Up, up and away!
3.3
Building Foundations to Literacy in the Early
Years
Practitioners’ and Carers’ Ideas in Practice
C
I
R
C
L
E
Child
Inclusion
Research into
Curriculum
Learning
Education
Aims of Session
• To give you an overview of the resource
• To familiarise you with the resource
• To give you experience of using some of the
tools
• To give you confidence to go away and use the
resource in your own setting
Overview of Session
•
•
•
•
Introduction to the Up, up and away! resources
The CIRCLE Early Years Framework
Identifying Need/Children at Risk
Use of:
– Literacy Rich Environment Tool
– Understanding Behaviour Tool
• Introduction to Stages Tool
• Planning to Meet the Need - strategies
• Use of:
– Parent Postcard
• Next Steps
• Questions
The Resources!
Identifying Need
Planning to Meet the Need
Aims
Identifying Need
1. Support staff and carers to identify
children who need literacy support as
early as possible in order to prevent
difficulties arising.
2. Provide tools to optimise literacy
opportunity through the
environment and adults around the
child.
3. Provide tools to optimise opportunity
for the child through observations
made in relation to challenges to
literacy and learning.
4. Provide a comprehensive framework
(The CIRCLE Early Years Framework)
for profiling the child’s stage of
development , in relation to their
environment, routines, motivation
and skills.
Aims
Planning to Meet the Need
1. Provide practical stage-appropriate
strategies to meet literacy needs
once they are identified.
2. Help staff and carers to engage with
parents and share ideas for building
the foundations to literacy.
3. Highlight and promote diversity in the
children with whom you work.
The resources both consider children
with English as an additional
language.
The CIRCLE Early Years Framework
• The Circle Early Years Framework is the basis for these
resources to build the foundation for literacy in the early
years
• Understanding the framework is central to using the Up, up
and away! resources successfully
• The framework takes a holistic view of children and how to
identify need and support learning and development
• The framework has two complementary components:
The CIRCLE Early Years Framework
• Stages of Development
• The Literacy Caterpillar
Tools to identify risk and need
Blue Book (and a bit of white)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Risk and resilience Tool-page 21
Literacy Rich Environment Tool-pages 30-37
Home Literacy Tool-pages 86-89-WHITE BOOK
Identifying Stages Tool-pages 51-55
Understanding Behaviour Tool-pages 56-64
Guidance on observation & Tool-page 23-26
Also developmental mile stones and warning
signs-68-71
English as an Additional Language:
Identifying need
Consider:
• how to establish effective 2-way communication with
parents/carers to inform assessment
• how to enable bilingual children to show what they
can do (rather than what they can’t)
EAL Service can advise on/support this and also
strategies for planning to meet the need
Risk and Resilience Tool
Identifying Children at Risk of Failure
with Literacy
• Why wait?
• We can identify the children who are at risk by
considering the risk and resilience factors.
• Activity 1 – Think of a child you work with and
complete the Risk and Resilience Table (p21)...
Is the child at risk?
CIRCLE Literacy Rich Environment Tool
• Page 30
• Consider strategies that are
already in place and possible
areas for development.
• Use symbols to represent your
judgement about how well you
fulfil each item in the tool:
Literacy Rich Environment Tool considers of
the following area:
- Selection of books and stories
- Environmental print
- Arrangement: display, location, book area
- Encouraging writing
-Planning and reflection
- Adult support to participate in literacy
- Frequency of literacy experience
- Listening and talking
- Phonological Awareness
Literacy Rich Environment Tool
Home Literacy Tool
Understanding Behaviour Tool
• Page 58
• Children may need support to
learn positive ways of
expressing themselves and
responding.
• Staff and carers need to be
confident about observing,
analysing and understanding
behaviour, so that they can
promote positive behaviour
and interactions with others.
CIRCLE Observation Tool
Type of Observation:
Context:
Child’s name:
Date:
Observer:
Reason for observation:
Write in the boxes below what you
plan to observe
Observation: what did you see and
hear?
C
I
R
C
L
E
Child
Inclusion
Research into
Curriculum
Learning
Education
Making a plan
Identify Stages Tool
Group Activity
Using the Identify stages tool (page 52-54)
• In your group pick a child to focus on (could be the same as
for previous activity) who you think is at risk
• Start with the environment section
• Discuss if the child fits each statement and tick the box if
they do or if they are past this
• When you have completed all the boxes in this section
transfer the information to the stages profile (p54)
• Complete the same process the for routine and motivation
sections
• The skills section is broken down further into M, C, T, R, this
makes filling the stages profile in slightly different.
Stages Profile and Strategy Map
Action Plan
Area
Environment
Routine
Motivation
Skills
Strengths
Areas to
develop
Strategies
Planning to Meet Need
White Book (and a bit of blue)
• Strategies for Future Relationships 41-43 BLUE
• Strategies for Building Vocabulary 44-46 BLUE
• Section 2: Literacy at Each stage 20-23
• Section 3: Strategies within stages of
development 28-76
• Section 4: Engaging parents as partners77-89
Strategies
Literacy at Each Stage
Strategies within Stage using the
Literacy Caterpillar
Engage Parents (and carers) as
partners
When staff/carers engage well with parents, they can positively influence the child’s
experience in the early years setting and in the family’s home life.
To effectively engage parents, it is important to affirm what they already do and build on
this. You can empower parents to support their child’s learning and development by
considering the following:
o Developing parent skill and awareness
o Using good communication and sharing information
o Engaging parents as partners
Parent Postcards
Parent Postcards
Group Activity
Make a parent postcard
• Consider the information that you’ve now collected using
the stages profile
• Refer to the action plan you began to create earlier
• Which areas of the child’s development are relative
strengths?
• Which areas would you prioritise for support?
• In the priority areas use the stages profile and page numbers
to look at possible strategies in the white book
• Choose one of these and further develop the idea into a
parent postcard
You’re ready to try it out
• Share this training and resource with staff in your setting
• Start trying it out with a selected child, children or area
• If you want further advice and support you could:
– Get in touch with your trainers from today
– Discuss it with partner agencies working in your
setting e.g. Educational Psychologist, Neighbourhood
Support Co-ordinator, VTSS worker, EAL worker or
Speech and Language Therapist
Instructions for accessing Circle Resources
on GLOW
Log on to GLOW which you will find on the egfl Edinburgh website
(You will need your password)
• Click - GLOW Portal
• Click - National Website
• Click - City of Edinburgh Council and Noticeboard
• Click - GLOW group map
• Click - City Wide Group (orange box)
• Click - Early Years
• Click - Early Years Prinicipal Teachers
• Click - Documents
• Click – Literacy
Under Literacy heading you will find Circle Resources
Any Questions?
Thank you and please complete the
evaluation form 