Emergent Literacy Assignment Sample: Supporting Children from Birth to 7 Years

1.2 Which factors affect communication and language?

Several factors can speed up or slow down communication. I group them under health, home and need.

• Hearing. Temporary hearing loss from glue ear can blur speech sounds for months. A child may look inattentive when they simply can’t hear clearly.
• Language background. Children learning English as an additional language are not delayed; they are building two systems. Valuing the home language supports English rather than competing with it.
• Home language environment. Hart and Risley (1995) reported large differences in how much talk children heard at home. Their sample was small, and the “word gap” idea has been challenged since. The EPPE study gives a firmer message: what parents do with their children matters more than their occupation or income (Sylva et al., 2004).
• Developmental language needs. Some children have persistent difficulties that more exposure alone won’t fix. They need specialist input.

2.1 How do I work with others to support emergent literacy?

Literacy support works best when the adults around a child pull in the same direction. In my setting that means three groups.

• Colleagues. Key persons share observations at weekly team meetings. A child’s interest in trains, say, can then feed into stories, rhymes and mark-making across the room.
• Families. At the two-year progress check I ask parents which language the child uses at home and which songs and stories they enjoy. Book-bag borrowing and a short phonics workshop each term give parents practical ways to join in. The EEF (2018) guidance stresses high-quality talk between adults and children, which parents can reproduce in everyday routines.
• Specialists. When a child’s talk is well behind the typical range, I raise it with the SENCo and parents promptly instead of waiting to see. A speech and language therapist can then recommend targeted activities that I run daily.

3.1 Which strategies support emergent literacy under the current EYFS framework?

Under the EYFS statutory framework (DfE, 2026), communication and language is a prime area, and literacy is a specific area built on comprehension, word reading and writing. I plan so that talk feeds all three.

• Story and role play. A home corner that becomes a café or a vet’s surgery lets children use props and borrowed adult language. They rehearse narrative structure and try out new vocabulary.
• Interactive reading. I pause to ask open questions such as “What do you think happens next?” Children have to predict and justify, not just listen.
• Rhyme, song and sound play. Daily rhymes build the ear for syllables and rhythm before letters arrive.
• A purposeful print environment. Labels, name cards and menus only help when children see them used. When a child “orders” from the café menu, print has a job to do.
• Mark-making. Chalks, paint and clipboards come first. Letter formation follows once fine motor control allows.

These strategies work, but they depend on adult time. When staffing is stretched, interactive reading is the first thing to shrink to a quick story with no talk. I now ring-fence a small-group story slot each day.

3.2 How does systematic synthetic phonics work, and what are its limits?

Systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) teaches the links between sounds (phonemes) and the letters that represent them (graphemes) in a fixed order. Children then blend sounds to read words and segment them to spell.

Evidence. Rose (2006) recommended synthetic phonics as the main route into early word reading. Torgerson, Brooks and Hall (2006) found that systematic phonics teaching improved word reading accuracy, although the evidence that synthetic phonics beats analytic phonics was less clear-cut. The case for systematic teaching is therefore stronger than the case for any one version of it.

In my setting. For years we followed the Letters and Sounds handbook (DfE, 2007). In 2021 the DfE stated that the handbook was not a full SSP programme because it lacked the resources, guidance and training such a programme needs, and withdrew it from the validated list (DfE, 2021b). We have since moved to a DfE-validated programme. Nursery children work on listening games, rhyme and oral blending (“c-a-t… cat”) before they meet letters. In Reception, short daily sessions introduce new sounds, and children read decodable books matched to the sounds they have been taught.

Impact. Children decode unfamiliar words independently and use the same knowledge when they spell. Their confidence shows.

Limits. Phonics unlocks the printed word, not its meaning. The Simple View of Reading (Gough and Tunmer, 1986) proposes that reading comprehension depends on both decoding and language comprehension. A child who decodes well but has a small vocabulary will still struggle to understand a text. That is why I run phonics alongside the talk-based strategies in 3.1, not instead of them.

