Early Words Together

Children's House Nursery School are accredited trainers for this programme.
Please get in touch if you are a school who would like to train to set up your own Early Words Together Programme.
Email Becky: head@childrenshouse.towerhamlets.sch.uk

Thanks to the tireless effort of our wonderful parent volunteers, we are able to offer the National Literacy Trust's Early Words Together Programme at Children's House.  

We are now working with our ninth cohort of families and it is one of the most effective programmes we have run for supporting parents and carers to develop the home learning environment for their two to five year olds.
We know that all parents want the very best for their children but are sometimes unsure of the best ways to support their child’s early literacy development. 
​By literacy we mean:
  • Speaking singing, rhymes, talking
  • Listening understanding
  • Writing early mark-making of any kind, drawings
  • Reading books, print in the environment, for example signs, labels, packaging
The aims of the programme at Children’s House are:
  • To help parents/carers to become interested in and know how to effectively encourage and stimulate their child’s learning and development
  • To directly support a child’s early communication, language, and literacy through improved home learning.
  • To develop the skills of our volunteers
  • To use peer to peer support in a new and innovative way
Having good speaking and listening skills are the building blocks needed by children to develop reading and writing skills and to succeed in school.
The Early Words Together Programme supports families to understand the importance of early literacy development and the value of home learning. It is a volunteer led programme and we make full use of everything the local community has to offer including the Ideas Store (the library), local museums and places of interest.
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Early Words Together really empowers our families because it helps parents to increase children’s enjoyment of early literacy activities. Participating in the Early Words Together programme improves children's communication, language and literacy skills and increases the frequency of their communication, language and literacy behaviours.
Throughout  the programme parents/carers are supported to improve the home literacy environment by developing confidence, increasing knowledge and knowing about fun activities that they can do with children at home.
As one of our parents said:
“Being part of the programme has really helped me, I now talk much more to my children, we read books every day and I can really see a difference in their language and confidence. Before I wasn’t sure exactly what to do to help my children with reading, now I have a good understanding of exactly what I can do to help my children succeed.”

How it works

Each family who takes part in Early Words Together receives:
  1. A memory book that the child can use to keep examples of the things they create with their parent, notes of the books they have shared, trips they have been on etc...
  2. Free books and story props.
  3. An Early Words Together at Home activity Booklet.
Our wonderful volunteers receive training and a copy of the volunteer tool kit which will explain their role and support them in delivering sessions with families. Volunteers also receive a copy of the booklet "Early Words Together at Home" for use with their own families and to help them to encourage others they know to take part.

We work in partnership with the National Literacy Trust, The Penguin Group and Pearson's Education who kindly provide us with extra volunteers in addition to our trained volunteers.
Our data shows us that the children who have participated in the programme with their parents/carers make rapid gains in their speaking and listening, understanding and reading and writing skills.
If you are interested in joining the programme either as a volunteer or participant please see Guthsna Khan or your child's key person. 

​Click on the link below to learn more about the programme:
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/early_words_together

Early Words Together Trainees at Children's House

Early Words Together in action...

Sharing stories in the park

An outing to the Idea Store

Sharing stories with mums and dads

Hooray for Fish

Trip to the aquarium

Designing story props

Creating a story map

Off to London Zoo