Talk tall
Neil McClelland
 

National Literacy Trust director Neil McClelland explains the thinking behind the Trust's plans to help coordinate a campaign to make certain every child gets the first-class start in life a language-rich environment can bring.

Anecdotal evidence, supported by a recent Trust survey of headteachers, suggests that more children are arriving into nursery education at three without the language skills appropriate for their age; vocabulary is less well developed than five years ago and there is a reduced capacity to listen. Why? Is it the change in parents' working patterns that means less quality time with children? Is it the rise of technology which makes it so easy to sit a child in front of the telly and then not communicate with them?

Every young child needs the benefit of a language-rich home culture. Whatever the cause, it is clear that at present many children's opportunity to achieve their potential is hampered by insufficient linguistic experience long before they enter the formal education system.

Any parent or carer who takes the time to develop their child's language will know how rewarding this can be, both immediately, in the sense that the developing relationship is phenomenally enjoyable for parent and child alike, and in the long term, because it lays a wonderful foundation for future learning. The right to be talked to and listened to should be the right of every toddler.

Most brain development occurs between birth and the age of two, so babies and toddlers need a quality linguistic environment just as much as they need nourishing food. But where is this message being heard? Is it an integral part of pre- and post-natal preparation? Is it part of the secondary school curriculum to encourage young people to become effective parents? Strangely and sadly the answer is no.

If there is linguistic decline, and there seems to be evidence that there is, then this will lead to increasing underachievement unless very expensive intervention at a later stage is put in place. There must be a more sensible solution.

Undoubtedly there is a basic human instinct to communicate with your child - to talk, read, listen and engage in play. But there are so many other cultural pressures. If support structures are not in place to keep the importance and pleasure of extended communication with your child at the centre of parental perception, we are building in a problem. If the message was writ large within our national psyche it could do so much to enhance the life chances of all our children.

So how can we get this message across? The health service is key - it is every parent's first port of call. The message also needs to be communicated informally through television soap operas, newspapers, magazines and role models. We need to unlock all the power of popular culture to help get this message across. It can be taken up by a plethora of organisations that are central to people's daily existence, like housing associations, public libraries and community centres. It can form part of personal and social education in schools so that the parents of the future automatically know the importance of talking, listening and playing with their children, not only for the pleasure but for the future benefits it brings.

There can be no quick fix, no belief that a few natty television ads will do the trick. This is why, in the next year, the National Literacy Trust will develop the necessary foundations for launching a long-term, systematic campaign. Through the National Reading Campaign, we have recently published Getting a Head Start, a good ideas guide on how to promote reading and early language for those working with young families. In this year, we will be talking and listening to all the organisations key to this area so that we can learn from them and build new connections and motivations to support the campaign. We will gather examples of interesting approaches that have helped build linguistically rich environments for children in contexts where previously they may not have been. We will harness the strength of professional communicators. We will attempt to bring knowledge together to motivate people to act within their sphere of influence. We want to strengthen, enable, encourage and facilitate the work of others through this network.

The following two to three years will very much depend on the outcomes of this foundation year. Having created a network and information base, it will then be the time to focus on how to reach out to a wide range of professionals, including the media, and then via them to the wider public in all its forms. We want to get everyone talking about the importance of talk.
 

For more information on the Trust's early language campaign, now known as Talk To Your Baby, visit www.literacytrust.org.uk/talktoyourbaby.

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