English Literacy at Huili Nursery

Nicola Street 

Assistant Head of Early Years 

If you hear the word ‘literacy’, 

what immediately springs to mind? 

The image of children hanging from monkey bars? Maybe children using playdough to make a cake for their shop? Or even a group of children listening for the sounds they can hear in the garden?

Perhaps not, but in early years this is exactly what literacy looks like; there are so many building blocks that need to be put in place before we can expect our children to read a book or write a sentence by themselves. 

Listening

Listening is one of the most important steps on the journey to becoming literate in English, or indeed any language. If a child is sitting quietly on the carpet, facing their teacher who is reading a story, are they listening? How do you know? The child may be hearing the words they are surrounded by, but that does not necessarily mean they are listening.

In the Nursery we concentrate on developing the skill of ‘active’ listening; hearing sounds, processing their meaning and acting upon them. We help pupils to distinguish the difference between sounds (fast, slow, high and low) whilst playing games with musical instruments, as well as helping them navigate the meaning of new words by linking actions to words in songs and daily routine language.

The skill of active listening builds focus, comprehension and the confidence children need to have a go. 

Talking

Our focus on listening is coupled with a lot of talking! During the day, adults narrate what they are doing and often turn everyday activities into a story. Children love to imitate what they see and hear around them, so the narration modelled by familiar adults begins to become part of their play.

Construction bricks become spaceships, paper figures become aliens, tiny glass pebbles become stars and the children begin to talk about the ideas they have in their heads. It is important that we do not skip over this step too quickly, after all we want our children to be able to communicate their ideas verbally before we expect them to write them down. 

Motor skills

In addition to more language specific skills, we work with all of our pupils to develop their gross (large movements) and fine (small movements) motor skills long before they are ready to write a sentence. We encourage climbing, both indoors and outdoors, to strengthen shoulder, arm, wrist and finger muscles, all of which are essential to hold a pen or pencil effectively.

▲Scroll to read "How we teach physical play at Huili Nursery"

The children are provided with tools of all shapes and sizes, as well as many manipulative resources such as play-dough and space clay to further develop the muscles in their wrists and fingers, preparing them to use writing implements with good control. 

Phonics

In EY3 and EY4, our daily ‘Read, Write, Inc.’ Phonics sessions enable the children to not only learn the 44 sounds of the English language, but also develop their vocabulary, reading, writing and spelling skills. We continue to model speaking and listening, and we continue to strengthen fine and gross motor skills.

Children start to take home reading books to share with their families and read on a 1:1 basis with familiar adults in the classroom to develop their story-telling, word reading and comprehension skills.

Our aim is for pupils to leave the Nursery at the end of EY4 as confident, enthusiastic and effective communicators. Our environments are full of opportunities for the children to apply their skills, independently or with a little support from the adults around them.

Many of our children are already willing to have a go and are becoming less worried about making mistakes; all down to the fact that they really believe in their own ability. The journey to ‘Literacy’ is not a race, and by teaching skills little and often we can afford our pupils the time and space to consolidate and practise what they have been learning at their own pace.