Nationwide campaign goes live to help improve children’s early language
The Department for Education (DfE), in partnership with the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has launched its Start for Life ‘Little Moments Together’ campaign. The campaign aims to educate parents about the importance of brain development in the first five years of a child’s life, and the crucial role they play, with advice and tips from Start for Life.
Too many children in the UK start school developmentally months behind their peers, particularly in speech and language ability. This gap often widens over time, particularly in disadvantaged groups, with children who have poor vocabulary skills at age five being less likely to succeed academically. They are also up to twice as likely to be unemployed in their thirties.
By focusing on behaviours that can easily be integrated into their busy daily routines, the campaign aims to illustrate a ‘way of being’ to parents, showing them that sharing simple, child-led ‘serve and return’ moments together throughout the day has a big impact.
If parents or carers go to the Start for Life website, they will find simple ideas from other parents or carers on how to build these little moments into each day. It includes lots of examples of tips and activities for parents to do with children at different ages. It also signposts parents or carers to the relevant in-person support available in their local communities.
Additional resources
BBC
Tiny Happy People is a BBC service for the parents and carers of the youngest learners. The one minute, one message films offer tips and activities for language learning through play, plus films that show babies’ brains development and why parents are so important to that development
Children’s language development and parenting advice – BBC Tiny Happy People
Book Trust
Reading tips, activities, story-time videos, book recommendations and more
https://www.booktrust.org.uk/families-0-5
National Literacy Trust
Milestones, tips, resources and advice for parents to support their child’s literacy development
Institute of Wellbeing
Advice to support literacy development and wellbeing kits to help parents take care of their family and their mind
Wellbeing Kits – The Institute Of Wellbeing
Speech and Language UK
Support for parents who are worried about their child’s language development
Early Years Alliance
Practical tips for parents to support their child to learn through play
Family Time Tips – free children’s activities to try