How do we encourage early communication and reading skills?

[Teachervoice]

In light of the recent news surrounding school age children lacking in language, communication and reading skills, I'm wondering if someone can tell me the best ways to encourage these in a preschooler?

For background, I'm a secondary English teacher so know how to encourage progress in all of these areas after the age of 11 but have no clue how it all works in tiny people.

Common sense suggests that lots of speaking, and reading together in the early years must help but are there more specific things we should be doing with children under 5?

Really interested to hear from any specialists but also those with anecdotal evidence.

Singing and music can really help with language acquisition.

My dd now 6 is very good at reading, we read with her from a very early age and I also bought her some phonics dvds and books (she started nursery at 6 months) - I just used to put the dvds on when she was having lunch, I didn't actually ever do anything specific apart from I suppose I would spell out simple words for her when we were playing with foam letters in the bath - I have no idea if it helped but she has always been a bookworm for as long as I can remember

Talking, reading together, singing.

I feel so sad these days when I see mums out with their little ones pushing them along in buggies or sat on the bus/train glued to their phones. I talked non-stop to mine when we were out and about - what we could see, where we were going, what we were going to do. Both mine were talking well by about 10 months, but I still felt guilty because I had unknowingly bought a forward facing pushchair (which was very wrong as your lo couldn't see you and therefore couldn't interact - we still managed).

Unless there’s some sort of underlying issue, you’ve already got it. Just talk to your child and read to them.

Many many moons ago one of the many things I learned from a teacher of deaf preschoolers was attaching name cards to everyday objects eg 'Table,' 'door,' etc so the child got used to the written word being used for things too.
Another one was encouraging the child to collect small things from around the house that were 'blue' for instance and putting them in a pile labelled 'Blue' somewhere out of the way but low down so the child could see their stash of blue objects and become familiar with reading the word relating to the colour.

It worked wonders for my 3 yr old as he was at the time.

Developing language and literacy starts with babies. Talking to your baby, singing with them, face to face in the pram so they can see you, reading to them on a regular basis. This can all be carried on through early years. The biggest issue I see at work is that many parents don't engage with their children, they give them a phone or tablet to play on or ignore their child's cries of Mummy Mummy Mummy when the child wants to tell them something. I hate to say it but I think mobile phones have a lot to answer for!! Also parents don't get to see health visitors in the same way, in our area HVs are huge advocates of reading, singing and talking to baby from birth plus joining the library and using the bookstart packs.
Advice we give to parents is to have conversations with your child, have time together where there are no phones/TV etc so the focus is on each other and the world around you. We also find that increasingly parents believe that it is the role of preschool, nursery or school to teach these skills along with many other essential skills such as toilet training, getting dressed, understanding instructions and more. We are now running school readiness sessions to try and engage parents in helping their child development the skills needed to start school.
Words for life has some great advice and ideas www.wordsforlife.org.uk/

I don't think it's really anything particularly special or difficult - just talk to your baby or young child.

The children with problems are coming from homes where they are not really engaged with - they are stuck in front of screens and given dummies/snacks/drinks to keep them quiet for the whole day.

Speech therapists will tell you - keep dummy use to a minimum, preferably sleep times only if at all. Certainly discourage speaking through the dummy. Don't let children wander around with baby bottles, keep drinks just to mealtimes/snack times. Make eye contact and be face to face when you talk to your child. Talk to them even before they talk back - just explain what you're doing or sing or read or whatever you're comfortable with.

Don't have TV on in the background constantly - that can hinder conversation and make it more difficult for little children to understand what's being said and pick up the natural rhythms of conversation.

Helpful extras can be things like using a parent-facing pram, using sign language with preverbal babies, reading to your child, sharing mealtimes and having this as social time, singing repetitive, familiar songs and attending groups where these are used - but none of these things are essential, they are more like tools which can assist you with the basics which are talk to and communicate with your child, face to face contact, and without distraction/hindrance like screens and items in the mouth.

Talking to your child; asking and answering questions. A lot of parents I see are glued to their phone instead of speaking to their kids.
Reading to them, getting them to talk about the pictures and asking and answering questions about the story.
Taking them to the library so they choose books they like and get used to handling and respecting them; also means you don't have the clutter of books at home if you hate that!
Role play; dressing up and using their imagination.
Less t.v. and tech time (parents too!) and more conversation.
Singing songs and nursery rhymes.

It's not that it's difficult; it's a combination of laziness (its easy to stick kids in front of the TV or a tablet) and parents who don't value the above or education in general (possibly due to their own lack of it).

Having greater expectations about the level of vocab children can understand - use the new word alongside a know version eg careful, its 'fragile' it might break easily and soon you can just use the new one.

And when they ask why, sometimes get a book or you tube clip and explore their question. Sometimes ask, well what do you think? Especially if they've had the question answered a million times before.

As above
CBeebies over nonsense tv. They are all trained actors the presenters and speak better English than me.
Putting our phones down and describing the world.

I can't tell you, DS1 is 5 and on band 7 reading books and is... verbose. DS2 is almost 3 and barely speaks. He has a diagnosed speech delay. I have parented them both the same, I talk, I listen, I stimulate, we have books... so sometimes, you can do it all right, but you are parenting a different kid.

Some really interesting comments here. I especially like your idea @SugarandVinegar of labelling things.

So sad that so many of you have encountered parents who can't tear themselves away from their phones to interact with their children.

The only thing I'm sort of against is not having a forward facing pushchair! My little one absolutely loves looking around at nature and what's going on in the world, when we're out and about, which I've always seen as more beneficial to him than staring at my ugly mug!

I think you're onto something there @Di11y - it's something we're guilty of in Year 7 too: assuming that vocabulary and techniques are too advanced, when in actual fact they've been covered in primary school.

I agree with FurForksSake
All four of my children had plenty of parental interaction, nursery rhymes, daily storytime etc.

Child 1: speech & language issues due to undiagnosed glue ear. Speech not intelligible to people outside the family until Y1.
Child 2: advanced verbal skills, spoke in full sentences by age 2 then taught himself to read soon after.
Child 3: global developmental delay, was linking words to make 2-3 word phrases by reception but not speaking in full sentences.
Child 4: met speech & language milestones at average age, middle of the normal distribution curve.

Although the input received at home is part of the story, there are other factors (genetics, hearing impairment etc)

I can’t find the exact quote, but Bookstart used to have a poster that said something like:

If you read to me
If you sing to me
If you talk to me
If you play with me
Then I’ll know what it’s all about

And that’s the basics of early reading and communication in a nutshell I think!

I read ‘Baby Talk’ by Sally Ward following a suggestion on Mumsnet and would recommend it. The book talks about normal development and is full of practical suggestions of things to do. Even if they are things you would naturally do anyway it is a very interesting read.

I forgot to say that this book is more about speech development from an early age than learning to read but it is a good starting point for younger children.

Sounds fantastic @MoonriseKingdom - thanks for the recommendation.