3.3 How do I create opportunities for sustained shared thinking?

Sustained shared thinking happens when an adult and a child, or a small group, work together on a problem, idea or story and both contribute to developing it (Siraj-Blatchford, 2009). The EPPE research found it more often in the most effective settings (Sylva et al., 2004). It fits Vygotsky’s (1978) argument that children learn best when adults pitch support just beyond what they can manage alone, and Bruner’s (1983) account of scaffolded language.

Example. During a story about a bear who loses his bag, I paused and asked, “Why do you think he went back to the wood?” Child A, aged four, said, “’Cos he forgot it.” I waited, then asked what the bear could do to remember next time. She suggested a picture on the door, and two other children added ideas of their own. The exchange lasted several minutes and used past tense, reasons with “because” and new words such as “remind”. I didn’t correct the grammar. I echoed it back in full sentences.

The limit is time. A busy session rarely allows this kind of talk, so I now plan one small-group slot a day where I deliberately hold back from leading.

4.1 What are the benefits of early literacy for children’s whole development?

Early language and literacy matter well beyond reading. Whitehurst and Lonigan (1998) describe early skills such as vocabulary, listening and print awareness as precursors of later reading, which means gaps at four can widen by seven if nobody acts.

• Cognitive. Talk about stories builds prediction, inference and problem-solving.
• Emotional. Naming feelings gives children an alternative to acting them out.
• Social. Role play teaches turn-taking, negotiation and shared rules.
• Physical. Mark-making strengthens the hand and finger control needed for writing.
• Later learning. Maths, science and every other subject are taught through language.

The evidence for these links is strong at group level, but it can’t tell me what any one child will do. Observation, not age alone, should guide my planning (DfE, 2021a).

Reflection. My story sessions lean on books I choose. Next term I’ll let children’s interests steer more of the reading, and I’ll record sustained shared thinking episodes to check that quieter children and those learning English get their turn.

Reference list

• Bruner, J.S. (1983) Child’s Talk: Learning to Use Language. New York: W.W. Norton.
• Department for Education (2007) Letters and Sounds: Principles and Practice of High Quality Phonics. London: DfES.
• Department for Education (2021a) Development Matters: Non-statutory curriculum guidance for the early years foundation stage. London: DfE.
• Department for Education (2021b) The removal of Letters and Sounds 2007 from the Department’s list of validated phonics programmes: teachers’ questions answered. Education Hub blog, 17 May 2021. Available at: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2021/05/17/the-removal-of-letters-and-sounds-2007-from-the-departments-list-of-validated-phonics-programmes-teachers-questions-answered/
• Department for Education (2026) Early years foundation stage statutory framework for group and school-based providers. Effective 1 September 2026. London: DfE.
• Early Years Coalition (2021) Birth to 5 Matters: Non-statutory guidance for the early years foundation stage. London: Early Years Coalition.
• Education Endowment Foundation (2018) Preparing for Literacy: Improving communication, language and literacy in the early years. London: EEF.
• Gough, P.B. and Tunmer, W.E. (1986) ‘Decoding, reading, and reading disability’, Remedial and Special Education, 7(1), pp. 6–10.
• Hart, B. and Risley, T.R. (1995) Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
• Rose, J. (2006) Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading: Final Report. Nottingham: DfES.
• Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2009) ‘Conceptualising progression in the pedagogy of play and sustained shared thinking in early childhood education: a Vygotskian perspective’, Educational and Child Psychology, 26(2), pp. 77–89.
• Sylva, K., Melhuish, E., Sammons, P., Siraj-Blatchford, I. and Taggart, B. (2004) The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) Project: Technical Paper 12 – The Final Report. London: DfES/Institute of Education.
• Torgerson, C.J., Brooks, G. and Hall, J. (2006) A Systematic Review of the Research Literature on the Use of Phonics in the Teaching of Reading and Spelling. DfES Research Report 711. Nottingham: DfES.
• Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Whitehurst, G.J. and Lonigan, C.J. (1998) ‘Child development and emergent literacy’, Child Development, 69(3), pp. 848–872.