The Early Childhood Unit has completed a highly
successful first year of the Making it REAL (Raising Early
Achievement in Literacy) project.
 |
Funded by The Big Lottery Fund (Family Learning programme) the
project is based on the REAL approach and ORIM framework developed
by Cathy Nutbrown and Peter Hannon at the University of Sheffield.
Teachers and early years practitioners in eight children’s centres
in Sheffield and Oldham have worked with the university, Sheffield
and Oldham local education authorities and the ECU over the past
year. 128 children |
| and their families have received up to four home
visits and invitations to four special events. The children
included were those who it was felt would most benefit from some
additional support in their final year of nursery education. |
REAL builds on what parents already do at home to help children
learn. The friendly relationships developed between practitioner,
parents and children are central. The events and home visits have
engaged children, parents and their extended families in purposeful
and imaginative early literacy activities – such as
environmental print walks and rides; visits to book shops and
libraries, book sharing and story-telling; shopping, cooking, and
making recipe books; writing letters and posting messages, and
singing and recording nursery rhymes and songs.
 |
There have been very positive outcomes for
children’s language, literacy and social
development. 71% of project children can now name a favourite
book title, compared to 29% at the beginning of the year, and 78%
are seen to share and enjoy books most days (often), compared to
just 27% in the autumn term. 63% of children are now seen to
often mark make (early writing), 52% to sing rhymes, and 33% often
notice and talk about environmental print – these latter three
strands of early literacy had particularly low ‘start points’ of
17%, 13% and 2% respectively. At the beginning of the project
39% of children were judged to have low or extremely low levels of
involvement (showing interest, concentration). The difference
here is particularly |
| impressive with 97% observed in July as showing
moderate, high or extremely high levels of involvement. This has
real significance, as these children are all about to enter
reception classes. The reach and impact extended further due to
home visiting – with 47 younger and 12 older siblings regularly in
attendance, and likely to benefit from their parents increased
involvement in learning. |
Parents’ confidence and
knowledge in how to help their children learn, and in engagement
with centres has also moved forward strongly. All report now doing
more with their children, and are aware that everyday activities
offer opportunities to learn. Involvement levels have been high,
and retention and participation rates very good (123 families
remained active throughout). Many parents were sorry that the home
visits couldn’t continue. This compares favourably to other family
learning approaches (e.g. family literacy courses requiring regular
attendance combined with adult literacy tuition). 59% of parents
now attend events regularly at the centres, and 75% are confident
in talking to teachers and practitioners (compared to 15%and 37%
before the project began). 163 parents and prime carers (including
34 fathers) took part regularly in home visits, and many more
attended events. Additional benefits have included links for
families to other local services – places have, for example, been
taken up on the two-year-old pilot free places and parents have
enrolled on English language classes, and at local
libraries.
Practitioners all now
feel much more confident about taking learning into children’s
homes and talking to parents about early literacy and child
development. All have enjoyed this way of working and have
become very committed to the approach. They attribute the success
of the project to the home visits, and the way in which they are
conducted. That is, that practitioners go out to families, listen,
discuss and plan together. They believe this contrasts with
other approaches that ‘tell families what to do’. This ‘working
with’ families, participating jointly in activities and events, has
greater impact because it builds friendly relationships and enables
a focus on individual children’s needs and interests.
What next for REAL? The
second year begins in September 2010, with 128 new families
engaging in the project and additional practitioner training at the
University of Sheffield. The REAL manual will soon be available on
a new website being developed at the university and a knowledge
exchange conference is planned for May 2011 in Sheffield.
For more information contact Helen
Wheeler at hwheeler@ncb.org.uk
More can be read about the development and effectiveness
of REAL in Nutbrown, C, Hannon, P and Morgan, A (2005) Early
Literacy Work with Families, Sage Publications and on the
Real
Website.
