As I’ve said elsewhere, by the time children arrive at school, their language learning skills have already been largely set, and parents are the greatest influencer of pre-school learning.
As Frank Field MP has reported, children in poverty may hear only one third of the spoken words than children from middle class backgrounds. So one message is for children’s services professionals – work with parents to talk to and with their children from an early age.
But I agree with Stephen Twigg. The higher order skills of debate and discussion must be nurtured in school, and the earlier the better. Confidence in communication cannot simply be tacked on to the curriculum at a later stage, and needs to be developed early.
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