Nurturing Early Literacy: Building a Strong Foundation for Lifelong Learning

Childminders and Early Years Practitioners play a crucial role in the early development of the children they care for. One of the most impactful areas you can influence is literacy.

Literacy is all about the ability to listen and understand, speak, read and write in a way that helps us communicate effectively and make sense of the world.

Early literacy involves developing the skills that children need before they actually learn to read and write such as their ability to communicate, understand language and enjoy stories so that they can become successful readers and writers.

It is not about teaching reading, drilling, using flashcards or learning to write new letters of the alphabet. Instead, it is all about laying the foundation and creating a love of reading so that children have the necessary skills and motivation when they are developmentally ready to read.

When children start school, they will start to learn phonics usually through a formal phonics programme. Phonics is matching the sounds of spoken English with individual letters or groups of letters. If children are taught phonics before they start school and they are taught incorrectly, this will unintentionally delay them in school as they will have to unlearn what they’ve been taught before learning the way the school teaches them. There is no expectation for children in the early years to learn phonics, in fact, the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) states the following early learning goals for literacy – these are what the children are expected to achieve by the end of their reception year in school, not when they start school.

Comprehension

Children at the expected level of development will:

• Demonstrate understanding of what has been read to them by retelling stories and narratives using their own words and recently introduced vocabulary;
• Anticipate, where appropriate, key events in stories;
• Use and understand recently introduced vocabulary during discussions about stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems and during role play.

Word Reading

Children at the expected level of development will:

• Say a sound for each letter in the alphabet and at least 10 digraphs (2 letters together that make one sound);
• Read words consistent with their phonic knowledge by sound blending;
• Read aloud simple sentences and books that are consistent with their phonic knowledge, including some common exception words (words where the usual spelling rule doesn’t apply, for example – the, do, was).

Writing

Children at the expected level of development will:
• Write recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed;
• Spell words by identifying sounds in them and representing the sounds with a letter or letters;
• Write simple phrases and sentences that can be read by others.

How to Foster Literacy in the Early Years

Interacting with children on a daily basis can have a profound impact on a child’s literacy development. Some ideas on how to foster literacy in the early years include:

1. Read to the children daily: This is one of the most effective ways to build literacy skills and even the youngest baby can benefit from being read to daily. Choose books that are age-appropriate and ensure intonation, expression, made up voices and lots of enthusiasm are used to engage the children. Point out pictures on the page and talk about them and ask questions about the story. Ask them to join in with repetitive text. Don’t simplify more complicated words - if they can say tyrannosaurux-rex then they can say other complicated words too. Just give the new words context so they understand what they mean.

2. Create a literacy rich environment: Ensure that there are a big selection of books, comics, magazines or any other reading materials available to the children. If possible, you make like to create a designated reading nook or area and ensure that reading is a regular part of your daily routine.

3. Encourage storytelling: Encourage children to tell their own stories. This can be through drawing pictures, acting out scenes, or simply talking about their day. Circle time is a great way of encouraging children to open up and talk such as ‘show and tell’. Or maybe use an object like a soft toy or a ball so whoever holds the ball tells their story before throwing it to another child of their choosing. Storytelling helps children understand narrative structure and enables them to express their thoughts.

4. Incorporate literacy into play: Play is the most powerful tool for learning. By incorporate literacy into play through mark making, creating grocery lists, writing letters, playing word games you are enhancing literacy development. Activities like these make learning fun and relevant to their world.

5. Sing songs and rhymes: Another great way to develop literacy is through music and rhymes. They are excellent for developing phonemic awareness (the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words). Singing nursery rhymes or making up silly songs can reinforce language patterns and vocabulary. Some children do not develop early decoding because they lack phonemic awareness. (Decoding is the ability to turn a written word into a matching spoken word).

6. Model a love for reading: Be a great role model. Children learn by observing the adults around them. Show your child that you value reading by reading books, magazines, leaflets or newspapers yourself. Talk about what you’re reading and share your excitement about stories.

7. Hold back and forth conversations with the children: Introduce new vocabulary when speaking to the children. Don’t correct them if they make a mistake – instead, simply answer them pronouncing the word correctly.

Whilst there is no expectation for children to learn phonics before starting school, some children are ready and want to learn and there are so many opportunities to introduce phonics:

When out on walks - point out to the children any signposts with letters or words on them such as shop names, street signs, house names.

When driving - point out signposts, shop signs, car registrations, street/house names. Can they find any letters that are in their own name?

During meal and snack times - point out wording on sauce bottles, cereal boxes etc, or instructions on how to prepare or warm up food.

When visiting a shop - look at the labels on the shelves and the food to point out certain letters. Can they recognise any?

At parks and farms - point out the names of animals on signs. Sound out p-i-g and say the word ‘pig’. Look for signs to the ice cream shop, the gift shop or the toilets.

When you are at home - put some alphabetic bunting up for the children to see. Label toy boxes with pictures and writing underneath.

Babies and toddlers will also be learning to control the sounds they make. When they babble or blow raspberries, this is an essential gym workout for the mouth muscles and helps children to learn that different parts of the mouth can make different sounds. If these parts of the mouth have not been strengthened and explored at this early stage, effective pronunciation of words, or matching spoken sounds to letters, is going to become unnecessarily tricky. Here are some pre-phonic ideas of things to do with young babies and toddlers:

Blowing bubbles – is a great activity to target oral motor or mouth skills.

