Pre-Birth to Three: - Literacy and Numeracy
Narrator: Literacy and Numeracy are fundamental to all areas of learning. As babies and young children develop being literate and numerate helps them to function responsibly in everyday life, and contribute effectively to society. Children are born into a literate and numerate world; staff can provide an environment that promotes and develops these vital skills.
Karen Butler: It’s important also that children play and learn in an environment that focuses very much on literacy and numeracy skills. For example, in our two to three room we would have a range of resources that are freely available to children, so that there is an element of choice in their day to day routines. We would have building bricks, we would have trains, we would have activities where the children can use the train set or the garage, but numbers would be introduced through the number of vehicles in the garage, or the number of carriages on the train.
Books are high profile, and the children enjoy books, and books are an integral part of their day-to-day sessions in the nursery.
Narrator: Literacy and numeracy skills are essential in improving children’s confidence and wellbeing, especially in relation to building meaningful relationships, and understanding their own place and role in society.
Liz Hutcheson: We ensure that there are a variety of resources available. But the staff, as your main resources, they interact with the children, for example at snack time, maybe counting how many children are there, counting how many grapes they are going to eat. In outdoor play, for example, how many children have a ball; we constantly refer to numbers, even at this early age, and shapes etc.
With early literacy staff constantly support children in this area, where children who show an interest in letters, for example, the staff will encourage them to point to their name, environmental print when they are out walking, labels on walls. We are constantly reinforcing this and children do very quickly pick up on these very basic areas and take it forward into the three to five room.
Narrator: Early literacy starts with attunement between the parent and baby. Tuning in to the baby’s needs by understanding, respecting and responding to first sounds, facial expressions and body language helps to support early literacy development.
Paula Dudgeon: Children need an adult that’s tuned into them, and that they can tune into. And if you watch very young children as they are exploring their play, and they are maybe about to do something, they will look to the adult that they have a relationship with, that they have an attachment with, to check. So they will look for feedback about, yeah that’s okay, on you go, or no, no be careful.
Lynn Walsh: We are working together to develop strategies that are going to support the child, both at home and in the nursery. And from these strategies what we hope is to ensure that we are developing the child’s emotional literacy, to enable them to become more resilient as they go through the stages of their learning and development. And if we can get it right at those early stages, and develop all those concepts of emotional literacy, of the resilience in the child, then hopefully we are going to ensure that our children are becoming successful, they are going to become capable, and they are going to want to learn.
Narrator: Offering opportunities for stories, two way conversations, listening, rhymes, singing, mark making, environmental print and creative and imaginative play are all effective and fun ways of developing literacy.
Language is only part of a huge range of things we do to communicate. You can communicate by dancing, people communicate a great deal with body language, which is by gesture and by movement on their body and changes in their posture. Babies are amazingly sensitive to body language, and they can recall rituals like, for example, nursery song. A three or four month old baby can recognise a nursery song and take part in it. We are very keen on explaining to people that babies are interested in stories long before they can speak. And when the person speaks to them they hear the sense of the narrator in the way it is spoken, the changes of rhythm, the changes of loudness and excitement in the voice and so on. They make a story. It is very important for people to realise, that when they are spending time with children from the age of six months onwards they are starting to become part of the culture. And they want a rich environment; they want a rich environment with lots of different kinds of people doing different things.
Jacqueline Turner: I use stories a lot in my child-minding setting because I find that the children get really excited about it, and it gives them a focus away from toys and away from crafts and away from television, and they can sit down and really listen and enjoy communication. And I have started using story sacks which I have filled with lots of little different bits and pieces to do with each story; I have done a little red riding hood one, and we have got a beautiful cape in it, and the children love it. When we take out the cape they get to put the cape on, or sometimes I wear it and we have got a little doll that we use for the story as well, and it really involves the children in the story. And obviously through spending time with a child you get to see what they enjoy, and you can offer them activities that will challenge them, that they enjoy, and that we can see if they are learning, like a counting game. Activities for learning don’t always have to be inside; a lot of the time we go outside and we play games outside, counting games, we do hopscotch and we count the numbers on the board as we go along. We play skittles, and if they knock down skittles we count how many skittles they have knocked down. If we put stones into the basket we count them as we go along. So we do a lot of learning outside as well, it’s not just based inside.
