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Communication, language and literacy (CLL):
Evidence has shown that there is a wide variation in young children’s exposure to vocabulary before they enter school, and the impact this has on their education.
As a result, in our Early Years setting we prioritise speaking, listening and exposure to vocabulary throughout each day.
At Rillington our aims are to extend children's vocabulary and language structures and to encourage children to use them appropriately within the right context.
‘…A primary goal of Explicit Vocabulary Instruction is to model for students the depth of knowledge that is involved in mastering words: to own a word is to know not just its definition but its different forms, its multiple meanings, its connotations, and the situations in which its normally applied.’ Lemov et al (2018)
Our EYFS environment is rich in language. We achieve this through:
- Quality interactions, especially for disadvantaged children, these interactions are either: adult to child, child to child, adult to adult, child to adult
- Considering what prior language and knowledge our children have so that connections can be made with what they already know.
- Adults planning, using and encouraging children to develop a wider range of vocabulary.
- Vocabulary is explored through quality first teaching and interactions within play.
- All children in our EYFS benefit from a daily nursery rhyme and song time.
- There is an explicit vocabulary session taught on a daily basis, this session is based on Ruth Miskin's Talk Through Stories held daily, vocabulary is added to the class floor book and utilised by adults and children when in the environment.
- Vocabulary for the week is shared with parents to enable them to support children further at home.
- We use the EEF SHREC approach to our interactions.
- We have developed CLL support for each area of our environment to support adult communication with children.
- Adults model accurate use of language, especially for disadvantaged children, correcting grammar where applicable 'lets get us coats'.
- There is a daily planned whole class reading time using Ruth Miskin’s Talk through stories.
- To support those who have a disadvantage with CLL, specific interventions are targeted once early identification has taken place. This includes the use of Talk Boost for Nursery pupils and NELI for Reception, as well as Verbo NHS speech and language assessments and interventions.
- There are frequent opportunities for exposure to books and extensive occasions to use and embed new words throughout the setting.
Communication, language and literacy take place everywhere, all the time. Our children are always immersed in a language rich environment.
