How scheme boosts children's literacy skills

Project Making it Real

Funding A total of £368,000 over three years from the Big Lottery Fund’s Family Learning Programme

Purpose To enhance young children’s progress in early language, literacy and social skills

Background Sheffield Council was keen to boost children’s achievement in literacy and tackle relatively low levels of attainment among young children.

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) results at the end of reception year showed just 40 per cent of children were achieving a good level of development in 2007 and 45 per cent in 2008.

The city was one of two areas to take part in a three-year scheme co-ordinated by the Early Childhood Unit at the National Children’s Bureau. It tested the Real (Raising Achievement in Early Literacy) approach, which was developed by the University of Sheffield and already had strong evidence of a lasting impact on early language and literacy.

Action The project began in September 2009, with children and families invited to take part in four children’s centre areas – most based in the 30 per cent most deprived areas of Sheffield.

Teachers and early years practitioners identified 16 children in each centre who would benefit from additional support, with each family offered up to four home visits and invited to attend four literacy events, which could include story-telling or a trip to a local library.

The Real approach, developed by Professors Cathy Nutbrown and Peter Hannon, gets parents involved in developing children’s language and literacy skills and boosting the home-learning environment.

The approach is backed by a theoretical framework known as ORIM, which has four key elements. Parents are encouraged to boost opportunities (O) for literacy such as ensuring children have access to books, writing material and CDs or DVDs of nursery rhymes; and encourage their children by recognising (R) and supporting progress.

Parents are also encouraged to interact (I) with children through play; and finally, model (M) literacy behaviour, which means setting an example by using literacy in their daily lives, such as reading a paper or making lists.

Cheryl Pugh, EYFS consultant, children’s centre teacher and lead for Making it Real in Sheffield, says the use of home visits is important. “We’re going out to them and not expecting them to come to us all the time,” she says. “We were worried we’d have quite a high drop-out rate, but that didn’t happen.”

In fact, feedback from families has been overwhelmingly positive. In the first year, 61 out of 64 families remained with the scheme. The project has also been surprisingly successful in involving fathers, says Pugh.

Outcome Evaluation shows that the project has helped boost parents’ confidence and engagement with children’s centre activities and improved children’s social, early language and literacy skills.

The latest available results from Sheffield, for 64 families that took part in the second year of the scheme, show that at the beginning of the project, just a quarter of parents said they were confident about talking to practitioners, but this figure increased to 85 per cent by the end.

Before, 54 per cent never or rarely attended stimulating events with their children, but now 64 per cent often do.

Previously, 32 per cent of children could name a favourite book, which went up to 80 per cent at the end of the project, while the proportion who often sang or said rhymes and songs went from 11 per cent to 66 per cent.

The scheme also achieved a vast improvement in children’s display of interest, concentration and motivation: 53 per cent were observed as having low or extremely low levels of involvement before, but 100 per cent showed moderate, high or extremely high involvement afterwards, based on the Ferre Laever Scales of involvement.