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Primary

12 Ideas for Developing Young Children’s Language, Listening and Literacy Skills

Judith Harries uses musical instruments, ‘magic markers’, talking puppets and more, to engage your children in active communication

Judith Harries
by Judith Harries
Paddington Bear whole school resource pack
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PrimaryEnglish

Listening, talking, reading and writing activities to use in your setting.

1 | LISTENING

Musical games

Sit your children in a circle and give everyone a different musical instrument. Play ‘Pass the sound around’ by asking each child to make a sound in turn on their instrument. Encourage them to listen to the different sounds and watch how they are made. Now try ‘Add your own’. Push the instruments into the circle and invite one child to select one to make a sound. The next child must repeat the first sound and ‘add their own’. The next child must repeat the previous two sounds and ‘add their own’ and so on.

Rhyming stew

Learn these words to the tune of ‘There was a farmer had a dog’: We’re going to make some rhyming stew, we’re making stew that’s rhyming. Slowly (Quickly), stir the stew x3. Be careful with your timing!

Provide a tray of objects with rhyming names (e.g. cat, bat, hat, etc.). Include some things that don’t rhyme! Invite children to put a rhyming word into a large saucepan to stir with a big wooden spoon. They can choose what speed to stir the stew!

Doggy, doggy

Teach the children the following song using the ‘cuckoo call’ or a falling third:

Doggy, doggy, where’s your bone? Someone stole it from your home! Who stole my bone? (Doggy solo) I stole your bone (Thief solo).

This fun game helps children to recognise and read different CVC words. Find a box or tray with a clear plastic lid such as one from a chocolate or toy box. Write letters from sets 1–5 in Letters and Sounds: Phase 2 onto the faces of three wooden cubes or bricks: First brick – s, p, c, h, r, b; second brick – a, e, i, o, u, a; third brick – t, p, d, m, r, g. Place the bricks in the tray, pop on the lid and invite children to shake the tray and see if they can create a CVC word to read.

Sort the children into ‘talk partners’. Choose a popular nursery rhyme and say it together as a group. Invite them to say the rhyme with their partner. Ask simple questions for the children to share answers with their partner such as ‘Who was in the rhyme?’ or ‘Where did they go?’ Invite partners to talk to their group about their answers. Make a collection of items/pictures related to nursery rhymes and put them in a box. Pull out an object and ask children to talk to their partner about which rhyme it’s from.

The ‘Doggy’ should sit in the middle of the circle, eyes closed. The ‘bone’ is one of a pair of claves and the other clave is passed around to determine the ‘thief’ (whoever’s left holding it at the end!) The thief must ‘steal’ the Doggy’s clave, creep back and sing their line, leaving the Doggy to guess by the sound of their voice who’s to blame

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