• Communication and Language
    Communication and Language
  • Personal, Social and Emotional Development
    Personal, Social and Emotional Development
  • Literacy
    Literacy
  • Mathematics
    Mathematics
  • Expressive Arts and Design
    Expressive Arts and Design
  • Understanding the World
    Understanding the World
  • Physical Development
    Physical Development
  • Enrichment
    Enrichment

    Nursery Communication and Language Curriculum
    Children will be taught... 

     

    EYFS Development Matters Statements Birth to Three

    • Turn towards familiar sounds. They are also startled by loud noises and accurately locate the source of a familiar person’s voice, such as their key person or a parent.
    • Gaze at faces, copying facial expressions and movements like sticking out their tongue. Make eye contact for longer periods.
    • Watch someone’s face as they talk.
    • Copy what adults do, taking ‘turns’ in conversations (through babbling) and activities. Try to copy adult speech and lip movements.
    • Enjoy singing, music and toys that make sounds.
    • Recognise and are calmed by a familiar and friendly voice.
    • Listen and respond to a simple instruction.
    • Make sounds to get attention in different ways (for example, crying when hungry or unhappy, making gurgling sounds, laughing, cooing or babbling).
    • Babble, using sounds like ‘baba’, ‘mamama’.
    • Use gestures like waving and pointing to communicate.
    • Reach or point to something they want while making sounds.
    • Copy your gestures and words.
    • Constantly babble and use single words during play.
    • Use intonation, pitch and changing volume when ‘talking’.
    • Understand single words in context – ‘cup’, ‘milk’, ‘daddy’.
    • Understand frequently used words such as ‘all gone’, ‘no’ and ‘bye-bye’.
    • Understand simple instructions like “give to nanny” or “stop”.
    • Recognise and point to objects if asked about them.
    • Generally focus on an activity of their own choice and find it difficult to be directed by an adult.
    • Listen to other people’s talk with interest, but can easily be distracted by other things.
    • Make themselves understood, and can become frustrated when they cannot.
    • Start to say how they are feeling, using words as well as actions.
    • Start to develop conversation, often jumping from topic to topic.
    • Develop pretend play: ‘putting the baby to sleep’ or ‘driving the car to the shops’.
    • Use the speech sounds p, b, m, w.
    • Pronounce:
      • l/r/w/y
      • f/th
      • s/sh/ch/dz/j
      • multi-syllabic words such as ‘banana’ and ‘computer’
    • Listen to simple stories and understand what is happening, with the help of the pictures.
    • Identify familiar objects and properties for practitioners when they are described. For example: ‘Katie’s coat’, ‘blue car’, ‘shiny apple’.
    • Understand and act on longer sentences like ‘make teddy jump’ or ‘find your coat’.
    • Understand simple questions about ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘where’ (but generally not ‘why’).

    EYFS Development Matters Statements Three to Four Year Olds

    • Enjoy listening to longer stories and can remember much of what happens.
    • Pay attention to more than one thing at a time, which can be difficult.
    • Use a wider range of vocabulary.
    • Understand a question or instruction that has two parts, such as “Get your coat and wait at the door”.
    • Understand ‘why’ questions, like: “Why do you think the caterpillar got so fat?”
    • Sing a large repertoire of songs.
    • Know many rhymes, be able to talk about familiar books, and be able to tell a long story.
    • Develop their communication, but may continue to have problems with irregular tenses and plurals, such as ‘runned’ for ‘ran’, ‘swimmed’ for ‘swam’.
    • Develop their pronunciation but may have problems saying:
      • Some sounds: r, j, th, ch, and sh
      • Multisyllabic words such as ‘pterodactyl’, ‘planetarium’ or ‘hippopotamus’
    • Use longer sentences of four to six words.
    • Be able to express a point of view and to debate when they disagree with an adult or a friend, using words as well as actions.
    • Start a conversation with an adult or a friend and continue it for many turns.
    • Use talk to organise themselves and their play: “Let’s go on a bus... you sit there... I’ll be the driver.”