Speaking and listening!

Early Communication and Language is a PRIME area and one that is the foundation for all learning.
Getting it right at an early age is VITAL for our children to be able to function in society and learn as they move on to school. It is the foundation for reading, writing and understanding ALL the other subjects that are taught and our children have to learn and so it is central to EVERYTHING we do here at Mucky Pups.
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Here are 10 key facts about Speech and Language development put together by the NDNA to get us all thinking about our children's speech development

1. The first three years of life are recognised as the most mportant period for acquiring speech and language skills.
   
   
2. Language is understanding speech .
   
   
3. Speech is talking.
   
   
4. Most children can understand language before they can say the words..
   
   
5. Most children and babies follow recognisable stages in their language development by relatively predictable stages.
   
   
6. The average four-year-old will reportedly have a receptive vocabulary of 8,000 words and an expressive vocabulary of 2,300 words.
   
   
7. Language skills develop more readily when children are exposed to lots of different sound, sights and consistent exposure to speech and language of others.
   
   
8. Attention and listening skills are essential for children to be able to recognise sounds and words, learn what they mean and how to use them.
   
   
9. A child may have difficulty keeping their attention some of the time or all of the time so reducing background noise such as television and music while you are speaking is a big help
   
   
10. Nursery rhymes and rhythms from birth encourage listening skills and kick start the listening process..

Here at Mucky Pups we love to talk, listen, sing, read and chat; to all our friends and grown ups while we are here. We have songs for everyday routines such as our "Hello song",, washing our hands song, a days of the week and months of the year song, our younger children have rhyme time each day and we all enjoy reading and listening to stories anywhere and everywhere we can! Each month we have a story and a song of the month that everyone learns and kick starts our learning for that month.

Our day is full of social times where we can talk to each other at snack, lunch, hello time, floorbook time and while we play with our friends. Someone is always ready to listen too!
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During this time of learning from home very often the government along with the Literacy trust have introduced a whole set of activities for you at home to give you ideas on how to develop your child's speech whilst doing everyday activities. It's called Chat, Play, Read! There are some great ideas to help you here