How to choose the right evidence-informed programme for your setting

1 August 2023

The EEF Early Years Toolkit tells us that approaches for promoting communication and language can have a significant impact on children’s development, boosting progress by an additional seven months on average. These approaches can be particularly beneficial for children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds and also tend to be low-cost.

Sarah Tillotson

Early Years Lead

However, no two programmes are the same – all have a different focus and follow a particular structure.

With such a variety of programmes on offer, including many currently being offered at no or low cost through the DfE Education Recovery Programme, it can be challenging to decide which may be best for you, your setting and your children.

The EEF, in collaboration with DfE’s Stronger Practice Hubs, has commissioned eight communication and language research projects to find out more about what works in early years education, and we are looking for early years settings to take part.

Settings that sign up for an EEF trial are in with a chance of delivering a promising approach that could support improvements to practice, whilst also helping to research and identify programmes with real potential to support young children’s progress.

Here’s some questions you can reflect on to help you decide which project might be right for you to get involved in.

1. What aspect of teaching language and communication would your educators benefit from support with?

Staff in your setting will have different knowledge and skills when it comes to developing children’s language. Most programmes provide some training to understand how language develops but then typically focus on one particular approach for supporting language.

For example:

  • The Early Years Conversation Project fosters educators’ conversational responsiveness, enhancing their interactions with children during play.
  • Communication Friendly Settings trains staff to make changes to the practice and environment in their setting, covering a broad range of approaches to reading and interacting with children to support language development.
  • Early Talk Boost gives staff the tools to support children who need a targeted approach to enhance their language development and access the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum.

2. How much scaffolding do educators in your setting need to improve children’s language and communication?

Each programme provides a different level of support for staff. This can range from low to high levels of training input, linked to how much structure they provide

  • Early Talk Boost provides short, focused, professional development content with pre-planned tools and materials to work through with children whose language development is in need of a boost.
  • Communication Friendly Settings offers a higher volume of professional development and support, enabling educators to lead on developing their own bespoke action plan.
  • TWiTCH (Talk With Tales for Children) provides a moderate level of training and starts with some suggested activities to implement to develop staff knowledge of strategies, then later provides support for educators to use the approach in their own way.

3. Which children need support with their language and communication?

  • The Early Years Conversation Project aims to enhance conversational interactions between staff and all the children they support, through embedding the ShREC principles (Share attention, Respond, Expand and Conversation).
  • Early Talk Boost offers targeted support designed by Speech and Language Therapists to a small group of 6-8 children.
  • TWiTCH (Talk With Tales for Children) provides language teaching for all children as well as time to focus on those who may need further support.

4. Which area of language and communication do children need support in?

  • The Early Years Conversation Project can particularly engage children who are reluctant speakers and enhance the amount and number of turns they have in conversations.
  • Tales Toolkit focuses on teaching children to apply their language learning through creating and telling stories, developing their expressive and narrative language skills.
  • TWiTCH (Talk With Tales for Children) uses stories and language games to develop children’s thinking and reasoning skills, to support them to express complicated thoughts and ideas.