Literacy and English in early learning and childcare
Progression
Practitioners in early learning and childcare settings have a strong focus on developing a curriculum that supports children in developing their communication and language skills. Staff develop nurturing, respectful relationships with children that help them to confidently communicate their needs and wants to practitioners. Staff know and understand the individual communication and language needs of children in their settings.
Practitioners in early learning and childcare settings support children successfully in developing their early communication and language skills. Increasingly, practitioners use helpful progression frameworks to plan children’s learning. These frameworks are linked to Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) early level literacy and English experiences and outcomes or developmental milestone pathways. This is helping practitioners develop a better understanding of children’s progress in early communication and language. Most practitioners effectively plan a wide range of adult-led, adult-initiated and child-led learning in early communication and language.
Practitioners observe children’s learning and record significant learning in floor books and individual learning journals. However, practitioners need to identify more clearly the early communication and language skills that children are developing and record these more consistently. This should help them identify clear skills-based next steps in learning early communication and language for all children. It could also help practitioners to make more robust professional judgements about children’s progress in early communication and language. Staff need to ensure that all children are given appropriate challenge in their learning of early communication and language, particularly those children who experience a third year in nursery due to parents choosing to defer entry to primary school.
Practitioners in the majority of settings track and monitor children’s progress through CfE literacy and English progression pathways or early communication and language developmental milestones. Senior leaders and practitioners meet regularly to discuss and track individual children’s progress. In a few settings, staff identify children with gaps in their learning and provide targeted support. Often, this targeted support focuses on developing children’s vocabulary or sentence structure. However, this targeted support is not yet a widespread practice. In a few settings, there is a need to improve practitioners’ skills in analysing information about children’s progress. This should help them to plan better to support all children to make the best possible progress.
Within settings, practitioners discuss observations of children’s learning in early communication and language regularly. However, there is a need for strategically planned moderation of children’s learning in communication and language within settings and outwith settings. Practitioners and teachers in P1 need to meet more regularly to moderate and discuss progression across early CfE level. This should help staff working across early level have a shared understanding of children’s progression in early communication and language.
Listening and talking
Practitioners make effective use of play environments to develop children’s communication, listening and talking skills. They provide a wide range of provocations that inspire children to discuss and explain their learning. For example, children explain in detail to adults what they have constructed with a range of natural materials.
As children play and learn, practitioners interact carefully with them to engage them in conversations by commenting and asking questions. This supports the development of children’s listening and talking skills. However, these interactions are not of a consistently high quality across and within settings. In a few settings, practitioners need to ask more open-ended questions. This should support children in developing their vocabulary as they explain their thinking. Children enjoy contributing to storytelling sessions and retelling well-known stories in their play. They successfully predict what will happen next or how characters are feeling in a story.
Children are encouraged to talk with practitioners and each other about what they already know and what they would like to learn next. Through these activities, children develop important listening and talking skills such as turn-taking, asking relevant questions and listening to the responses of others. Children enjoy developing their listening and talking skills as they communicate with members of their community during outings. They ask relevant questions and listen carefully to adult responses. Children develop their communication and language skills well as they use natural and open-ended resources to extend their learning.
Reading
In most settings, practitioners are developing motivating play environments, both indoors and outdoors. They support children well to develop a love of reading. They provide a wide range of non-fiction and fiction books, which children enjoy accessing on their own, with peers or with adults.
There are many strong examples of practitioners supporting families to develop their child’s communication and language skills at home. In a few settings, practitioners include parents in activities to develop children’s vocabulary through reading. They model storytelling sessions for parents and provide book bags for families to take home regularly. These often contain books, games and clear prompt sheets to support parents when sharing a book with their child.
Settings work with local library staff to provide workshops for parents about using book bags and how to share a story effectively with a child. This is an important strength in settings’ work as it helps parents to develop key skills in storytelling and sharing a story with their child. It also enables parents to support their child’s communication and language development when sharing books at home. It is important that senior leaders in schools build on this effective practice to help all parents continue to support their child’s literacy and English learning as they progress through their education.
Most children benefit from opportunities to develop reading skills in all areas of the nursery. For instance, children ‘read recipes’ to support them as they play in mud kitchens, which helps them read with purpose, beyond reading stories.
Children particularly enjoy singing songs and rhymes about areas of interest or to support developing numeracy skills. Across settings, children would benefit from further opportunities to share songs and rhymes more regularly to help them develop their knowledge and understanding of rhyme.
Children enjoy settling down in quiet corners to access the range of fiction and non-fiction texts. Where books are provided throughout the setting, children benefit from accessing texts relevant to that area. One setting we visited had books about diggers and cranes in the construction area, which children enjoyed accessing to support their play.
Practitioners encourage children to retell stories and make predictions about texts. Often children are observed re-enacting stories in their role-play or play with puppets or small world characters. Practitioners must ensure that all children have opportunities to develop their reading across the curriculum through literacy-rich environments. They need to ensure that children have access to a wide range of texts throughout the nursery and across the curriculum.
