The NLT has launched a new project to help parents boost their children’s literacy skills at home.
The new website, small-talk.org.uk, contains videos, tips and information to help parents include fun and easy reading activities into their daily plan.
Small Talk, which is funded for 18 months, will target seven communities across England over the next year, where literacy skills in children are lower than expected for their age.
The National Literacy Trust is also going to train volunteers to support early years professionals at events which parents attend with their children. Volunteers will then show parents ways they can help children at home.
Events will take place in a few cities: Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Swindon and Peterborough.
The launch of Small Talk corresponds to the “Language unlocks reading” report, written by the National Literacy Trust, with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Literacy and Oxford Press. The report talks about the link between a child’s early language skills and their future life chances. It explains that children with poor language skills at the age of five, are six times less likely to reach the expected standard of communication skills by the age of eleven, and twice as likely to be unemployed by the age of 34.
Head of Home Learning Environment at the National Literacy Trust, Judith Parke, said to Nursery World: “When parents are involved in their children’s literacy development, it makes a huge difference to their success at school and in later life.
“Small Talk will help parents turn the daily activities they are already doing with their children into opportunities to build their child’s language skills and give them the foundations for a brighter future.”
Story by: Nursery World