Kings Hill School Primary & Nursery

Communication and Language

EYFS Foundation Stage 1

We learn to:

Listening, attention and understanding:

• Respond to simple questions when in a familiar context with a special person e.g.  Where is mummy?
• Begin to listen to a range of different stories with interest
• Listen to familiar stories with increasing attention and recall
• Begin to understand ‘what, ‘where’ and who’ questions
• Follow simple 1 & 2 step instructions
• Begin to understand ‘why, ‘when’ and how’ questions
• Understand simple sentences
• Understand simple concepts e.g., big and little
• Use objects to show an understanding of prepositions
• Enjoy rhythmic and musical activity with percussion instruments, actions, rhymes and songs, clapping along with the beat and joining in with words of familiar songs and nursery rhymes.

Speaking

• Begin to describe sounds and music imaginatively, e.g., scary music
• Begin to interact with peers and adults making up their own simple stories
• Begin to make believe by pretending using sounds, movements, words and objects
• Use simple sentences e.g. ‘Mummy gone to work’
• Fill in the missing word or phrase in a known rhyme, story or game, e.g., Humpty Dumpty sat on a
• Begin to link words such as ‘and’ and ‘because’.
• Join in with repeated refrains and anticipates key events and phrases in rhymes and stories
• Talk about their favourite story and songs
• Use talk in pretending that objects stand for something else in play, e.g. ‘This box is my castle’ and to recreate roles in their play.
• To use communication skills to play co-operatively with their friends
• Take turns in conversations with adult support
• Use sentences with 2 and then 3 information carrying words
• Learn and use new vocabulary in various contexts
• Perform poetry and songs to adults and peer
• Begin to use social phrases ‘good morning’

We enable this by:

• Challenging children to identify objects by function.
• Modelling and encouraging ‘what?’, ‘where?’ and ‘who?’ questions.
• Regular ‘protected’ story-time
• Re-reading favourite stories and singing favourite rhymes.
• Commenting on what the children are interested in or doing using complete sentences.
• Introducing new words in a familiar context.
• Modelling correct grammar by echoing back to children what they have said with grammar corrected, e.g. ‘I seed a cat outside’ practitioner response ‘You saw a cat outside? I saw a cat outside too, it was black…’ emphasising the corrected grammar.
• Reading frequently to children and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts.
• Engaging children in conversations that include some ‘why?’, ‘when?’ and ‘how?’ questions. The responses may need to be modelled, E.g. ‘How did you make your playdough into a sausage shape?’ … ‘I thought I saw you rolling your playdough with your hands, is that how you made it into that sausage shape?’
• Beginning to model the use of some abstract concepts such as ‘before’, ‘after’ and ‘if’.
• Engage children in lots of singing – repeating favourite nursery rhymes and songs frequently
• When the children are engaged in storytelling, role-play and have general conversations, ask questions that invite them to elaborate.
• Encouraging children to recognise named colours and attempt to use colour names for themselves
• Attention groups to develop all Communication and Language skills, for example, ‘bucket time’, ‘what’s in the box’, ‘rhythm and rhyme’ sessions
• Modelling and encouraging the use of word category names e.g. toys, food, vegetables, clothes…
• Encouraging children to begin to link ideas using ‘and’ and ‘then’.
• Ensuring new experiences and visits to help children broaden their experiences and encourage ‘talk’.
• Enhancing the environment both inside and outdoor to provide children with a range of opportunities to broaden their experiences and encourage ‘talk’ and vocabulary development e.g.  Set up a tea-party and engage children in the activity with discussion and investigation of the resources and social aspects of a tea-party.

EYFS-Foundation Stage 2

We learn to:

Develop listening and speaking skills to enable us to use them in a range of different situations, within play, larger groups or when being read to.

Listening, attention & understanding:

• Know what questions are such as who, why, when, where, how and use them in conversation with others.
• Continue to define concrete nouns by use.
• Understand time and sequence concepts and use terms such as ‘first’, ‘then, ‘last’.
• Process language which includes challenging adjectives, verbs and positional vocabulary.
• Listen carefully to instructions and follow instructions of up to 3 steps.
• Listen attentively to enable them to respond to what they hear with relevant questions, comments and actions.
• Listen to a range of different stories with interest
• Make comments about what they have heard and ask questions to clarify their understanding

Speaking

• Hold conversations with back-and-forth exchanges with adults and peers.
• Hold a conversation with others, whilst busy with other things, making relevant comments and taking turns in their conversations.
• Use language and imagination to tell their own stories.
• Use relevant language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences in play with other children and adults.
• To participate in small group, class and one-to-one discussions, offering their own ideas, using recently introduced vocabulary
• Express ideas and feelings about their experiences using well-formed sentences, including use of past, present and future tenses and making use of conjunctions.
• Use talk to help work out problems and organise thinking and activities and to explain how and why.
• Use a wide range of new vocabulary in various contexts.
• Perform poetry, songs and plays confidently to an audience.
• Use social phrases correctly e.g.  ‘good morning’

