We have been delivering the Early Words together pilot project in Lichfield and Burntwood since January 2014. It is a superb new initiative from the National Literacy Trust to help families develop their skills in order to help their children at home. Studies have shown that parents are a huge influence on children's educational success, so if they can help from very early on, it will have a knock one effect to school progress and beyond. The NLT call it the 'home learning environment' or HLE.
The 6 week programme looks at the importance of sharing books, how nursery rhymes are still important, mark making, choosing stories and also includes a visit from the library staff.
We took baselines at the start, although we found they were not too accurate as parents often said what they though we wanted to hear and the real answers didn't emerge until they trusted us! We re-assessed the situation at the end.
We have had some great results. To me, the biggest successes were the confidence they reported (and showed) to read and play with their children and 98% of the parents who attended were reading bedtime stories by the end of the 6 weeks! The membership of the library went up from 2% to 48%. If there have been similar successes in the national pilot, it will be rolled out across the country.
We've not posted in a while as we've been so busy this month that we haven't had time to write about it! What have we been doing? Well........
- Weekly Targeted sessions in nurseries and children's centres in Stafford, South Staffs, Lichfield, Burntwood, East Staffs and Tamworth areas
- Universal sessions in Children's Centres in Lichfield, Burntwood, East Staffs and Tamworth including Chatter Tots, Stories and Songs and Baby Talkers
- Bookstart in Stafford for families of toddlers 12m to 3 years
- Early Words Together in South Staffs, Lichfield and Burntwood. This is a new project from the National Literacy Trust for families of children aged 2 -5 years
- The Transition project in Tamworth: a really exciting initiative to help children and families plus network with nurseries and schools
- Various specialist assessments and reports for second opinions and tribunals
- Assessing children for a new channel 4 programme by Maverick TV called 'Born this way?'
- Specialist assessment and therapy in a secure mental health unit
- Individual and group therapy sessions in schools, children's homes and nurseries
- Therapy sessions for the LEA
- Training including Elklan 'working with under 3s' ideal for think two staff. It's accredited at level 2 or 3. We've also been running signing workshops and practical sessions on developing language through play in local nurseries.
- Plus taken on 20 new referrals in March
Erm... I think that's all!
Thank you very much to the team for all their hard work and dedication
We'll update progress on each shortly!
