Developing Early Literacy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Developing Early Literacy - Essay Example Language development entails learning four strands namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Oracy skills fall under listening and speaking while literacy skills fall under reading and writing. This paper will explore the links between oracy and literacy and how skills development in communication, language and literacy skills of very young children (aged 3-5 years) can be supported with various learning strategies, mostly including books and shared stories. The government’s flagship programme for children and young people aptly named Every Child Matters, makes it their mission to achieve five outcomes for children. These outcomes, identified by the children themselves, are as follows: â€Å"to be healthy; to stay safe; to enjoy and achieve; to make a positive contribution; and to achieve economic well-being† (HM Government, 2007). Speech, language and communication underpin achievement of every one of these outcomes. Inability to communicate effectively puts children at risk of poor outcomes such as struggling to engage in and enjoy education since most aspects of education are based on language use. The Rose Review (2009) made a clear connection between strong speaking and listening skills and children’s ability to learn and read. That is why communication, language and literacy has been identified and targeted to be one of the specific learning areas in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS, 2007). A great deal of a child’s acquisition of linguistic structure occurs during the first five years of life. This is the period when he is most active in discerning a set of underlying organizational principles of language from the expression that surrounds him. It is amazing how at a very young age, he is capable of abstracting meaning from direct experience with other language users depending on his own context. Beaty