Good quotes

"That is why, if the expansion of 'life chances' is the priority, the more radical approach would be to shift the balance of public spending away from the higher education system and towards the under-fives.For it is in the early years, rather than at the age of 18, that the battle for social justice and social mobility will ultimately be won or lost."
Julian Astle, director of CentreForum, an independent liberal thinktank (Why the under-fives should be our priority, The Guardian, 09.05.06)

"Children who are unable to communicate effectively through language or to use language as a basis for further learning are handicapped socially, educationally and, as a consequence, emotionally."
Byers-Brown & Edwards, 1989

"Parental involvement in the form of 'at-home good parenting' has a significant positive effect on children's achievement and adjustment even after all other factors shaping attainment have been taken out of the equation."
Desforges, C (2003) The impact of parental involvement, parental support and family education on pupil achievement and adjustment: a literature review. DfES Research Report 433

"Reading and writing float on a sea of talk."
James Britton, educationist

"I hope he grows up confident in his ability to articulate his feelings and will always be able to find the right words in the right situation. That would be a real gift."
Beverley Turner, presenter, 2005, speaking about the talent she wishes her son to have, Your family magazine, Winter 2005

"The earliest months and years are the most important in a child's development. The sooner children hear language, the sooner they begin to understand and use words."
Language and Play Programme, The Basic Skills Agency

"Making the most of everyday situations can change your child's life. Your are in the best position to give time, stimulation and fun."
Language and Play Programme, The Basic Skills Agency

"Parental involvement in education seems to be a more important influence than poverty, school environment and the influence of peers."
DfES, Every Child Matters (Green Paper)

"Fathers who interact and bond with their children during the first twelve months are more likely to remain positively involved over the rest of the child's life."
Jenny North, Support from the Start: Lessons from International Early Years Policy, The Maternity Alliance

"Let children be children. A skilled five year old grows from a busy four year old, a curious three year old, a cuddled two year old, an adventurous one year old and a communicative baby."
Jenny Lindon, Babies - learning starts from the first day, Early Education www.early-education.org.uk

"I learnt most not from those who taught me, but from those who talked with me." St Augustine

"It may be that the benefits of investing in childcare and pre-school learning could be greater than investment in education at later ages, given that a significant part of cognitive and non-cognitive skills development occurs before children start school."
David Armstrong (co-author) (August 2003) Universal Childcare Provision in the UK - Towards a
Cost-benefit Analysis, PriceWaterhouseCoopers

"We need to ensure that no child in this country is prevented from realising his or her full potential. For this to happen, children need the active involvement and support of their parents throughout the pre-school years and while they are at school."
Tony Blair (June 2003) Prime Minister, message to Pre-School Learning Alliance conference

"Every child, to be educationally successful, needs a language-rich environment, one in which adults speak well, listen attentively, and read aloud every day."
Ernest L. Boyer (1991) from Ready To Learn, Carnegie Foundation, New Jersey

"Literacy in the richest, fullest sense means learning to communicate not just verbally but nonverbally as well."
Ernest L. Boyer (1991) from Ready To Learn, Carnegie Foundation, New Jersey

"When you read with your child, you show them that reading is important, but you also show them they're important - that they are so important to you that you will spend 20 minutes a day with your arm around them."
Laura Bush (2003) Moscow Children's Book Festival, reported in Library and Information Update, November 2003

"I would argue that the degree of mismatch between expectations of child, parent and state are at the heart of most parenting problems today. Parents are being asked to do a job without any job description."
M. J. Campion (1995) from Who's Fit to be a Parent?, Routledge

"The acquisition of a first language is the most complex skill anyone ever learns. And this task needs to be virtually complete by the time a child reaches school age."
David Crystal (1987) from Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language

"The most important finding . is that parental involvement in the form of 'at-home good parenting' has a significant positive effect on children's achievement and adjustment, even after all other factors shaping attainment have been taken out of the equation."
Charles Desforges and Alberto Abouchar (June 2003) from The Impact of Parental Involvement, Parental Support and Family Education on Pupil Achievement and Adjustment: a Literature Review, DfES report no. 433

"Literacy begins with speaking and listening. Adults are so familiar with these faculties we rarely acknowledge them as complex, learned skills, except when visiting a foreign country. Speaking and listening are the primary means by which young people understand and participate in the social/cultural world around them, linking their internal, individual experience to that of the community."
Colin Grigg (2003) from Visual Paths to Literacy, Tate National Programmes, London

"As they held their first baby in their arms, 99 per cent of those parents who fail wanted desperately to succeed. They have been defeated by the mountain of multiple disadvantage against which they have to struggle."
Lord Northbourne (26 March 2003) House of Lords, Unstarred question

"Listening to children shows our respect for them and builds their self esteem."
P. Petrie (1997) from Communicating with Children and Adults, Arnold, London

"Babies being handled all over, talked to, and gazed at are not only being (made aware) of the human world outside themselves, they are (becoming aware) that they themselves exist."
H. Schaffer (1992) from Live Company Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, A Alvarez, Routledge, London

"Although most infants do not learn to talk until their second year, their voices are there for us to hear from birth."
Rouse Selleck (1995) from Managing to Change, E Cowley, National Children's Bureau, London

"There is no greater gift that you can give your child at the beginning of life than the ability to communicate."
Dr Sally Ward (2000) Babytalk, Century, London

