Jean Gross CBE, 2015
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
Why work on spoken language matters so
much - for literacy, learning and life
Fantastic practice from across the countrythe teaching and learning strategies that
make most difference
Poor communication skills impact on...
Mental health
Educational achievement
•Vocabulary at 5 a
powerful predictor of
GCSE achievement
Behaviour/vulnerability
2/3 of 7-14 year olds with
serious behaviour
problems have language
impairment
Criminality
40% of 7 to 14 year olds
referred to child psychiatric
services had a language
impairment that had never
been suspected
Disadvantage Cycle
Employability
47% of employers say they can’t
get recruits with the
communication skills they need
65% of young people in
young offender
institutions have
communication
difficulties
Children from low income
families lag behind high
income counterparts by
sixteen months in vocabulary
at school entry
The number of pupils identified as having
speech, language and communication needs in
annual DfE school census has increased by 72
per cent between 2005 and 2011
Roulstone et al , 2011
Investigating the role of language in
children’s early educational outcomes,
Research Report DFE-RR134
The amount of time
television (adult and
child programmes)
was on in the home
when child was under
two predicted
achievement at school
entry. As this time
increased, so the
child’s score at school
entry decreased.
Vocabulary at age 5 has been found to be the best
predictor of whether children who experienced
social deprivation in childhood were able to
‘buck the trend’ and escape poverty in later adult life
The Effects of Weaknesses in Oral Language
on Reading Comprehension Growth (Hirsch, 1996)
16
High Oral
Language in
Kindergarten
Reading Age Level
15
14
5.2 years difference
13
12
11
Low Oral Language
in Kindergarten
10
9
8
7
6
5
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Chronological Age
13
14
15
16
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For Year 5 children with poor reading
comprehension, an intervention to
boost oral language skills made more
difference to reading comprehension
than an intervention directly teaching
reading comprehension skills
(Developing Reading Comprehension,
Clarke et al, Wiley, 2013)
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Nursery/YR children who took part in an oral
language intervention (Nuffield Early
Language Intervention) showed significantly
better reading comprehension in Y1 than
control group (Fricke, 2012)
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ICAN’s A Chance to Talk whole-school
initiative – children involved made on average
50% more progress in reading at key stage 1
than previous cohorts
Children receiving specific small group
language intervention made accelerated
progress academically. 90% of them met or
exceeded the progress expected for all
children of their age group in reading, 69% in
writing and 76% in maths.
‘How to teach pupils
to write well is first
to get them to speak
well.’
,
Listening Speaking Reading Writing
Learned
Used
Taught
Listening Speaking Reading Writing
Learned first
second
third
third
Used
most
next to
most
next to
least
least
Taught
least
next to
least
next to
most
most
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Teachers should develop pupils’ spoken
language, reading, writing and vocabulary as
integral aspects of the teaching of every subject.
Pupils should be taught to speak clearly and
convey ideas confidently using Standard English.
They should learn to justify ideas with reasons;
ask questions to check understanding; develop
vocabulary and build knowledge; negotiate;
evaluate and build on the ideas of others; and
select the appropriate register for effective
communication.
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They should be taught to give well-structured
descriptions and explanations and develop their
understanding through speculating,
hypothesising and exploring ideas. This will
enable them to clarify their thinking as well as
organise their ideas for writing.
Teaching listening
Teaching children to listen
Class A - Before Intervention
30%
45%
Adequate
Moderate
Severe
25%
Teaching children to listen
Class A - After intervention
0%
37%
Adequate
Moderate
Severe
63%
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Why work on spoken language matters so
much - for literacy, learning and life
Fantastic practice from across the countrythe teaching and learning strategies that
make most difference
The talking classroom
• A place to talk
• A reason to talk
• Support for talk
A place to talk
It doesn’t have to be expensive
© Elizabeth Jarman
© Elizabeth Jarman
© Elizabeth Jarman
Good practice
• A place to talk
• A reason to talk
• Support for talk
A reason to talk
Class discussion
‘Classrooms where teachers talk less and
children talk more. Classrooms where teachers
scrap the mechanistic reliance on hands-up , ask
more open-ended questions (why? how?), give
thinking time, make space for collaborative
conversations and oral rehearsal of answers, and
then always ask pupils – rather than us – to
comment upon the answer they have just
heard.’(Barton, 2011).
Bouncing
‘Thank you for making that point, Jo. Andrew,
what are your thoughts on what Jo just said?’
Teachers can extend this to ‘Can you build on
what Jo just said/ summarise what she said/
compare her ideas with Andrew’s/ decide
whether you need to ask Jo for more detail/give
reasons for agreeing or disagreeing.’
Take maths ....
• Hot seating – child in centre is a number and
others have to ask questions to find out what
the number is
• Snowballing – What can you tell me about 24?
Find 3 facts as a pair then choose 5 facts as a
group of 4, 8 facts as a group of 8...
• Think-pair-share- Deciding the best way to
investigate a question like how many people
would be able to sit in the school hall
A few more ideas....
• Jigsaw – expert groups could learn about
different ways of presenting data (line graphs,
pictograms, bar graphs) and then home
groups could be given some data and asked to
choose which is the best way to represent it
• Envoys – give each group some data to
represent and then envoys go and look at how
other groups have done it
Barrier games
• One child to use coordinates to enable the
other child to reproduce the picture first child
holds
• Both children have an identical set of
photographs. One child chooses one and
describes it . The other child has to pick out
the photograph from their set
• One child makes a 3-D shape using linking
cubes, Duplo or Lego and describes to
partner how to make
A few more ideas....
• Make a maths podcast – groups first explore a
question like ‘Do teachers usually drive small
silver cars?’ , then make a podcast about their
methods and findings
Good practice
• A place to talk
• A reason to talk
• Support for talk
The sad tale of Three Billy Goats
Gruff....
Support for Talk
• Actively teaching the skills of listening,
working in groups
• Using talk frames
• Actively teaching vocabulary
Support for talk – working in groups
Thinking Together approach
• Teaches pupils how to hold a reasoned
discussion, tackling problems in groups
through talk.
• The approach has been rigorously evaluated
using experimental and control groups. There
were significant impacts on attainment in
science and maths, and in non-verbalreasoning.
Talk frames
Year 1
• They are the
same
because…………
………
• They are
different
because…………
………is…………an
d…………is………
……
•
•
•
•
Year 6
In some ways………and…..are alike. For
instance they both………………………..
Another feature they have in common
is that………………………
However they also differ in that…. For
example……………..whereas…………….
The similarities/differences seem
more important than the
similarities/differences because…….
Vocabulary building
Vocabulary acquisition