Talking Partners has helped nearly 500 children in Liverpool aged from four to eight with their speaking and listening skills, and is proving crucial to ethnic-minority youngsters, said Julie Spencer, Liverpool City Council's advisor for the communication scheme.
"One of the most successful aspects has been to improve confidence and self-esteem, and children from asylum-seeking families are often among the most needy," she said.
Pupils on the initiative receive three 20-minute sessions a week for 10 weeks, where they write stories and learn verbal skills. This is being extended to maths teaching, in order to help children tackle the subject's technical vocabulary.
Spencer said she eventually hoped the scheme would grow in size from covering 84 primary schools to all 200 in the city.
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