Listening walk – go for a walk with the intention of listening out for different sounds such as an ice cream van, birds, planes, trains, street performers, emergency vehicles, lawnmowers, pedestrian crossings.

Play with sounds – provide some saucepans, tins, plastic containers with different spoons made of metal and wood and allow the children to make music.

Make home-made shakers – using some old water bottles, ensure the lid is on tightly and make some home made shakers using pasta, rice, couscous, paperclips, buttons or coins.

Collaboration is important

Childminders and early years practitioners are only with the children for a short amount of time so it is important that parents are advised on how best to carry on the learning in the child’s home environment. It is important that parents and childminders or early years practitioners communicate regularly about a child’s progress and work together to address any challenges that arise. When both home and school environments promote literacy, children are more likely to develop a love for reading and learning.

An Introduction to Phonics

Phonics is a system that helps children to read and write by matching the spoken sound in the words with the written letters on the page. It is a sound symbol correspondence. For example, phonics offer beginner readers the tools they need to sound out words – the letter b has the sound of ‘b’ as in bat.

Whilst there are 4 different types of phonics, Synthetic Phonics is now the prime approach used to teach young children in England. Synthetic Phonics focuses on sounding out the individual phonemes then blending them back together to read all through the word.

It is a method of teaching reading in schools by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system. So, hearing a sound and knowing what letter made it.
At the time of writing there are 45 different systematic synthetic phonics programme providers that have been validated by the government. Schools undergo comprehensive training in order to be able to teach the phonics programmes that the school have chosen to use.

Phonics can be divided into the following categories:

Phonemes - Each sound you hear in a word is a phoneme. Phonemes are only the sounds made. In the word dog there are 3 phonemes – ‘d’ sound, a short ‘o’ sound and a ‘g’ sound. There are 44 phonemes in the English language consisting of 24 consonant sounds and 20 vowel sounds.

Graphemes - A grapheme is a symbol used to identify a phoneme. For example, a 2 letters grapheme in ‘team’ where the ‘ea’ makes the long ‘ee’ sound. A 4 letter grapheme is in the word ‘eight’ where ‘eigh’ makes a long ‘a’ sound.

Digraph - A digraph is when 2 or more consonants together make one sound. For example, ‘wh’, ‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘th’, ‘ph’. Vowel diagraphs are 2 or more vowels together that make one sound, for example, ‘oo’, ‘ee’, ‘oa’. A digraph is a 2 letter grapheme that makes one sound. For example, the ‘ch’ in choose, ‘sh’ in shut, or ‘oa’ in boat.

Trigraph - Three or more letters together than create one sound, for example ‘ing’, ugh’, ‘ate’, ‘ure’, ‘ear’, ‘igh’. A trigraph is a single sound that is represented by 3 letters. For example, in the word ‘match’, the 3 letters ‘tch’ at the end make only one sound.

Onset - This is the first phoneme in a word.

Rime - The part of the word that comes after the beginning sound (onset). For example, in the words ‘cat’ and ‘flat’, ‘at’ is the rime.

The government state that ‘by ensuring high quality phonics teaching, the government wants to improve literacy levels to:

• Give all children a solid base upon which to build as they progress through school.
• Help children to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for pleasure and information.

When a child is ready to learn phonics before starting school?

1. Find out which school they are likely to attend
Speak to the parents to see which school the child is likely to attend. This won’t be definite until the child’s place has been applied for and an offer has been made but if the parents/carers live in the catchment area of a specific school and the school is not oversubscribed, it is likely they will be offered a place.

2. Set up a meeting with the Reception Teacher at the school
Find out what phonics programme the school uses and delivers. They may be prepared to share some resources to help you to teach the child. They have a vested interest because this will benefit them when the child starts at the school.

3. Explain why you believe the child is ready to learn phonics.
The Reception Teacher is likely to discourage you from teaching phonics too early so give the reasons you believe the child is ready.

4. Work in collaboration with the school.
Working closely with the school will ensure that when the child starts at the school, the teacher will know where the child is up to and can continue the teaching from there.
Create a language rich environment where children feel comfortable expressing themselves. Be an active listener, provide positive feedback, and model correct grammar and vocabulary usage. These activities should be enjoyable and designed to promote language development naturally and playfully.

It is really important that if you do decide to teach phonics to children that you do this correctly. Teaching them incorrectly will mean that they have to unlearn bad habits before starting again which is inadvertently holding them back when they start school.

About Childminding UK

Childminding UK has been supporting childminders for over 30 years. Formed in 1991 by and for working childminders in Northamptonshire, we now support childminders across the country. A registered charity, (Charity Number 1182575) we are the only national organisation that solely supports childminders and the only early years organisation that has achieved the Princess Royal Training Award for ‘Ensuring high quality childcare through training and support’. All staff are experienced childcare professionals and have also been childminders themselves and our trustees are working childminders or have knowledge of childminding, so we have an excellent understanding of the sector.

Please note, the information in this article is provided by Childminding UK and does not represent the views or opinions of Morton Michel.