Jean Gross CBE, January 2013
Aims
• Language and the brain
• Why communication and language
matter – the links with learning and
behaviour
• Share some effective practice from
across the country
The brain is hard-wired for
language
Behave!
But I am have!
Binocular vision
Central auditory system
Habitual ways of responding
Language learning
Emotional control
Peer social skills
‘Sensitive periods’ in early
brain development
High
Low
0
1
2
3
4
P.O. Svanberg Sept 2010
5
6
74
What does this say about
communication development?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzX
GEbZht0
A bit of science – predictors of
good language development
• Amount of language spoken to child
• Conversational turns – the ‘serve and return’
• Singing nursery rhymes, sharing books, reminiscing about
events
• Lack of background noise
• Child to child speech – engaging in joint planning,
negotiating conflicts, providing explanations , telling
stories
• The way we talk – following child’s lead and commenting
on their topic of interest, recasts and expansions
TV as background noise
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.
A bit of science – predictors of
good language development
• Amount of language spoken to child
• Conversational turns – the ‘serve and return’
• Singing nursery rhymes, sharing books, reminiscing about
events
• Lack of background noise
• Child to child speech – engaging in joint planning,
negotiating conflicts, providing explanations , telling
stories
• The way we talk – following child’s lead and commenting
on their topic of interest, recasts and expansions
Commenting
Oooooo....
What’s that?
I hope....
What colour
is it ?
What noise
does it make?
I wonder.....
Expansions and recasts
Context
Child
Typical adult
response
Much better if......
5 year old
looking at
book about
sea creatures
Look at that
whale
What else
can you see?
It’s a giant blue
whale , I think.
Swimming in
the ocean.
3 year old
watching
television
Its Direman
Sam
No…
Yes, Fireman
Fireman Sam Sam’s coming
to the rescue
Aims
• Language and the brain
• Why communication and language
matter – the links with learning and
behaviour
• Share some effective practice from
across the country
The scale of the problem
1 in 10 children has a long term and persistent
language difficulty
The scale of the problem
More than 50% of children in some areas have
language and communication difficulties
De-contextualised formal
talk
• BICS- Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills
(around two years to develop)
• CALP- Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency
(may take five to seven years to develop)
Informal
He hit me – he’s
over there.
Decontextualised
The boy with a red
jacket hit me. He’s
standing by the
farthest school
gate.
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 links to attainment
• Research in one local authority found that
children achieving below Level 2 in Reading
and Writing at the end of KS1 had an average
standardised score of only 75 on a test of oral
language skills – 11 points less than those
who achieved Level 2+. There was no
difference between the groups on nonverbal
intelligence
The links to attainment
• At KS2 there was an even bigger gap – of
19 points - between the language skills
of those who achieved Level 4+ in
English and those who didn’t (Gross,
2002)
The Effects of Weaknesses in Oral Language
on Reading Comprehension Growth (Hirsch, 1996)
Reading Age Level
16
15
High Oral
Language in
14
Kindergarten
13
5.2 years difference
12
11
Low Oral Language
10
in Kindergarten
9
8
7
6
5
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Chronological Age
13
14
15
16
The links to attainment
• 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
(Snowling, 2010)
Ofsted
• ‘In the most effective schools, inspectors
saw teachers thread rich opportunities
for speaking and listening into lessons.
In turn , this led to improved standards
of writing’ (Annual report, 2010)
• ‘A common feature of the most
successful schools in the survey was the
attention they gave to developing
speaking and listening’(Removing
Barriers to Literacy, 2011)
Ofsted
‘Where inspectors saw links between
oral language, reading and writing in
lessons, standards at GCSE English
Language were higher’ (Excellence in
English, 2011)
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
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
..but it’s what you do not what
you earn that matters
The child’s communication environment (the early
ownership of books, trips to the library, attendance at
pre-school, parents teaching a range of activities and
the number of toys and books available) was a more
important predictor of language development at two,
and school entry ‘baseline’ scores at 4 than socio-
economic background
Roulstone et al (2011)Investigating the role of language in
children’s early educational outcomes
DFE RR134
Getting the message
Inspectors will be looking at the extent to which
• pupils develop a range of skills, including reading,
writing, communication and mathematical skills, and
how well they apply these across the curriculum’
• reading, writing, communication and mathematics are
well taught
Getting the message
• All teachers, whatever subject they teach, must be able
to promote ‘articulacy’ as well as literacy (Current
professional standards for teachers)
• Early Years Foundation Stage ‘prime’ area
• National Curriculum?
New primary National Curriculum –
letter from Michael Gove
• ‘Pupils will be taught to read fluently and develop
a strong command of the written and spoken
word’
• ‘We have included statements on the importance
of spoken English in the new draft Programmes
of Study for mathematics and science’
• ‘We will continue to consider how best to ensure
that spoken language development is embedded
across the curriculum as a whole, for example
through curriculum aims.’
Used most, taught least?
