanding Speaking This underpins all of the other areas that we cover and is crucial to a child’s overall development.

Listening & Attention Children listen attentively in a range of situations. They listen to stories, accurately anticipating key events and respond to what they hear with relevant comments, questions or actions. They give their attention to what others say and respond appropriately, while engaged in another activity.

Understanding Children follow instructions involving several ideas or actions. They answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions about their experiences and in response to stories or events.

Speaking Children express themselves effectively, showing awareness of listeners’ needs. They use past, present and future forms accurately when talking about events that have happened or are to happen in the future. They develop their own narratives and explanations by connecting ideas or events.

By 5 years old, most children…  Understand spoken instructions without stopping what they are doing to look at the speaker.  Choose their own friends and play mates.  Take turns in much longer conversations.  Understand more complicated language such as ‘first’, ‘last’, ‘might’, ‘may be’, ‘above’ and ‘in between’.  Understand words that describe sequences such as “first we are going to the shop, next we will play in the park”.  Use sentences that are well formed. However, they may still have some difficulties with grammar. For example, saying 'sheeps' instead of 'sheep' or 'goed' instead of 'went'.  Think more about the meanings of words, such as describing the meaning of simple words or asking what a new word means.  Use most sounds effectively. However, they may have some difficulties with more difficult words such as 'scribble' or 'elephant'

Why is speech and language important? Speech, language and communication play a vital role in our lives. Without being able to talk to, and understand other people we can’t do things like:  Communicate with our families.  Buy things at the shops.  Watch television.  Build relationships.  Socialise.  Learn.  Go to work.

Children need to… Learn to understand words, sentences and conversations. This is often called ‘ receptive language ’. Learn how to talk using words and sentences. This is often called ‘ expressive language ’. Know how to use their language socially. For example, listening as well as talking, or talking to a teacher differently than to a friend. This is often called ‘pragmatic language’. Say speech sounds correctly so they can be understood by others.

What we do at school?  Talk partners  Talk time  Role play  Games  Phonics  Listening & following instructions  Play – social talk  Open ended questions  Lots of commenting – I wonder….?

At home…  Play some of the games you are going to do today  Play alongside your child – allow them to lead it.  Talk about things that they are interested in.  Try not to over question, make comments or statements for children to respond to. Provide choices for them.  Give your child time to answer, they may need longer than you realise.  Play word games that can extend your child’s vocabulary  Substitute parts of stories and rhymes  Up level what they say  Model good use of language  Avoid too much screen time  Play games  Share books  Sing! Poems and rhymes too.

Our environment…

THANK YOU!