Teaching Language and Literacy in the Early Years

Diane Godwin, Margaret Perkins

• Publisher: David Fulton Publishers
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136633645
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The early years are increasingly recognized as a priority time for the education of children and language and literacy are key elements of any early childhood program. This second edition provides an accessible text on the current research and thinking surrounding these areas and demonstrates clearly how this theory can work in practice. The authors provide guidance on planning, assessment and recording; suggest appropriate activities, resources and play ideas to help those who work with or are planning to work within the foundation stage.

The second edition includes specific reference to both the curriculum guidance for the Foundation Curriculum and the framework of teaching objectives for the National Literacy Strategy and puts these within a framework which acknowledges the centrality of play and talk in the early years.

The book is firmly grounded in the requirements of the Foundation curriculum and is a suitable textbook for undergraduate early childhood courses, all those following routes into early years teaching, and existing practitioners in all types of early years settings. The book will also be appropriate reading for LEA advisers and those who inspect early years settings.

1: Talk

Defining terms

This chapter has been written with a view to placing language development firmly in the context of social and cognitive development. The Early Learning Goals state that language development is marked by the ability to ‘use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events’. A feature of good practice is where ‘talk is valued in the setting and they [children] are encouraged to want to communicate’.

These statements form the foundation for discussion as we look at children's development as language users where talk is seen as an act of meaningful communication and the company the child keeps is fundamental to his learning. We look at the pattern of the early development of talk and the factors which affect this development.

What children do

We are going to organise our discussion of language development using ‘talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking’ and ‘talk as a medium for learning’ as a framework.

Talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking

This sets language firmly in the context of social interaction where communication is paramount. Language development is ‘helped by unconscious invitation, it is stimulated by the response of others and speech becomes clearer in the necessity for communication’ (Wilkinson 1965).

The term ‘Oracy’, used to denote speaking and listening, was coined by Andrew Wilkinson in 1965, and we introduce it here as it is used widely in educational environments where practitioners are keen to promote the status of speaking and listening to that attained by reading and writing. He provided this model which introduces two dimensions of language: the production and the reception:

	PRODUCTION	RECEPTION
ORACY	SPEAKING	LISTENING
LITERACY	WRITING	READING

This gives us an interesting alternative to the way we are used to categorising language in education. The National Curriculum defines the aspects of English as speaking and listening, and reading and writing. This divides the English curriculum into two parts — oracy and literacy. Had the authors of the National Curriculum chosen to follow a production/reception divide we would have aspects entitled ‘speaking and writing’, and ‘listening and reading’. There is an attraction to this in that it brings to the fore the similarities between oral and written communication. Think about this for a while; how many similarities can you find between speaking and writing, and listening and reading? Perhaps you said that both speaking and writing are about communicating to an audience and both require awareness of the needs of the audience, to have their attention engaged, for example. Most children know implicitly that they must gain the attention of those they wish to talk to and this knowledge can be a powerful support in their learning about writing. Similarly, most children know that there are occasions when they must attend carefully to what is being said to them. The knowledge that the child has accumulated in learning to talk will provide him with a powerful support when learning to read.

Have you ever thought about what it is you do when you are talking? Ingram (1993) considers the analysis of a conversation between friends over lunch. You and your partner know how to take turns, but there is much more to it than that.

• Did you know that you give signals to indicate when it is your friend's turn to take over the conversation and that he does the same, so that you rarely speak over one another?

• Did you know that if you don't want to speak you might ‘back channel’; you say simply ‘yeah’ or ‘ah’ in exactly the space your partner has left for you, and give the conversational ball back to him?

• Did you know that if you want to move the conversation on you might ‘override’ your partner by speaking the same words in parallel, thereby bringing the subject to a close or indicating that you know that bit?

• Did you know that, if you need time to think about what you are going to say next you will avert your gaze, and when you are ready you will gaze at your partner?

Ingram mentions many more similar cues which we use effortlessly but which, when analysed, reveal the complexity of the conversational interchange. ‘It took two years to analyse forty minutes of conversation, and… of 264 smooth exchanges in the conversations [they] analysed, 261 were preceded by one or more of these signals.’ The point being made here is that we all learn to make and respond to these signals without any explicit instruction. So how do we know that? What is it that makes us able to do it? What would you say in answer to the question, How did you learn to talk?

