1. Learning to Listen

-Discrimination of sounds

-Social Listening

-Developing aural attention span

-Developing auditory memory

-Supporting children's listening

2. Time to talk

-Compensating for language delay

-Talk during child-initiated activities

-Vocabulary development

-Repetition and innovation

-Developing expressive language

-Social language skills

-Supporting talk during imaginative play

3. Music, movement and memory

-Development of steady beat, rhythm and rhyme

-Articulation and song

-Music and auditory memory

-Left-right brain interaction

-A musical setting

4. Storytime!

-Story-telling: developing listening skills

-Story-telling: developing speaking skills

-Reading aloud - five a day!

-Developing imaginative engagement

-Nurturing children's imaginations

5. Learning about print

-Awareness of print

-Alphabet knowledge

-Concepts about literacy

-Sight words

-Supporting children's involvement with print

6. Tuning into sound

-Phonological awareness

-Phonemic awareness

-Phonics: sound-symbol associations

-Supporting the development of phonic knowledge

7. Moving into writing

-Handwriting movements

-Letter formation

-Pencil control

-Shared writing

-Supporting emergent writing

8. Switching on the searchlights

-The Foundations of Literacy curriculum

-Fitting it in

-Creating the Culture

-Smooth transitions

Appendices

-Language development

-PREPARE chart

-The phonemes of English

-Handwriting groups and jingles for large-scale practice

-Stages in emergent writing

-Left-handed children

-FoL audit sheet for practitioners working with 3-4 year olds

-FoL audit sheet for practitioners working with 4-5 year olds

-FoL audit sheet for practitioners working with 5-6 year olds

-Phonics revisited

Practice Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stages and FoL

Further reading

Recommended resources