Developing Speech and Language Skills in the EYFS

You may have seen this DfE post on social media today

“Children who spend less time on screens have better spoken vocabulary.

We are working on guidance to support parents in making informed choices for their child’s learning.

By helping parents feel confident about the everyday moments that matter, we can give more children the strong foundations they need to thrive at school and beyond, no matter their background.”

While this is great, and certainly needed, even if this has an impact, we are still going to be seeing children coming into our classrooms with speech and language needs. 

Over the last twenty years, one of the biggest changes I have seen in school is with children’s speech and language skills. Of course, there have always been children with a wider range of vocabulary than others and you always get the children who have incredibly specialised vocabulary due to an interest in a topic such as dinosaurs. When a four year old knows what a parasaurolophus (amazed I spelt it correctly first time!) is, and can say it, then you have to be impressed. However, more and more children are starting school with speech and language difficulties. 

Here I will try to outline some of the strategies and resources I have used over the years which have made a difference. Most of them I am still using or have come back to after a break. I don’t use them all every year but they are reliable strategies that I go back to time and time again.  

1- WellComm

I’ve been using WellComm for what must be nearly 10 years. We were using it before the government first put money into the NELI programme and we continue to use it to this day. We used NELI when it was free but, while the session plans were good, the assessments were so spread out time wise that we struggled to show that it was having an impact. However, WellComm allows you to assess more regularly and progress can be measured. 

We assess all of our reception children on entry each year. We then either use the activity ideas within our whole class or small group teaching or set up specialist intervention sessions. I have found the focused 1:1 or small group sessions most effective either run by the class teacher while the other children are in provision or run by a teaching assistant if you’re lucky enough to have one. 

2- Concept Cat

I’m quite new to Concept Cat but have been using it for around three years. I first came across it in the Word Aware materials but it has recently been updated and re-released under the Concept Cat name. 

It is an excellent set of resources and ideas for both Nursery and Reception classes that helps to teach children key ‘concept’ vocabulary. Words that are the building blocks of language and can be used in a range of situations. 

Each ‘concept’ has a story that helps to introduce it to the children and they are simple and use the kinds of resources that you will have in your classroom anyway. You can also access posters, wristbands and ways to share with parents, for free, from a specialist website after buying the book. 

I have added the concepts into my maths planning (alongside White Rose and NCETM materials including Numberblocks) and have just started to add the more scientific and music based vocabulary into my curriculum plan as it has worked so well. 

I also use Makaton alongside the stories to provide an extra aspect. 

There are also videos linked to the concepts available through Lift Lessons and there is also an excellent Facebook group where you can access assessment materials and support from the authors.

3- Nursery Rhymes

We all know the importance of nursery rhymes being part of our everyday classroom practice but it seems to be a thing that less people do now than ever before. This year, in the Autumn term, we have chosen a new nursery rhyme each week, singing/chanting it every day of that week. We've added actions where appropriate and tried to sing it in different ways and sometimes making up our own versions. 

As a school that uses Little Wandle as our phonics scheme, I have to say that I have really found their nursery rhyme resources, found in the Little Wandle Foundations materials, very good. Each nursery rhyme has an illustarted poster showing the rhyme and a plan (with resources) that focuses on skills such as alliteration, rhyme, and listening skills. They are simple but enjoyable and have had a real imapct on my children's enjoyment of langauge.

We also enjoy taking part in World Nursery Rhyme Week and there are some great nursery rhyme videos, including Makaton versions, from Piccolo Music (a sponsor of World Nursery Rhyme Week) on YouTube. 

4- Traditional Tales and Storytelling

After working on Nursery Rhymes throughout the Autumn term, in the Spring term we move our focus to traditional tales. We again spend a whole week on one story looking at different versions or telling it in different ways. We use puppets (I particualrly like these sets from The Puppet Company), books and online versions.

BBC Teach has some video resources that I really like as they also have songs that link to the story too and some activity ideas. Twinkl also have some really lovely Sensory Stories that give ideas of how to tell the story and props that can be used to engage all learners. Widgit also has some good Traditional Tales resources if you're a subscriber (see below)

5- Widgit

I've only been using Widgit this year but have found it to be an invaluable resource. We subscribe as a school to Widgit Online which allows you to make all kinds of resources with images attached really easily. I've used it to make recipes, games, vocabualry sheets and classroom signs. There are lots of different templates and as soon as you type in the word you want, it will automatically assign a picture to that image. you can also upload your own images and change images to match your theme e.g. when using the word 'blitz' in a soup recipe, the automatic symbol was of aeroplanes but I was able to change it to a blender. You can also customise colours of images too to match schools colours or uniforms. It has made it so easy to create resources that support not only my SEN children but all children to access the language being used in the classroom. There are also ready made resources that you can access as part of your subscription.

Here are a few examples of resources I have made this year.

6- Quality adult interactions

While all of the resources above are excellent, for me there is little that is more important than having well trained staff who know how to engage with the children they are working with. People think it is easy to 'just talk' to children but there is so much skill in knowing when to talk and when to just shut up and let them get on with it.

While there are many resources available to support staff development, the one thing that I have found most effective for me was reading Interacting or Interfering by Julie Fisher. It was fairly easy to read, without too much technical vocabulary and was really relevant. I will be using it as a basis for whole school staff training later in the year.

I would also highly recommend the Dingley's Promise training which is aimed at improving provision for children with SEN but has many good messages that can apply to all.

7- Engaging Parents

Finally, without the support of parents, there is only so much you can do. One of my most successful ways of engaging parents has been through, what we call, Parents in Class. Once a week, parents are invited in to the classroom for the last 20 minutes of the day to join us for an activity. In the Autumn term we focus on reading, Spring term is maths and Summer term is writing. 

For the reading sessions, we share Reading Bags with the children. We have enough bags set up for all of the children to take one home if they wish and each bag contains two books (usually one fiction and one non-fiction) and an Orchard Toys game. The parents that join us for the session spend the time sharing one of the books or playing one of the games and the children whose parents are able to make it to the session, share w story with the class teacher. The children can then take the bags home.

We offer bags on a wide range of themes and children can choose to revisit bags they have enjoyed. This year, one of my children only wanted to choose from two different bags throughout the whole 12 weeks. He alternated between 'sports' and 'around the world' whereas some other children explored 12 different bags in that time. All of my children wanted to take bags home and while I can't guarantee that parents looked at the contents with the children, they were keen to take them home and look at them themselves.

These bags were made with a plain calico/cotton bag that I drew onto with some fabric crayons and fabric pens. The games were sourced from Orchard Toys, who do a brilliant 'misplaced pieces' service and books sourced through Amazon.

Thank you for reading. I hope you have found something that you want to try and I hope it gives you some of the success we have had.

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