We enable this by:

• Continuing to encourage a love of reading; Ensuring ‘protected story-time’ allowing children time to act stories out in detail later, alone or with friends - Story sacks.
• Continuing to model and encourage ‘what?’, ‘where?’, ‘how?’ and ‘who?’ questions.
• Encouraging children to use increasingly more complex sentences.
• Encouraging children to ask the meaning of abstract words and to use them.
• Continuing to encourage children to enjoy reciting or singing rhymes and songs.
• Modelling and encouraging the use of word category names e.g. toys, food, vegetables, clothes…
• Encouraging children to begin to link ideas linguistically using ‘and’, ‘then’ and ‘because’
• Commenting on what the children are interested in or doing using complete sentences introducing new vocabulary.
• Modelling and encouraging use of time and sequence concepts such as ‘first’, ‘then’ and ‘last’.
• Engaging children in conversations that include some ‘why?’, ‘when?’ ‘who?’ and ‘how?’ questions.
• Securing children’s use of language to compare objects e.g. ‘smaller’, ‘stronger’, ‘faster’.
• Echoing back what children say with new vocabulary added.
• Modelling and encouraging the correct use of past, present and future tenses.
• Ensuring new experiences and visits to help children to broaden their experiences and encourage ‘talk’.
• Enhancing the environment both inside and outdoor to provide children with a range of opportunities and resources to broaden their experiences and encourage ‘talk’ and vocabulary development e.g.  To expand knowledge of fruit and encourage talk provide a range of different fruit; Cut them open, smell them, feel them and taste them. Look at the skin and the flesh of the fruit with magnifying glasses, or using iPads with clip-on microscope lenses.

Year 1

Year 2

Years 3 and 4

Years 5 and 6 

Spoken Language

Pupils should be taught to:

• Listen and respond appropriately to adults and their peers
• Ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge
• Use relevant strategies to build their vocabulary
• Articulate and justify answers, arguments and opinions
• Give well-structured descriptions, explanations and narratives for different purposes, including for expressing feelings
• Maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations, staying on topic and initiating and responding to comments
• Use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas
• Speak audibly and fluently with an increasing command of Standard English
• Participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play, improvisations and debates
• Gain, maintain and monitor the interest of the listener(s)
• Consider and evaluate different viewpoints, attending to and building on the contributions of others
• Select and use appropriate registers for effective communication.

Progression

Oral vocabulary

Discussing a wide range of poems, fiction and non-fiction

Recognising and joining in with predictable phrases

Participate in discussion about what is read of them, taking turns and listen to what others say

Explain clearly their understanding of what is read to them.

Saying out loud what they are going to write about

Composing a sentence orally before writing it

Read aloud their writing clearly enough to be heard by their peers and the teacher

Retell some familiar stories

Discuss and express views on a wide range of stories, poems, plays and information texts

Compose individual sentences orally

Discuss the sequence of events in books and how items of information are related

Discussing their favourite words and phrases

Poems learnt by heart

Participate in discussion about books, poems and other works …taking turns and listening to what they say

Explain and discuss their understanding of books, poems and other material

Planning or saying out loud what they are going to write about

Develop their wider skills in spoken language

Become more familiar with and confident in using language in a greater variety of situations, for a variety of audiences and purposes, including through drama, formal presentations and debate.

Discuss a wide range of fiction, poetry, plays, non-fiction and reference books or textbooks. 

Preparing poems and play scripts to read aloud and to perform, showing understanding through intonation, tone, volume and action

Discussing words and phrases that capture the reader’s interest and imagination

Asking questions to improve their understanding of a text

Participate in discussion about books that are read to them and those they can read for themselves, taking turns and listening to what others say.

Plan their writing by discussing similar writing to that which they are planning to write in order to understand and learn from its structure, vocabulary and grammar

Plan their writing by discussing and recording ideas

Composing and rehearsing ideas orally

Read aloud their own writing, to a group or the whole class, using appropriate intonation and controlling the tone and volume so the meaning is clear.

Read aloud a wider range of poetry and books written at an age-appropriate interest level with accuracy and at a reasonable speaking pace

Prepare readings, with appropriate intonation to show their understanding, and should be able to summarise and present a familiar story in their own words.

Discuss what they are learning and to develop their wider skills in spoken language form part of a programme of study.

Pupils’ confidence, enjoyment and mastery of language should be extended through public speaking, performance and debate.

Asking questions to improve their understanding

Participate in discussions about books that are read to them and those they can read for themselves, building on their own and others’ ideas and challenging views courteously

Explain and discuss their understanding of what they have read, including through formal presentations and debates, maintaining a focus on the topic and using notes where necessary

Provide reasoned justifications for their views

Perform their own compositions, using appropriate intonation, volume and movement so that meaning is clear