Narrator: An awareness of numeracy and mathematical concepts starts from the moment babies are born. They are predisposed to seek out the shape of the human face which can be observed. Where babies even when only a few weeks old seem to take turns in conversations. Children may use their senses to explore, for example, the size, shape and weight of an object as they learn to identify and categorise shape, objects and colour. Staff can support the development of literacy and numeracy by developing play experiences, capitalising on the many spontaneous opportunities arising from daily activities. Engaging in appropriate skilled conversation and questioning, promoting discovery play using treasure basket and heuristic play sessions offer the baby and young child the perfect environment for development of early numeracy skills such as the concepts of number, counting, measurement, weight and capacity.
Ruth Eglington: Heuristic play provides an opportunity for our children who are mobile to come in and be provided with a wide range of natural resources, including things like wooden spoons, ropes, chains, pipes, resources which give an opportunity for us even at the earliest stage to develop early maths skills in the children because there are opportunities for them to fill an empty containers, to fit ropes through tubes, to pair up items, to sort items, so even at that earliest stage they are getting that opportunity.
Narrator: Staff can also make full use of the outdoor environment as it provides children with opportunities for experiences such as recognising environmental print, and exploring textures, shape, opposites, climate and space.
Jane McEwan: When we are outside we have got lots of literacy equipment outside to enhance children’s learning. We have got the pens, the pencils, the chalks all to hand so that the children can come and choose which activity they would like to participate in. And we encourage the children maybe to sing while we are drawing; we could be drawing humpty dumpty and they could be singing at the same time, or we could be drawing incy-wincy spider, and we could be singing the song at the same time as drawing incy-wincy spider. And these are the kind of activities that maybe the children are interested in, we pull it out at that time, and it’s for their interest.
During the outdoor play we also use squeezy water bottles filled with coloured water to encourage the children to draw on the floor of the outdoor play, and they may be making large shapes and encouraging gross motor skills.
While we are outside we also encourage early maths; we have got examples of children being able to use the pouring and the filling and the emptying of the water, we have also got shape mats for the children to sit down and be comfortable on the ground, we have also got some activities that the children can be threading with, and we have also got magnetic blocks which encourage development of fine motor skills as well.
Narrator: Involving parents in their child’s learning, for example, by providing a home lending library, and keeping them informed of the stories, rhymes and songs that the child is learning ensures parents and staff can work together to support children as they develop literacy and numeracy skills.
Barbara Morrison: Well I am a grandparent and I take my granddaughter Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to the nursery for my daughter who works Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Old MacDonald had a farm e-i-e-i-o.
Every week she gets a baby sack and in it is a book, and wee animals that relate to the story, and maybe there is a song. So it means then that I am kept up to date with what they are learning. So we read the story, play with the animals, sing the song, and she is learning all the time. And I am learning also as well.
Karen Butler: It’s important that parents are involved in their children’s learning. And we encourage this in the nursery through organising numerous workshops and open days where parents are invited in, in a very informal setting, to work alongside the practitioners and their children. It may be a book start day, it may be an art and craft day, it may be an early numeracy day, or even an outdoor play day. We tend to find that parents are at first quite reluctant to come along, but after they have been along to the first session they are actually suggesting other ideas for workshops.
We also have a lending library, where parents can come in and borrow different materials to use with their children. And we have home-link bags where there are materials in the bags but prompts to help the parents so that they know what they should or could be doing at home with the children to encourage them and help them in the learning process.
Narrator: Staff in early years settings are in ideal position to support patents who are experiencing literacy or numeracy difficulties, by signposting them to relevant organisations.
Narrator: In what ways do you ensure that children in your setting experience a variety of opportunities which promote and develop literacy and numeracy skills?
What could you do to enrich and improve these opportunities, for example by making them more engaging, progressive and linked to real-life experiences?