Nursery World - Letters: Letter of the week

Our pre-school is currently taking part in our local authority's 'Every Child a Talker' project and I was fortunate to attend a conference and hear Jean Gross, the Government's Communication Champion.

The statistics on the impact of poor communication skills in later lifemade a big impression on me - 65 per cent of young offenders have poorcommunication skills. This is the first time I have heard the coldreality of what can happen to children at the end of compulsoryeducation who are unable to communicate effectively.

I am an EYP who has worked in early years for a considerable time,during which I have watched the decline of children's speech andlanguage skills despite the hard work of a dedicated workforce and theintroduction of initiatives to stem the tide.

I want to stand on the roof tops and shout a big 'wake up' to all thoseresponsible for encouraging children's communication skills - and yes, Iam talking about families. Jean Gross talked about the 'serve andreturn' of communication. How many parents do we see who talk at theirchildren, giving orders which are often not followed, leading tofrustration and so on? How many times do we observe children's chatterdismissed in favour of more adult conversation?

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