Teachers, are you worried about the phonics check?

Communicating Phonics is a brand new free publication from The Communication Trust aimed at Key Stage 1 teachers Communicating Phonics is a guide to support teachers delivering and interpreting the phonics screening test to children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). The guide will help
teachers to deliver the test this June, but also has lots of useful tips and advice to support the overall literacy development of children with SLCN.

Why you should read it?
The phonics checklist, also known as the phonics test or phonics screen, is being administered to Year 1 children from June 2012. The Department for Education has supplied universal guidance for administering the checklist and for interpreting and responding to the results. There are, however, implications for many children with special educational needs (SEN) and particularly those with SLCN.
The term ‘speech, language and communication needs’ (SLCN) is used to describe a wide range of issues that make it difficult for children to communicate with others.

SLCN is the most common SEN identified by primary schools (26.5%) and is a feature of many other areas of SEN, such as hearing impairment, learning difficulties and autistic spectrum difficulties. SLCN is also the most common childhood disability: 10% of all children have SLCN as a long term need. Evidence also shows that in areas of social deprivation 50% of children may enter school with delayed language. SLCN is often under‐identified. This guide, put together with the expertise of nearly 50 of specialist organsiations, will support teachers in
delivering the test but also in overall literacy development of children with SLCN.


How is the guide structured?
Communicating Phonics provides a general overview of issues and then detailed information on 14 different types of SLCN, with a particular focus on the phonics test. It also gives details on how to interpret the outcomes of the test and support the literacy development of children with SLCN.

We know how busy teachers are so the guide has been organised so that teachers can dip in to get to the information they need. This includes:
- General principles
- A quick reference table
- Detailed information on particular SLCN, and how they relate to the test
- Links to a glossary of terms and resources on speech, language and communication
Download the guide at www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk/phonics 

Half of boys aren't ready for school and they're not catching up

This article caught my eye today, the research featured backs up another London University study which showed that poor language skills at aged 7 was a good predictor of later socio-economic well being... a very scary but real link! This one associates it with an even more blighted future too:

By Stephen Adams 6:30AM GMT 11 Feb 2011 The Daily Telegraph

Statistics from the Department for Education show that 53 per cent of boys have not reached a "good level of development" by five, compared to 35 per cent of girls. Combined, the figure is 44 per cent.

Children are assessed by teachers to see if they can carry out basic skills like writing their name and reciting letters of the alphabet.

Yesterday, a leading public health adviser warned that the life-long impact of failing to reach this earliest of grades was "horrendous".

Sir Michael Marmot, professor of public health at University College London, said: "Only about 50 per cent of children are rated by their teachers as having achieved a good level of development by the age of five.

"You know what that means? Poorer level of early school development; poorer performance at every school stage; lower status; living in a poor area.

"It all starts at the beginning of life and works through the life course. This is horrendous really."

Those who failed at school also tend to live shorter lives that are blighted earlier by disability.

A year ago Sir Michael unveiled a review, called Fair Society, Healthy Lives, into how to even out the differences in people's health across geographical areas and social classes.

Giving pre-school children "the best start in life" was the highest priority recommendation, as targeting them has the biggest effect.

Sir Michael proposed increasing spending on this age group with measures such as "more parenting support programmes, a well-trained early years work force and high quality early years care".

The work we are doing at Small Talk Speech & Language Therapy and Smart Talkers pre-school groups is all aimed to address these issues.  We have a comprehensive package of programmes and activities to train staff by demonstration, help parents and above all share examples of good practise to benefit the children. For more about us www.private-speech-therapy.co.uk and www.smarttalkers.org.uk.

or ring 0844 704 5888

Related articles

• Half of boys failing at school by five (telegraph.co.uk)
• Pre-schoolers 'still ahead at 15' (bbc.co.uk)
• Almost half of boys falling behind in school at five, research reveals (dailymail.co.uk)
• Child development concerns raised (bbc.co.uk)
• 60% of poorest children fail to reach good level of behaviour, says study (guardian.co.uk)

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Language link to 'bubble blowing'

I was looking at some old archive news on language acquisition and I thought 

this was worth sharing from 2006. It's from the BBC news website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5106294.stm

Infants who can blow bubbles and lick their lips are more likely to pick
 up language quickly, research suggests.

A Lancaster University study of 120 toddlers found the ability to perform 

complex mouth movements was strongly linked with language development. 

They also found children who were good at 'pretending' an object was 

something else had better language skills.

The findings could help experts identify children who may struggle with language skills at an early stage. At 21 months - the age of the toddlers in the study  - children are learning new words at a faster rate than any other time 

in their lives.

Children pick up language skills at different speeds - some children will be late 

to start talking - but this doesn't mean they will always have poorer language 

skills than other children.

In a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Dr Katie Alcock, lecturer in psychology at Lancaster University, carried out a series of tests to identify skills that might predict a child's ability to develop language. She looked at the infants' ability to perform hand gestures and mouth movements and to carry out tasks involving puzzles and pretend play.

The children's language ability was also assessed through a parental 

questionnaire, word games with simple images, and monitoring during normal play. 

As well as oral motor skills, she found that hand gestures such as waving 

or making shapes were associated with better language development but 

other movements such as walking and running were not.

Pretending

The researchers said they expected to find that children who had better cognitive development, such as being able to do a puzzle or match pictures and colours, would have better language skills. But in fact, only the ability to pretend that one object was another object - such as pretending a wooden block is a car or hairbrush - was associated with better language skills. Dr Alcock said: "Until children are about two they are very poor at licking things off their lips or giving someone a proper kiss. "If they don't have those skills it's going to be a big stumbling block in learning to form sounds. "Children who have speech and language problems before they go to school do tend to have problems with learning to read and write. "It's important we give children who need it extra help as early as we can."

Dr Alcock added that children learn to speak at different times and most children who start late will catch up. "The best thing parents can do to help is talk to their kids," she added.

The team are planning to follow the children at three, four and five years to see how the skills that were found to be linked to language impact on later development.