Interview: Meet Dr Gillian West, and find out about the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme

The first NELI Pre-school trial has been a success – what’s significant about the findings?

We ran a large, well-powered efficacy trial with 65 nurseries, which found that children made the equivalent of three months’ additional progress in their oral language development. This is clear evidence that a language enrichment programme delivered by staff in a nursery setting can make a significant, meaningful difference to children’s vocabulary acquisition, their understanding of narrative and their ability to retell stories. This is not only great for their language skills and confidence, it helps set them up for Reception and lifelong learning.

What’s also really exciting is how optimistic nurseries are about delivering the programme. The interactive online training and support model has been incredibly well-received, with settings posting photos and ideas to extend learning and embed elements of the programme into continuous provision. Practitioners find the LanguageScreen app, which flags up the children who need targeted intervention, easy to use and helpful for evaluating how much progress the children have made. We’ve also been delighted to find that the programme works as a standalone intervention, but also how some settings are using it to shape their continuous provision.