Communication and Language is one of the three prime areas of our curriculum.  In planning our curriculum, we have recognised the importance of developing speaking and listening skills, which build the foundations for literacy and learning in the future.

We timetable our adults (every morning and afternoon) to be working in provision areas interacting with children and modelling language.  We have written a progressive plan for vocabulary development for all our Continuous Provision areas, so adults have specific vocabulary to model to children.  Our subject leads have worked with us to identify subject-specific vocabulary which is relevant to each area of learning, so that the vocabulary taught in provision correlates to that introduced at group learning times and during focus activities.

We have a daily ‘Magic of Reading’ story session (please see our Literacy page for further details) in which we explore the vocabulary of each focus text.  Each week a selection of words are chosen to explore in greater depth—we explain the meaning of each word and provide opportunities for children to practise using this word in context.   We display stories and rhymes throughout our setting (as well as in our well-stocked reading areas!) that link to our current topics and areas of provision and love to see our children choosing to read throughout the school day!

All children in Lower and Upper Foundation are screened every year using the Well Comm Speech and Language Toolkit which is a screening and intervention programme.  We use this to identify children with potential language difficulties and then complete a programme of intervention activities to help support their language development.  This also helps us to identify early children who may need a referral to Speech and Language Therapy.