By Pennie Akehurst
We’ve worked closely with Nursery Story for quite some time but were delighted when Danny invited us to write a few articles for the Nursery Story site.
For those of you that haven’t come across Early Years Fundamentals before, we are a research, training and consultancy company. The research part of our work mainly centres on understanding the inspection landscape because this approach enables us to understand the things that the sector does well, to identify subtle changes to Ofsted’s inspection focus and to identify gaps in the sector’s knowledge and skills.
So, when we were approached to share something that we felt was important to the sector, we thought that this would be a timely opportunity to talk about communication and language.
An increased focus on communication and language during inspections
We’ve been unpicking Ofsted data for around 7 years and had got used to seeing the same themes recurring in RI and inadequate inspection reports under the Common Inspection Framework (CIF), but we started to see significant differences in those themes within a couple of terms of the introduction of the Education Inspection Framework (EIF) back in 2019.
Naturally, we expected some change as Ofsted had been clear that the EIF would focus more intently on our curriculum and its implementation, how practitioners are meeting the needs of their children and whether what is being provided is enabling children to make the progress that they are capable of. However, the changes that we’ve seen have been staggering. The additional time being spent by inspectors in classrooms directly observing children’s experiences means that we’re seeing less of the safeguarding and welfare requirements and more actions and recommendations that focus on the quality of teaching and learning. What you can see in the slide above (recently shared at the Nursery World Show, Feb 2023) are areas with the most actions and recommendations before and after the introduction of the EIF. We can unpick this further to show how Ofsted is refining its focus. The slide here shows that pre-pandemic (the terms immediately after the introduction of the EIF) there was a greater focus on staff having enough knowledge of the 7 areas of learning…
…but since May 2021, we’ve seen a greater level of focus on communication and language, and maths.
Highlighted below are the recommendations that have appeared with frequency for communication and language since inspections recommenced in May 2021:
“Build on staff’s knowledge of communication and language so that they:
- Understand how to extend children’s growing vocabulary,
- Understand how to identify potential barriers to children’s communication and language skills,
- Model the correct pronunciation of letter sounds and words.”
©Early Years Fundamentals, 2022.
Although Ofsted’s Chief Inspector has shared her concerns about the impact of the pandemic and has repeatedly made references to safeguarding, children’s communication and language, and personal, social and emotional development, it is communication and language that is now a keen area of focus during inspection.
How do we know this?
Speaking at the Ofsted Big Conversation in the North West (held Jan 2023), Wendy Radcliffe – Ofsted’s Principal Officer for Early Education Policy, kicked off a series of presentations that concentrated on communication and language, mirroring the key messages that had been delivered through Ofsted’s most recent series of inspection focused roadshows.
During this session Wendy talked about the importance of sharing books with young children and said:
“We’ve told inspectors to be particularly interested in the stories that you read to children.”
So, we can say with certainty that the way that we foster a love of books and use them to broaden children’s vocabulary, knowledge and critical thinking etc. is something that will be an area of focus during an inspection. It, therefore, makes perfect sense to focus our first article on dialogic book talk which is a way of working that may enhance or improve how books are shared in your setting.
What is dialogic book talk?
In dialogic book talk the adult and child share a book together and the adult supports the child to tell the story. The adult’s role in dialogic book talk is to be the listener, questioner, and audience.
Quite simply, dialogic book talk is about having a shared conversation with a child about a book. Rather than reading the book ‘word for word’ to the child, the child tells the story about the pictures in the book with prompts from the adult. In dialogic book talk the adult gives the child the support, guidance, and opportunity to practice and develop their spoken language and emergent reading skills.
Dialogic book talk starts from birth and is about using shared story/book time as an opportunity to nurture positive attachments which will support the development of spoken language, phonological awareness (ability to differentiate between sounds) and language comprehension.
Dialogic book talk and the EYFS
To reiterate spoken language is the first early learning requirement which is explicit in all the educational programmes of the EYFS.
“Communication and Language …Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes, and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive. Through conversation, storytelling, and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.”
The EYFS, 2021, p.8.
“Literacy 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.”
The EYFS, 2021, p.9.
Why is dialogic book talk so important?
Firstly, it promotes secure and positive attachments
When snuggling up and sharing a book together the adult and child interaction is a “partnership of mutual pleasure “(Whitehead, 2007, p74.). This starts with babies babbling, pointing, screaming, laughing, and grasping for the pages, which evolves into being able to name things in pictures, lifting flaps, and joining in with rhymes and eventually telling the story themselves. These bonds are key for positive emotional health and well-being later in life.
Good spoken language develops good readers
We know from research and working with young children that…
“Young Children who can express themselves well and have a good store of oral language are stepping into the world of learning with a great advantage. They can better understand themselves and others, they can better make their own needs known, they can better interpret what is going on around them and they can better share their experiences of the world”.
Joan Kiely, 2014, p.21.
Research also shows a link between spoken language and phonological awareness in emergent readers and later between spoken language and comprehension in older readers (Whitehurst and Lonigan 2002 cited in Joan Kiely’s article).