Your reply will almost certainly make reference to other people, your social environment and significant people who welcomed you into their speaking world. But what did they do that encouraged you to join in?

Perhaps it went something like this:

• You were born into a family where relationships were established and where the members of the group shared many experiences such as shopping together, watching television and celebrating birthdays. This shared context meant that your parents, siblings and other close friends and relatives were able to treat you on more or less equal terms regarding the topic and style of communication, and then to encourage you to greater competence.

• You were not always included directly, of course, but when you were, your conversational partner will have modified her own speech to make sure that you each were following what the other was saying. At other times you will simply have heard others talking between themselves in a variety of different ways, e.g. arguing, questioning, planning, discussing, explaining. In this way you, the learner, received many models of talk.

• From the moment you started to take interest in the world you will have begun to realise that talk is important; everybody was doing it, everybody was using it to communicate and build relationships.

So, your family and friends gave you reasons to talk and many examples of talk, but you were not just the recipient of their efforts. You soon learned that your very first sounds could get things done, could direct others, could communicate pleasure or discomfort. From then you quickly learned to deploy and develop your linguistic skills, and to this day you continue to develop as a speaker and listener in a variety of different communities that accept you as a participant, and where social interaction is fundamental to your continuing growth as a language user.

The story could be different. We could identify factors which might discourage and inhibit talk. We feel less able to talk when:

• other people ridicule the way we talk, maybe by laughing at our accent or dialect;

• we don't know the other members of the group we are in, or we think they know more than we do;

• it is clear the other person is not listening, or has no interest in what we are saying; or

• we are shy.

There are many reasons why we might choose not to talk, and that is a valid choice of course. But how many times have you wanted to take part yet have been silenced by any of the above? Many of my students nod in agreement when I recall my own frustration at school, when the teacher asked a question and I was too nervous to answer even though I was right. I suppose I was afraid I might make a mistake; perhaps I thought others would laugh at me; perhaps I lacked confidence.

Factors which support language learning

Confidence is a key factor in children's language and learning development. Barrs et al. (1991) put forward ‘five dimensions of learning’ that help us to be more discriminating when we are observing language and learning. The authors point out that they are interconnected and support each other, and although the publication was written with the English National Curriculum Key Stages 1 and 2 in mind, it has much to say about language learning in general. We refer to it here because the five dimensions (confidence and independence; experience; strategies; knowledge and understanding; and reflectiveness) can all be traced through the Early Learning Goals. For example:

Confidence and independence

‘Interact with others, negotiating plans and activities and taking turns in conversation’ (p. 48).

Experience

‘Use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences’ (p. 58).

Strategies

‘Use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events’ (p. 58).

Knowledge and understanding

‘Extend their vocabulary, exploring the meanings and sounds of new words’ (p. 52).

Reflectiveness

‘Sustain attentive listening, responding to what they have heard by relevant comments, questions or actions’ (p. 6).

The Early Learning Goals in their entirety are examples of children's growing knowledge and understanding. Language development is influenced by all of the above and, therefore, when planning for or assessing children's language development we should give them careful consideration. We may think, for example, that we have set up an opportunity for a child to ‘interact with others’, but if the child lacks confidence then it is possible that the outcomes reflect this rather than his ability as a language user. Language development does not happen in isolation. It happens when the climate in which the child operates is supportive to the child. For example, when:

• feeling confident with the people he is talking with;

• having a rich background of experiences which he can share with others;

• actively and enthusiastically exploring and experimenting with new ideas, and using the expertise and contributions of others;

• being able to talk with others about his world and what he thinks and feels about it; and

• being invited by others to look back on an event or experience and to learn from it.

We have chosen to describe here aspects of the learning environment which emphasise the social nature of language learning. Other people matter; the people the child talks to will have an effect on the child's own language and learning. The adult in the early years setting has significant effect and, therefore, considerable responsibility. Part of this responsibility is to convey to the children that talking and listening are the most important ways of communicating and that they are powerful instruments for learning.

Multilingual ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Talk
• 2 Story
• 3 Books and Texts
• 4 Rhyme and Rhythm
• 5 Words and Letters
• 6 Mark-making and Writing
• 7 The Role of the Adult
• 8 Play: Making the Whole
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Subject Index