Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI)

[VeeringTowardsMuff1ns]

Has anyone got any experience with this? My DS has been selected to do it - to the puzzlement of both myself and his teacher as his language skills seem fine and he’s doing well in literacy (he did not do well on the baseline testing but it’s a bit of a puzzle why). I’m hoping it’ll benefit him in terms of building up his confidence (which could do with a boost following this latest round of lockdown) but without knowing the materials it’s difficult for me to judge.

Thanks, that was much more informative than most of the other things I managed to find. I’m still undecided though!

I've run a similar programme as a HLTA, there was a fairly comprehensive assessment to find out which children it was suitable for. What makes you undecided?

Michino, I’m not sure because he’s not part of the target group for this intervention - children with a language impairment who are at risk of experiencing difficulties with reading. Both myself and his teacher were surprised at him being selected for this programme (using a computerised screening) as a) his language has never seemed to be an issue and b) he’s already ahead of most of the class in reading and phonics. As I said, I did think it had the potential to help develop his confidence but if the materials are pitched at too low a level then I’m concerned it will have the opposite effect. In fact, now I’ve looked at the programme, it does seem quite ridiculous that the second part introduces letter sounds and phonological awareness activities when he’s way, way beyond that and has been for quite some time. So, on balance, I think I might ask for him to be included initially on a trial basis and only continue if it seems to be of benefit to him.

I'm not familiar with that particular programme. It seems (from a quick search) that the assessment deals with communication skill such as vocab, expressive and receptive language. Sometimes these kinds of specific difficulties aren't clear from everyday conversations. I certainly found some surprising gaps when I did my assessments for the programme I use. There doesn't seem to be a phonological assessment unless there is another one before they start the second part. You say it would help his confidence, so I can't see much of a downside to be honest. How old is he?

He’s 5 1/2 and is the oldest in the year. I did initially think it might help boost his confidence but if it’s focussing on really basic language skills maybe he’ll not like it and it would be more of a discouragement.

The DFE are funding this intervention as part of their catch up strategy. My school has received all of the resources and training and it does look very good.

We are implementing some of the ideas and strategies whole class. It uses the Language Screen assessment, which covers more than just spoken language.

What did his report say.
Dc2 came out worse than i expected.
Our school seem to be using it for intervention for the whole year group.
Seems like a big waste of time to me.
Most of the kids language is pretty good.
What my dc needs is

• access to the right phonic reading books - we are stuck on where we would have been in jan as they continued rather than moving to where we learnt up to
• practice of the irregular words

@HSHorror overall was below average, receptive and expressive vocab were average, listening comprehension was a bit borderline and sentence repetition was appalling. His teacher said she was surprised by these results (as were we). School is in an affluent area, so the intake is pretty good in terms of language skills - I don’t know how many other children are in the intervention group though as I’ve not really spoken to anyone about it. We’ve also seemed to cover the same phonics and reading books and tricky words they were doing at Christmas. (Maybe our DC are at the same school!)

Yeah mine was low on sentence repetition.
(Probably suggests a flaw in the testing...)
Although mine is very stubborn so says what she wants so may well have just changed words around

If the tests are age adjusted then the eldest might do worse as higher expectations.
Tbh with dc2 there may well be issues but it's probably not what the test is telling them

HSHorror
Yeah mine was low on sentence repetition.
(Probably suggests a flaw in the testing...)
Although mine is very stubborn so says what she wants so may well have just changed words around

I suspect mine did the same - he’s not a fan of playing games with rules he’s not made up himself!

Everyone in our class did the screening. While I think the results could be affected if they have a bad day or just much around, I’d be tempted to crack on with the programme if he came out below average. I don’t think there is much to lose and they’d get a lot of 1:1 attention. What centile were his scores? The school obviously only told us about our children so no idea how many of my daughter’s class were recommended for the programme (she wasn’t).

My dc was 89/90 for repetition and listening. But 102 overall.