It supports decontextualised language
Books are important in supporting decontextualised language which is part of our everyday experience in early years settings. Decontextualised language is language that is removed from the ‘here and now’. Sharing books with young children engages them in decontextualised language as they talk about the story and engage in more abstract ideas and contexts.
Communication and language skills are the foundations of learning
There are strong links between language skills and later educational attainment, mental health, social relationships, and behaviour, so it is important to nurture and develop this and use dialogic book talk in our daily interactions with young children. It is also essential to share this technique with parents and encourage book sharing at home.
Planning for Dialogic book talk
It is crucial when engaging in dialogic book talk with a child that the adult is familiar with the story and has read it to the child a few times. The choice of book is also important; it needs to be of high quality and match the stage and age of the child, as well as meeting their needs and interests. Planning for dialogic book talk is essential to high quality interactions and to build on what the child knows and can do to support further learning and development. Think about Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development; too easy and the child with be bored and too hard and the child will be unable to engage.
When sourcing books, think about choosing books that are repetitive and/or have a refrain. This makes it easier for the child to join in with the experience of reading and interact with the story. They also begin to learn the story they are interacting with.
Also think about choosing books with pictures that support and add to the text. Dialogic book talk relies on pictures to discuss the story. ‘Where’s Spot’, ‘Dear Zoo’, ‘The Bear Hunt’ and ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ are great examples of this, but you know your children well and can support their individual interests and fascinations.
Finding books which have all the above attributes will encourage your children to use spoken language in their story telling.
Planning for dialogic book talk and creating the language -learning environment
It is essential to plan for dialogic book talk. Below is a model which supports high quality interactions while sharing a book. This should help practitioners to decide on the books that will best support children’s interests and fascinations.
Prepare!
The main objective is to get the child talking (not to read the book) so you’ll need to:
- familiarise yourself with the book/ story,
- think about the props that would enhance the experience,
- think about questions that will encourage the child to talk about the story,
- think about any new vocabulary you will introduce,
- ask yourself is the text high-quality and is it appropriate for the age and stage of development of the child?
Ask open ended questions about the story.
- List some questions in preparation.
- Link the above to knowledge of ‘Blank level Questions’
Level 1 questions are focused on what can immediately be seen. For example, What is under the flap? What can you see? Point to the teddy? Can you see another teddy? Level 1 also includes introducing new vocabulary.
Level 2 questions focus on what can be seen in the illustrations and includes ‘Who?’ ‘What?’ and ‘Where?’ questions. For example, what did the caterpillar eat on Monday? Where is Spot? Who was under the stairs? It also includes new vocabulary and concentrates on objects and situations in more detail.
Level 3 questions include ‘Who?’ ‘What?’ ‘Where?’ and ‘How?’ questions and introduces concepts linked to the text and story sequence. Level 3 builds on level 2 by introducing more abstract questions such as ‘How does Zog feel?’ ‘What might happen next?’ and ‘Can you remember what was first?’
Level 4 questions include every type of ‘why’ question and introduces problem solving and language for thinking. It provides opportunities to make and explore relationships in the story between people, objects, and events, to give reasons for why things happen and to think critically. For example, how can we tell that it is night-time? Why did Mr Bear not fall asleep? How can we tell Mr bear is very tired?
Relate the story to the children’s experiences.
List some possible question prompts e.g. What do you do at bedtime? Did you travel on an aeroplane to ..?
Extend the children’s vocabulary…
With verbs, nouns, and concepts. For example, the story “Peace at last”, refers to verbs such as snore, sleep, pretending, nouns such as aeroplane, house, moon, clock and concepts such as tiredness, late etc.
Design follow up activities…
To consolidate the new vocabulary. You may wish to think about creating specific activities, enhancing your continuous provision or providing invitations and provocations that enable children to rehearse, revisit and repeat etc.
Implementation and dialogic book talk techniques
Dr Grover Whitehurst (2000) proposes a reading technique called the PEER sequence which supports high quality interactions and focuses on the child being the storyteller.
The PEER sequence is an acronym for the following:
- Prompts the child to say something about the book,
- Evaluates the child’s response,
- Expands the child’s response by rephrasing and adding information to it, and
- Repeats the prompt to make sure the child has learnt from the expansion.
How to prompt children
There are five types of prompts that are used in dialogic book talk to begin PEER sequences. You can remember these prompts with the word CROWD.
Completion prompts
You leave a blank at the end of a sentence and get the child to fill it in. These are typically used in books with rhymes or books with repetitive phrases. For example, you might say, “I think I’d be a glossy cat. A little plump but not too ….” Letting the child fill in the blank with the word “fat.” Completion prompts provide children with information about the structure of language that is critical to later reading.
Recall prompts
These are questions about what happened in a book that a child has already read. Recall prompts work for nearly everything except alphabet books. For example, you might say, ‘Can you tell me what happened to the duck in this story?’ Recall prompts help children to understand the story plot and to describe sequences in events. Recall prompts can be used not only at the end of a book, but also at the beginning of a book when a child has read the book before.
