Hilltoppers Nursery Astrea Academy Trust
Why we teach Literacy?
Nursery Curriculum Overarching Principles.
Every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident, and self-assured.
Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships.
Children learn and develop well in enabling environments with teaching and support from adults, who respond to their individual interests and needs and help them to build their learning over time.
Children benefit from a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers.
Across all areas of the curriculum 3 characteristics of effective learning are key.
Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’.
Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements.
Creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
What is Literacy in the Foundation Stage?
It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. Language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing) starts from birth. It only develops when adults talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together. Skilled word reading, taught later, involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words. Writing involves transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech, before writing).
How we teach this in the Nursery
By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners build children’s language. Careful planning of next steps enables practitioners to introduce new topic words and build children’s vocabulary.
We read frequently to and with children engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes, songs and poems providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts such as small world or outdoor play. Songs, rhymes support children’s development of auditory and sequential memory. These are vital skills for phonics learning. In line with DFE guidance we read at least 4 stories per day with our children.
We aim to provide time and relaxed opportunities for children to develop spoken language through sustained conversations between children and adults, both one-to-one and in small groups and between the children themselves. We allow children time to initiate conversations, respect their thinking time and silences, and help them develop the interaction.
We aim to create an environment where it is “safe” to make mistakes, to share thoughts and ideas, explore different options, and work collaboratively.
We plan an environment that is rich in signs, symbols, notices, numbers, words, rhymes, books, pictures, music and songs that take into account children’s different interests, understandings, home backgrounds and cultures. We allow time for children to browse and share these resources with adults and other children.
We provide children with the opportunity to see adults reading and writing and encourage children to experiment with writing for themselves through making marks, personal writing symbols and conventional script.
Effective Teaching involves:
Working in partnership with parents, because parents continue to have a prime teaching role with their children.
Practitioners who routinely and enthusiastically sing, share stories and rhymes and who develop children’s speech, listening and comprehension according to our CLL policy.
Planning indoor and outdoor environments carefully to provide a positive context for literacy development.
Providing a relaxing and interesting book corner. Providing themed books throughout the environment and the implementation of a variety of “imaginative settings” which change over the terms.
Providing well-equipped indoor and outdoor writing areas with display boards for both children and staff, open shelving for labelled resources, a permanent writing table and evidence of print in the environment.
Use of name cards for signing into Nursery.
Preparing children for phonics teaching.
In planning for the development of effective listening, attention and speaking skills we are giving our children the best chance to become skilled readers and writers when they begin their Reception year.
Becoming a fluent, skilled, and attentive reader starts at the very earliest stages, before children encounter a book for the first time, partly driven by the quality of their parents’ talk with them that expands their vocabulary and comprehension.
At Nursery we recognise the importance of talk and stories and especially the role stories play in developing young children’s vocabulary and language. We recognise the role of poetry, rhymes and songs in attuning young children to the sounds of language which will support the teaching of synthetic phonics during the Reception year.
Learning poems including traditional nursery rhymes such as ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ and ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ can heighten children’s awareness of the individual sounds within words through alliteration and rhyme. The ability to recall sequences of sounds is important for phonics.
Listening to music and songs also exposes children to sequences of sound. Our curriculum planning highlights where different poems, rhymes and songs are introduced to children. These will be repeated throughout their time at Nursery building so that children have a rich repertoire and auditory memory of these.
We also plan for opportunities to develop children’s visual discrimination and memory – things that look the same, different and nearly the same. This supports children with later letter discrimination (For example not mixing up p, d, b and q.)
Planning for Literacy.
Our planning for Literacy is devised in line with the EYFS Statutory Framework, with reference to Development Matters, Birth to 5 Matters and from observation and assessment of children’s needs. It includes-
The Nursery’s annual programme of 6 termly themes which demonstrates how areas of the EYFS framework are broken down and woven through other areas.
A termly plan.
Continuous Provision Planning.
Weekly planning – seen on our assessment board and weekly planning board. These build upon children’s interests and next steps.
Support for each child.
We believe every child can succeed. Provision will be made to meet the individual requirements of children with any additional needs, to enable them to make progress in Literacy and achieve their full potential, e.g. through specific targets as part of an Individual Support Plan.
Staff will liaise and work closely with parents and other professionals involved with the child and respond to the advice they offer. Where necessary, resources and equipment to support children with additional needs will be procured from other agencies.
We show awareness of, and sensitivity to, the needs of children learning English as an additional language, using their home language when appropriate and ensuring close teamwork between practitioners and parents so that the child’s developing use of English and other languages support each other.
Observation, Assessment, Monitoring and Record-Keeping
Children’s skills and stages of development are observed and monitored by keyworkers. Observations may be long or short and supported by evidence such as annotated photographs or pieces of work when possible.
Observations and records inform planning, identify next steps for each child, may identify a learning difficulty or talent, and provide the nursery with the means to monitor cohort progress and collect data on the effectiveness of the provision.
Records of individual children’s progress and achievement will be shared via our new Famly app.
When a child is aged between two and three, practitioners will review their progress, and provide parents and/or carers with a short-written summary of their child’s development in the prime areas.