How To Help in Early Years Communication, Language and Social Skills

Communication, Language and Social Skills This is an area that is a strong focus from the Government this year. Lots of attention is being paid to how developing your child’s ability to communicate successfully and confidently. Successful communication is an important foundation for your child to grow from. Cranford Park Primary are committed to this.

What are the expectations for my child’s communication skills by the end of Reception? Children should be able to express their needs, views and ideas clearly. Children should be confident to express their likes and dislikes in an appropriate manner. Children should be able to talk about their own personal experiences using the past, present and future tenses.

Using different tenses Many children speak predominantly in the present tense eg ‘I go to play’, ‘I like doing puzzles’. Good modelling and repetition can help your child to develop their language and to give them the experiences to hear and use different tenses.

How can we encourage the use of different tenses? When talking about things that have already happened we need to use the past tense. A good way to encourage your child to do this would be to ask what they did at school today or yesterday. Encourage them to use they past tense, eg. Played, went, ate, listened. For the future tense try to ask your child questions such as ‘What are you going to be doing at school today/at the weekend/ in the holidays?’

Situations for language Please remember that language and communication is a very rich and stimulating source of learning for your child. This can be in ANY language and will help to broaden your child’s learning experiences.

Ways to help at home Talk to your child – LOTS. Talk about anything and everything. Introduce lots of new words, describe what you are thinking, seeing, touching or watching. Play games with your child to help develop language choices and to help build the social skills of interaction, confidence and turn taking. The activities can be quick, cheap, fun and can be enjoyable to share with your child.

Games and ideas Cooking– This can be fun too. Encourage your child to talk about what they are doing, what you need to do next, what they think will happen. It is also a great way to sequence ideas, weigh and measure using maths and to have something tasty to eat at the end! Gardening – Encourage your child to help you in the garden. Talk about what they can see around them. What can they hear/smell/touch?

More games and ideas…. Play skipping games with a skipping rope. These are cheap to buy and can be a fun challenge for your child. Not only will this help your child to develop his or her physical coordination and fitness but it also provides numerous opportunities for your child to learn and have fun with skipping rhymes. See handout for ideas and rhymes at the end. Play catch with a ball. This can be an opportunity to develop directional language eg. backwards, up, high, closer. Once again this also helps develop physical coordination. Perhaps start with a large ball then move on to throwing smaller sizes of balls.

And more…… Hopscotch. This is another cheap, simple and fun game. Draw a hopscotch court on the floor with a piece of chalk and off you go…. Drawing together – Talk about what you are drawing, what shapes you are using, the colours you are choosing – light or dark. 10

Just talk! Just talk – all the time! Language is rich. The social rules of eye contact, turn taking, body language, use of expression and development of ideas will then come naturally.

Writing should follow! With the right language children will have a wonderful bank of ideas and language to draw from. Writing will become easier if they are able to concentrate on the formation and sentence structure without worrying about finding words or ideas.

Writing by the end of Reception should look like this Capital letter and rest lower case Full stops Spaces between words Good clear letter formation Phonics for spelling – it doesn’t have to be right!

Or this ……..

Or this….. This is an example of good writing at the end of Reception. It has good letter formation and all other features.

Writing ideas Encourage your child to write ALL the time. Lists Recipes Instructions Stories Invitations Cards Labels Letters Here are some examples

Any Questions? Thank you 17