Recently, the school introduced provision for two-year-olds and hopes this will give disadvantaged children a head start developing their speech and language. The 30-million word gap has received much attention recently in . The home-based nature of the programme is key, allowing workers to support parents with resources to hand, says Heald. In their study of 42 Midwestern families, Hart and Risley physically recorded an hour's worth of language in each home once a month over 2½ years. Jun 6, 2018 - In this landmark research study, Betty Hart & Todd Risley recorded parent-child spoken interactions in 42 families. "The training covered children's vocabulary journey from simple babbling to putting words together," says Dean. Research science. How to create and deliver an online lecture: A survival guide... Women and minority faculty in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), Euroacademy – Profesional Higher Education, The MOSES Project: Shaping the future of European Short Sea Shipping, Brain cancer therapeutics: Overcoming the barriers. Closing the word gap is the top priority in the UK government’s social mobility action plan and the funding to ensure this happens is being realised through the Department for Education’s programmes in the home, local services and early years settings. This is great to see. UK children in receipt of free school meals and who live in disadvantaged areas are 2.3 times more likely to have a speech, language or communication need. "My background is in early years and I knew what a difference it can make to reach children early. By 18 months, children in different socio-economic groups display dramatic differences in their vocabularies. Preschool teachers ask children too many simple questions. July. In fact, a 2003 study called the 30 million word gap, reported children from lower-income families hear 30 million fewer words than children from higher-income families by the time they are three years old. Not only are children not hearing enough words in total, as they are not being spoken to enough, they also hear fewer different words, producing smaller vocabularies and resulting in reduced understanding.". Recently, Oxford University Press published ‘Why closing the word gap matters’, reporting on a survey of over 1,000 teachers; 40% felt students lacked the vocabulary to access learning and over 60% of secondary teachers felt the gap between students with poor word knowledge and their peers was increasing. Children’s language at age five is the single most important factor in predicting literacy at age 11 – more important than behaviour, peer relationships, emotional well-being, positive interaction and attention. The recordings also showed that children in poorer families spoke around four times fewer new words per day. Researchers also identified a difference in the type and quality of interactions experienced by less well-off children with quality and quantity found to be of equal importance. Investment is being made in national schemes to train health visitor and early years professionals to support families around speech, language and communication and a raft of early language and literacy schemes run by councils and charities. Speech, language and communication needs to be explicitly found in all curricula in order for teachers and early years practitioners to focus on it, and for Ofsted to inspect it. They found that a child in a family on benefit heard 30 million words less than a child in a professional family. Families were classified by socioeconomic status(… The word gap refers to children whose lack of vocabulary significantly affects their learning and, as a result, their future life chances. "There were no schools in the area offering provision for disadvantaged two-year-olds eligible for funded places," says Louise Dean, early years lead at Little Squirrels Nursery. "This is a crucial point in identifying speech and language issues," says Clark. You have entered an incorrect email address! Research has even revealed that the gap begins as early as 18 months of age. We also need to enable the teaching and learning of underlying skills that promote communication and language development. Little Squirrels aims to help children develop their skills in a fun and interactive way with activities like "mud day" and "international dough disco day" involving playdough and music. That is really good for us. This is known as the “word gap,” and it can lead to disparities not just in vocabulary size, but also in school readiness, long-term educational and health outcomes, earnings, and family stability. Given early years and school curricula are delivered through spoken and written language, it makes absolute sense to equip staff and parents to tackle this problem. The award is given to schools which have trained and supported all staff in communication and language development. Parents and the extended family as primary educators of children are vitally important. Early years expert James Hempsall explores efforts to address the language gap. ", NOTTINGHAMSHIRE CHILD-CENTRED APPROACH BOOSTS LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT. The 30 million-word gap was originally developed by researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley and suggests that children up to age 4 from a lower socioeconomic status heard 30 million fewer words than children from a higher socioeconomic status. The 30 Million Word Gap The Role of Parent-Child Verbal Interaction in Language and Literacy Development . New programs tackle the language gap by encouraging poorer parents to talk more to their children. Concerns about poor speech and communication abilities among children entering reception was one factor that drove Redgate Community Primary School to develop its own nursery provision. Children's charities and others are to get £6.5m via the Department for Education's Early Years Disadvantage Voluntary and Community Sector grants programme for 2018-2020 for projects that close the disadvantage gap or support young children with special educational needs and disabilities. Studies have shown that other aspects of language also lag behind – children’s ability to talk in sentences, their understanding of instructions and how well they can put their thoughts into words to tell someone what has happened. Monday, July 29, 2019. 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