Open-ended prompts
These prompts focus on the pictures in the books. They work best for books that have rich detailed illustrations. For example, while looking at a page in a book that the child is familiar with you might say, “tell me what’s happening in this picture.” Open -ended prompts help children to increase their expressive fluency and to attend to detail.
Wh- prompts
These prompts focus on ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘why’ and “how’ questions. Like open-ended prompts, wh-prompts focus on the pictures in the books. For example, you might say,” What’s the name of this? while pointing to an object on a page. Wh-questions teach children new vocabulary, but we strongly advocate using the BLANK Levels discussed above to ensure an appropriate level of questioning.
Distancing prompts
These ask children to relate the picture or words in the book they are reading to experiences outside the book. For example, while looking at a book with a picture of animals on a farm, you might say something like “Remember when we went to the farm last week? Which of these animals did we see there?” Distancing prompts help children form a bridge between books and the real world, as well as helping with verbal fluency, conversational abilities, and narrative skills.
This LEYF Dialogic reading link on PEER and CROWD prompts may provide more examples of what this looks like in practice. https://youtu.be/qiTkbGupIo8
Dialogic book talk is an important strategy for early years practitioners and when used effectively is transformational in enhancing early spoken language and ensuring enthusiastic emergent readers in the early years.
About the writers
Dialogic book talk – Nic Brown
Is an Early Years Consultant and SLE (Specialist Leader in Education) Teacher specialising in the birth – five age phase.
Nic has been an early years teacher and senior leader for over 20 years working with babies through to reception age children. She now supports early years practitioners within schools and the PVI sector to improve their teaching and learning practice through writing and delivering high quality evidence based CPD, as well as in an associate role of Early Years Quality Improvement Officer for a Local Authority.
Nic’s specialisms are Communication, Language, Literacy and Physical Development where she has led and delivered many local and national CPD programmes.
Inspection context – Pennie Akehurst
Is an author and leadership specialist with over 30 years’ experience in the early years sector, 17 of which were spent delivering strategic early years priorities in local authorities.
During this time, she developed and implemented support programmes that enabled leadership teams to improve educational provision for children 0-5 and to manage changes to legislation. Pennie leads Early Years Fundamentals Ltd, and has written 3 books including the bestseller ‘101 Audit questions to evaluate your practice and prepare for inspection’ through Practical Preschool Books. She has also contributed many articles to Nursery World Magazine.
Pennie’s specialisms are leadership, end-to-end systems and processes, and understanding the inspection landscape.
Dialogic book talk – Sherida Morgan
Is an Early Years Consultant who has worked in the sector for over 30 years.
Sherida has extensive experience of working with children from birth – five, having held several headships in outstanding Nursery schools.
Sherida now supports childminders and early years practitioners within schools and settings as an associate Early Years Quality Improvement Officer for a local authority, and writes articles and training materials to enhance CPD opportunities.
Sherida’s specialisms are Communication and Language, Literacy, Expressive Arts, PSED and Child Development.
Resources
If you’re looking for resources to help support practitioners to enhance or improve the quality of their adult:child interactions, you may be interested to know that we have developed materials to support this aspect of teaching and learning. You can find out more, by emailing:
We also have a Facebook group for leaders, managers and local authority early years advisors/consultants.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/EYFundamentals/
Early Years Fundamentals Ltd.
489 Lower Somercotes | Alfreton | Derbyshire | DE55 4NS
Company No. 10721833
T 01773 603774
Website: www.eyfundamentals.org
Bibliography
Biemiller, A., & Boote, C. (2006). An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in primary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(1), 44–62. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.98.1.44
Kiely, J. (2014) All About Dialogic Reading. Nursery World
LEYF Dialogic reading https://youtu.be/qiTkbGupIo8 using the PEER & CROWD prompts
Department of Education. (2021) Statutory Framework for the early years foundation stage.www.gov.uk/government/publications
Raising A Reader Massachusetts: Dialogic Reading Asking ‘W’ Questions with a Toddler https://youtu.be/2lsdOmWje0Q
Whitehead, Marian R. (2007) Developing Language and Literacy with Young Children. Sage
Whitehouse, Grover J. (2014) An Effective Way to Read to Pre-schoolers’ http://www.readingrockets.org/article/400 (an archived article
Pennie Akehurst
Managing Director
Early Years Fundamentals Ltd.
www.eyfundamentals.org
Pennie Akehurst is an author and leadership specialist with over 30 years’ experience in the early years sector. Pennie has worked in the private, voluntary, maintained and public sector, and spent 17 years delivering strategic early years and childcare priorities within two local authorities. During this time, she developed and led the implementation of challenge and intervention programmes designed to support leadership teams to improve outcomes for children (aged 0-5) and to manage changes to legislation.
In 2017, Pennie left the public sector to establish Early Years Fundamentals Ltd, a research, training and consultancy company focused on identifying and managing issues that may affect outcomes for children and inspection outcomes.
