The Stages – Getting Started 

• Teachers are to select 1 to 2 skills from the checklists that they feel are best suited to their class at that time, skills are changed on a fortnightly basis.
• The same skills are taught to all children – this makes it simpler and clearer for all members of staff to ensure they focus on those skills with all children.
• Children should have 10-15 minutes everyday (not necessarily at once) working on the skills.

This can be at any point throughout the day, as a whole class, small groups or through play and daily routines.

2 skills for 2 weeks – simple.

One Step at a Time: Confident Explorers 3-4 years old

3-4 yr olds**Conversation Skills– Assessment For Teaching and Learning

Teachers will use the 3 checklists (p95,96,97,) to evaluate children’s current level at the end of T1, T2 and T3. The staff can use the checklist as a running record, kept with them in the classroom at all times, then will make formal markings at the end of each term.

Children should have at least completed the 2nd checklist by the end of the year, if a significant number of children in the group have not completed checklist 2 or barely started checklist 3. It may be sensible to teach from the third checklist in FS2 during Term 1.

A skill can be marked if a child has picked it up incidentally, even if that skill has not been explicitly taught.

Teachers can use a dot (.) for when they notice a skill, a tick (√)for if they have seen the skill inconsistently and 2 ticks (√ √ ) for consistent use of the skill.

The Stages – Conversation Skills (FS1)

o Conversation is more than just ‘talk’.

We also use conversation to teach language itself:

• Basic vocabulary
• How to join words together to form sentences
• How to identify and comment on things around us
• How to answer questions and to ask questions

o Children also need to learn conversational etiquette:

• How to contact another person
• How to take turns as a speaker or listener
• How to follow and keep to a topic
• How to recognise that others have not understood and how to repair the failure.

One Step at a Time: Listening Skills

• Active Discoverers 4-5 years old
• Creative Achievers 5-6 years old

The Stages – Listening Skills (FS2)

o Listening is a complex skill of:

• Hearing • Attending to • Understanding • Remembering
• Children need to acquire these skills not just in conversation but also from listening to songs, rhymes and stories. The ability to follow a story becomes essential when children learn to read and write.
• Children also need to be able to hear the difference between different syllables and word sounds if they are to grasp phonics and use them in reading, writing and spelling.