"A child's first word has behind it a history of listening, observing and experimenting with sounds and highly selective imitations of people."
M. Whitehead (2002) from Developing Language and Literacy with Young Children, Hodder & Stoughton, London

"We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it."
Benjamin Whorf (1897-1941)

"Reading is just one aspect of cognitive development, and cognitive development is just one aspect of human development . a child's curiosity and belief that he or she can succeed are just as important to reading as knowing the alphabet . I am urging that we broaden our approach to literacy by focusing on the whole child. We must also broaden our understanding of when and where literacy begins . literacy begins with the thousands of loving interactions with parents after an infant is born. It begins as a child develops a sense of self-worth by realizing that his or her accomplishments, whether they be learning to roll over or to recite the alphabet, are important to significant others. It begins with sitting in a safe lap, hearing a familiar bedtime story. Eventually a child will want to emulate the parent and read, too. Reading, then, begins with meeting the child's physical, social, and emotional needs, followed by exposure to more formal literacy skills."
Dr Edward Zigler (one of the founders of Head Start) (12 February 2002) United States Senate testimony

"If children can't talk in sentences, they certainly can't write them." Jean Snell, Head of Pensilva Primary School, Cornwall, (The Independent, 2 September 2004)

"A majority of all poor readers have an early history of spoken language deficits. A recent study reported that 73% of second grade (7 years old/Year 2) poor readers had phonemic awareness or spoken language problems in kindergarten (5 years old/Reception)"
ASHA: Literacy Gateway, 18.08.04

"ASHA's [American Speech-Language Hearing Association] National Outcomes Measurement System data indicates that more than 70% of teachers who participated in the programme by responding to a survey believed that students who received SLT (speech-language therapy) services demonstrated improved pre-reading, reading or reading comprehension skills. A majority of teachers also cited improvements in the student's listening and written language skills and ability to communicate in socially appropriate ways."
ASHA: Literacy: How Speech-Language Pathologists can help. 1997-2005

"What is needed is effective and collaborative practice by teachers and speech and language therapists to address not only the children's language and literacy skills individually, but also their interaction. This will increase the likelihood of these children (with specific speech and language difficulties) improving their basic language and literacy skills and, by improved access to the curriculum, achieving the appropriate educational level."
Professor Lindsay, G. & Professor Dockrell, J,. Institute of Education, University of London; 2003

"Life for young children isn’t separated into education and care times and places, play times or learning times. It is a seamless whole, whether they are in their homes or in early years provision and the importance of this continuity should be reflected in the settings."
Helen Wheeler and Joyce Connor (NCB) PEAL: Parents, Early Years and Learning, (Reader)

"Communication is at the heard of child development, be it cognitive, social, emotional or behavioural.”
L.S. Vygotsky, (1978) Mind in Society, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.

"Perpetuation of low pay in the sector undermines efforts to raise the quality of the early years workforce and service… market failures and gendered conceptions of care work mean that the material reward given to the early years workforce undervalues its economic and social importance."
Graeme Cooke and Kayte Lawton, (April 2008), For Love or Money: Pay, progression and professionalisation in the early years workforce – IPPR

"In order to develop normally, a child requires progressively more complex joint activity with one or more adults who have an irrational emotional relationship with the child. Somebody’s got to be crazy about that kid. That’s number one. First, last and always."
Urie Bronfenbrenner, Developmental Psychologist, Young Children Develop in an Environment of Relationships, National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, (Summer 2004)

"Children's reading at 10 is predicated on their vocabulary at 3 … and an awful lot of children don't have the sort of rich early environment that others enjoy."
Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Professor of Early Childhood Education, Institute of Education, (The Independent, 28 February 2008)

"The development and use of communication and language is at the heart of young children's learning."
Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum Guidance

"Children who begin kindergarten having heard and used thousands of words, whose meanings are already understood, classified, and stored away in their young brains, have the advantage on the playing field of education. Children who never have a story read to them, who never hear words that rhyme, who never imagine fighting with dragons or marrying a prince, have the odds overwhelmingly against them."
Proust and the Squid: the story and science of the reading brain by Maryanne Wolf, Icon Books Ltd, 2008 (p.20)

"What gives us the capacity to think is the quality of a baby's exchanges with other people over the first eighteen months of life"
Peter Hobson, The Cradle of Thought

"We know that what happens in the first five years of a child's life has a huge amount of influence on everything that happens afterwards."
Ed Balls, Secretary of State, Department of Children, Schools and Families 18 July 2007

"Effective communication and language skills are fundamental to young people's learning, developing social skills and fulfilling their potential."
Ed Balls, Secretary of State, DCSF, Launch of Speech, Language and Communications Review, 11 September 2007

"The ability to communicate is fundamental to psychological development and establishing meaningful relationships throughout life."
Alan Johnson, Secretary of State, DH, Launch of Speech, Language and Communications Review, 11 September 2007

"It is relevant to the educational attainment agenda: it is relevant to the tackling antisocial behaviour agenda; it is relevant to the acquisition of skills agenda; it is relevant to the promotion of public health agenda; and it is relevant to the avoidance of mental health difficulty."
John Bercow, MP, speaking about the issue of speech, language and communication at the launch of the Bercow Report, 8 July 2008