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
It may feel like being asked
to do the impossible …
Aims
• Language and the brain
• Why communication and language
matter – the links with learning
and behaviour
• Share some effective practice from
across the country
0.0
0.2
0.23
0.18
0.1
0.25
0.24
Primary
school
effectiveness
0.26
Pre-school
effectiveness
Key Stage 1
HLE
0.7
Early years
HLE
Family SES
0.4
Fathers
education
0.8
Mother’s
education
Family
income
0.5
Birth weight
Early
Development
al Problems
0.3
Gender
Effect size
Effect sizes for KS2 English
0.76
0.69
0.6
0.47
0.39
0.34
0.29
Take-home shoe-boxes
Twinkle, twinkle little star
• The rhyme
• A card star to thread
with wool
• Star finger puppet
• Biscuit recipe and star
cutter
• Glow-in-the-dark stars
• Star kaleidoscope
Dad’s reading
challenge:
‘It can’t be true,
can it?’
I really enjoyed coming
home from work,
knowing that my son
had brought a story
sack home from preschool for our bedtime
story.
Adventure Den
Rainbow Den
SEAL ideas... ‘talk
homework’
• Loves and hates
• When are the times when you get on best as a
family...and fall out?
• Talk about your dream home
• Can you remember the day that I was born?
• The best/worst thing that happened to me
today was...
• What cheers you up when you feel down?
And in school?
• 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
Technology
• Podcasting and school radio ( have a
look at Grove FM)
• Easispeak microphones, Talking tins,
talking postcards, story sequencers
(TTS)
• IPad apps Show me….Explain
everything
• Skype
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).
Good practice
• A place to talk
• A reason to talk
• Support for talk
Support for talk
• Talk for
writing
• BT’s All Talk
and Talk Gym
• Teaching the
skills of
groupwork
Support for talk
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-verbal-reasoning.
Listen ‘Ear in Camden
and Islington
From caveman to spaceman
Objectives:
-To be able recognise how communication has developed
over time.
- To begin to practice effective communication
In this lesson you will be learning through:
1. Watching a cartoon clip on communication
2. Class discussion
3. Reading a comic story about good communication
4. Listening to a song about communication
5. Assessing your speaking and listening skills
Keywords
Communication
Effective
Conversation skills
Objectives:
-To learn that you don’t have to agree with other people’s
views, but that you should respect different opinions
-To understand that conversations are more successful
when both people can give their opinions and are listened to
In this lesson you will be learning through:
1. Watching a film clip then class
discussion
Keywords
2. Writing on a questionnaire
Conversation
3. Paired work to see who has the
same opinions as you
4. Small group work about your
favourite conversation topics
Opinion
listening
Camden and Islington
Vocabulary building
My Dad’s been in one of those....
STAR – Select, Teach, Apply,
Review
Too easy
Goldilocks
words
Too hard
Everyday wordsones a child
might use to
another child
Not too easy and
not too hard, but
just right
Likely to be
encountered
again
Average adult
has a good
knowledge of
this word
Average adult
does not have
much knowledge
of this word
Highly topicspecific
STAR - Select
Too easy
Children
Toys
Goldilocks
words
Petticoat
Hoop
Too hard
Gruel
Workhouse
Teaching vocabulary
Phonological
Semantic meaning
Orthographic
(Written form)
Grammatical
Motor
programme
What it sounds like
Begins
with:
Sound:
Letter:
Number of
syllables:
Rhymes
with:
Ends with :
Sound:
Letter:
What it means
Where do
you find it?
How does
it feel?
What does
it look like?
Sign/symb
ol
What
category is
it?
What do
you do
with it?
Put it in a sentence
Words that go with it
Reformulate, elaborate,
comment
Child
Typical adult
response
Much better if......
She were
going on at
me
She was
OK, she was going on at
going on at you.... , or
you …
OK, she was going on at
you, criticising you.. ’, or
‘OK, she was going on at
you. I wonder what that
was about?’
Additional interventions
• Talk Boost : average progress 18 months over
four month period
• Talking Partners : 18 months progress
compared to 5 for control group, over 10
weeks
• TalkingPartners@Secondary : All pupils
demonstrated improvement on standardised
scores on Clinical Evaluation of Language
Fundamentals (CELF)after ten-week
intervention
Aims
• Language and the brain
• Why communication and language
matter – the links with learning
and behaviour
• Share some effective practice from
across the country
Free resources for practitioners
and parents
www.thecommunicationtrust.org.
uk/resources
www.talkoftheschool.org.uk
All Talk from BT – teaching
speaking and listening /
communication skills , including
GCSE and A level
the really useful /).
• Philosophy for children
www.sapere.org.uk
• Cambridge University’s Thinking
Together approach
www.thinkingtogether.educ.cam.ac.uk)
• Talk Boost www.ican.org.uk
• Talking Partners and
TalkingPartners@Secondary
www.educationworks.org.uk