While this approach has been touted as the solution to the country’s slide in educational performance, early childhood expert Jilly Tyler suggests we might still be missing an important part of the puzzle.
“In New Zealand there’s a lot of focus on structured literacy, which has been amazing and we’re excited that there’s been attention given to an intentional, deliberate way of helping kids learn to read...” Tyler tells EducationHQ.
“But, if children have had a rich language environment in their early years, they probably would arrive at school ready to take on any kind of teaching strategy,” she suggests.
Tyler is chief executive of Talking Matters, a for-purpose organisation on a mission to improve quality of life outcomes through rich early language.
The organisation emphasises the importance of the first 1000 days in a child’s life, and the critical nature of serve and return interactions – responsive back-and-forth exchanges between a young child and care giver.
“That serve and return is the thing that literally builds babies’ brains,” Tyler explains.
“So, the act of a baby sending out a communication serve and the adult responding back and doing that over a sustained period, that’s the thing that grows a baby’s brain.”
Tyler says that children who have all the right conditions in their first 1000 days, including plenty of serve and return communication, will have healthy, flexible brains that are ready to take on the world.
But she acknowledges this is not always the case and increasingly, modern family life is limiting young (0-4 years old) children’s access to rich language environments, which has a flow-on effect for the classroom.
“If we could just get the world understanding the importance of early talk, it would significantly help teachers who are receiving children into school.
“It would also change the way they teach, because currently kids don’t have the language skills that set them up for literacy learning,” she says.
Talking Matters chief executive Jilly Tyler says kids are missing out on engagement with adults because all of us are on our phones more and for longer periods – particularly on the apps designed to keep our eyes glued to the screen.
Tyler first noticed the trend back in 2014 while leading the Early Childhood Education Participation Programme.
“While I was leading that work, I became aware that a lot of kids were arriving at early childhood centres with quite low oral language capability,” she says.
“I’d been working in these senior roles in these government departments, coming up with policy and ideas about what was going to be good education policy for the country, and then realising that on the ground, teachers were receiving children who had quite low language development.
“There were kids arriving at some centres already at such a disadvantage and that just felt wrong to me,” she recalls.
One factor behind the issue, Tyler says, is smart phones, particularly the apps designed to keep our eyes glued to the screen.
“We’re certain that kids are missing out on engagement with adults because all of us are on our phones,” she says.
“We are also on phones for longer periods and we’re missing out on what’s happening with children, we’re not noticing children ... and I think that’s having a big impact.”
Also, she says the busy pace of life is taking a toll.
“I think family life is different; families are much busier now.
“Often there are two parents working and for some, these can be long days.
“If parents are really worried and under pressure, they’re less likely to engage in that practice of serve and return and tuning in to their kids,” she adds.
Tyler is aware that parents are under a lot of pressure in life and that busy, fast lives do not necessarily blend well with child rearing.
Children are spending more time in early childhood centres where, Tyler says, they are unlikely to experience the same level of interaction as they would with a parent at home.
“That is fine, but those early childhood centre teachers need to be intentional about making sure that children do get serve and return.”
Talking Matters partners with early childhood education providers to help create the language rich environments children need.
“The language should not only be about routines like, ‘put your shoes on’, or ‘don’t forget to put your hat on when you go outside’,`” Tyler explains.
“That language is functional and is fine, but teachers are there to give rich language experiences where beautiful words are being gifted to children in their play.
“For example, as they are in the sandpit and they can talk about the water being ‘absorbed’.
“[Then] children are hearing words and phrases and diverse ways of structuring a sentence that are going to inspire them, or add to their language experience, not just the day-to-day.
”I think that’s really important for their language development.”
Tyler says that children who have all the right conditions in their first 1000 days, including plenty of serve and return communication, will have healthy, flexible brains that are ready to take on the world.
Another area Talking Matters assists educators with, is ensuring children have equal opportunities for meaningful talk.
“One of the things that we do is we use a talk pedometer called a LENA device.
“It’s about the size of a credit card and it fits in a vest, the children wear it for a day, and it measures the amount of serve and return they are receiving throughout the day,” she explains.
The data collected offers insights into how many words adults are giving, how many words the children are giving, and which kids are getting the most chat.
This can help teachers reflect on their practice and be more intentional with where they direct their talk.
“And that is important, because what we know is the chatty kids get a lot of the teacher time ... they will be easy for the teachers to talk to, they will ask for what they need and want.
“But those quiet kids often miss out.
“And for parents, they want to know that even their quiet, sensitive child is getting the same level of talk that the chatty, confident child will be getting.”
Tyler believes parents today are bombarded with information and advice on how to do best for their children.
But if there was one critically important thing they can do, she says don’t worry about the organic apple puree, because it is talking which matters most.
“If children are not able to talk and haven’t got that language foundation, they are so disadvantaged when it comes to learning to read and write,” she says.
“Because they have not had the language experiences, and their neural pathways are not fully developed – it means they need a lot of catch-up work and remedial language development support.
“But the kids that have had that rich language, as soon as they are starting to look at printed words they will be able to recall a word, they know they have heard it before, or they have been read the word, or it is the language of their family.
“They’re more likely to just lean into learning to read really quickly, it’s the kids that don’t have that language, that struggle.”
