The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. The number and quality of adult and children’s back-and-forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and is crucial for cognitive development.
Through conversation, story-telling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.
Engaging in quality conversations with children every day is an important step in fostering their communication skills and helping them to become confident and effective communicators.
It allows them to develop their verbal skills, vocabulary and confidence in expressing themselves. By encouraging your child to ask questions and to share their thoughts and feelings, you are helping them develop critical thinking skills and the ability to express themselves effectively.
The repetition of the rhymes and catchy melodies can aid in vocabulary and language acquisition, phonological awareness, as well as help them to improve their listening and memory skills.
Missing out words or phrases when singing with your child can be a fun and effective way to help them develop their language and cognitive skills and of course singing is a great way to bond.
Extending answers when talking to your child can benefit their learning. It allows them to explore new ideas and concepts. They can ask more questions, learn more about the topic and develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Furthermore, it also fosters their curiosity and interest in learning new things. When adults provide more detailed and thorough responses to children’s questions, it helps to provide a deeper understanding of the subject matter, and helps children to make connections between different pieces of information.
By describing the actions you are taking and the objects you are interacting with, we are providing the children with new words and concepts to learn. For example, “After lunch we will go to the supermarket”, or “I’m putting my shoes on.”
These descriptions help children to understand cause-and-effect relationships and to organise and make sense of their experiences, supporting their cognitive development.
Listening to songs in different languages can help children learn new vocabulary, sentence structures and grammar. It can help them understand and appreciate different cultures and ways of life.
Writing is a fundamental skill that is essential for children’s academic and personal development. The start of this mark-making can improve their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and dexterity, as well as developing their cognitive abilities such as memory, concentration, and problem-solving. Mark-making allows children to express themselves creatively and emotionally, and helps them to communicate their thoughts and ideas.
Mark making refers to the process of creating marks, lines, or patterns on a surface using various tools such as crayons, pencils, or paint brushes. It is an essential aspect of early childhood development as it allows children to explore, experiment and express themselves creatively and is the precursor to writing.
Be a good role-model for your child by regularly engaging in the following activities:
Great nursery with lovely staff. My daughter is very happy to go nursery. She has been going there since April 2023. She is learning lots at nursery. Since starting nursery we have noticed her communication skills have improved and she is picking up new words everyday. We feel a warm welcome and are always informed well. We are very happy with everything at Little Houghton Day Nursery.
Our child goes to nursery very happily and has improved his communication skills since moving up to the over two's room. They access fresh air daily and are about to redo the external space, and are starting to do more out-and-about trips. The staff are all very caring and know him very well. We hope to continue to see positive changes to the nursery as he continues there.
We absolutely love Small Friends. My daughter immediately joined Small Friends after being at home with a nanny prior to this. Since joining, she absolutely excelled in social and communication skills and looks forward to every day at nursery.