Writing
Almost all practitioners plan a few provocations to promote early writing skills throughout the curriculum. They provide a range of learning activities and provocations for children to practise these skills, both indoors and outdoors. However, these are not of a consistently high quality or quantity in most settings. In a few settings, children enjoy using their emergent writing skills to label resources or ‘write’ stories.
Practitioners in a few settings are particularly successful in using floor books to record children’s ideas and thoughts about what they are learning and what they would like to learn next. Children enjoy ‘writing’ their thoughts in these books using their mark-making and emergent writing skills. This gives children a relevant and meaningful context for mark-making and writing.
Practitioners need to improve how children are supported in developing their emergent and pre-writing skills. They need to provide more mark-making and writing resources throughout settings for children to access.
Practitioners are beginning to focus on the development of children’s mark-making and writing skills. A minority of practitioners have a sound understanding of the skills children need before they can write, such as hand–eye coordination or gross motor skills. Most children enjoy developing their gross motor skills as they run, jump, balance and climb outdoors. They develop their fine motor skills through activities such as threading or manipulating playdough.
Children enjoy developing their mark-making, emergent writing and motor skills on interactive whiteboards and digital tablets. Consequently, most experiences are planned to ensure that children develop their fine motor skills, gross motor skills, and hand-eye coordination across the curriculum successfully.
Digital learning
Most settings have digital technology devices that children can engage with. However, the availability of digital devices within settings varies greatly. Where devices are available, children enjoy developing their mark-making and emergent writing skills on interactive whiteboards and digital tablets. They develop their vocabulary effectively as they use programmable toys. In a few settings, practitioners support children well in updating their online learning profiles. This allows children to share their learning timeously and regularly with their families. Children are confident in using matrix barcodes to access online books and literacy games. Across Scotland, practitioners are aware of limiting children’s ‘screen-time’ throughout the day. They balance this time well with other activities. However, in a few settings, practitioners need to include more high-quality learning opportunities through digital technology.
Scots language
Across Scotland, children benefit from a curriculum that includes learning about Scotland’s culture. This work occurs mostly during cultural celebrations, such as St Andrew’s Day and Robert Burns’ birthday. Children enjoy singing Scottish songs and rhymes and listening to stories written in the Scots dialect. Practitioners often plan this work as part of a context for learning. They now need to link this learning specifically to the early level literacy and English curriculum. Practitioners need to share clear details at times of transition to primary school about which stories, songs and rhymes have been covered in early learning and childcare settings. This should help teachers in P1 to build on children’s prior learning and avoid repetition.
The literacy and English curriculum through relevant contexts
Practitioners have a strong focus on planning a curriculum for children that is highly relevant to the context in which they live and learn. They recognise that children learn best when they are interested in and motivated by their learning. Across settings, children benefit from regular visits to their local environment, such as local shops, parks and care homes.
Children enjoy developing their listening and talking skills when they communicate with members of their community during these outings. They ask relevant questions and listen carefully to adult responses. Practitioners support children to identify and ‘read’ environmental texts, such as road signs and shop names, when out in the community. This helps children understand the importance of the written word.
Practitioners in almost all settings help children to develop their communication and language skills well as they contribute to the life of the setting. Children use visual charts and tables to record and share their findings, for example, as they risk assess outdoor areas for play.
Meeting children’s needs
Practitioners in almost all settings plan individual communication and language learning targets for all children. In most settings, these targets are not yet routinely developed in consultation with parents and children. Practitioners must ensure that they include children and parents in reviewing and setting targets for learning. This should help children and parents to be clear about children’s next steps in learning.
Most practitioners have a strong focus on supporting children who require additional support or have English as an additional language (EAL) to develop their vocabulary and sentence structure. However, professional learning on communication strategies for all practitioners would support them to work more effectively with children who require additional support or have English as an additional language. In a minority of settings, practitioners meet with parents and colleagues from other agencies to plan individualised education plans for children who require support with their learning. They need to ensure that all targets set for children are specific, measurable and achievable within a given timescale.
Professional learning
In a minority of settings, practitioners engage regularly with training that helps them to meet the communication and language needs of children attending the setting. This includes professional learning about storytelling, vocabulary development, sign language and sentence structuring. In a few settings, practitioners engaged with professional learning about assisting families with EAL. This is helping them to engage families with EAL in the life and work of the setting.
Practitioners across Scotland need to engage with high-quality professional learning more often. This should help them to develop their skills in providing a curriculum that supports children well to develop their early communication and language skills. Senior leaders should ensure that practitioners engage with professional learning to develop their skills in asking high-quality questions and using high-quality comments in all their interactions with children.
Speech and language therapy colleagues provide useful training for practitioners in the majority of settings on strategies to support children who require it. Practitioners use these strategies well in whole setting activities and small group interventions. A minority of the settings we visited are successful in supporting parents with these strategies to help their children at home. In a minority of settings, practitioners make effective use of signing and visuals to help children who require support with language to communicate with each other. In a minority of settings, children are learning to sign using, for example, British Sign Language. This is supporting them when interacting with their peers.