Literacy in the early years – more than just phonics

Learning to read is important for every child. As the Book Trust notes, for children facing disadvantages, reading can be a transformative force so that:

• They will experience better educational mobility and social mobility.

• Those growing up in poverty are less likely to remain in poverty as adults.

• Throughout school, they are more likely to overcome the barriers caused by disadvantage.

Phonics is central to learning to read. As the EEF explain in the Early Years Toolkit, ‘Phonics has a positive impact overall (+5 months) with very extensive evidence and is an important component in the development of early reading skills, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds’.

However, across the whole of the EYFS it is important to prioritise children’s early communication and use a balanced approach to the teaching of early literacy. Children’s early literacy is dependent on their oral language skills. Approaches for teaching early literacy should build on those approaches that support communication and language.

Interactive reading is a good example of promoting both communication and language outcomes, and early literacy outcomes. During interactive reading, the educator encourages the child to become an active participant in 'reading' the book (for example, through discussing images, text, or questions). Over time, the balance of who ‘reads’ or facilitates discussion about the book passes increasingly to the child.

In our updated summary poster, we explain that ‘using multiple approaches together could aid children’s literacy development, as different literacy approaches appear to be mutually reinforcing’.

The different approaches which we summarise on the poster are:

• Interactive reading
• Teaching sound discrimination
• Teaching sound manipulation
• Mapping sounds and letters
• Teaching mark-making and letter formation
• Interactive writing

‘Interactive writing’ is a new approach in the Evidence Store and on the updated poster. Whilst it looks promising, it is important to note that our summary is based on a small number of studies. We should be cautious about the finding that interactive writing ‘may benefit some early literacy outcomes, including children’s print awareness, composition, and transcription’. The EEF will continue to review the evidence around this approach so that we can improve our understanding of its impact.

By ensuring that we use multiple approaches together, we can provide children with a balanced approach which gets them off to the best possible start to learning literacy. The EEF’s Early Years Toolkit estimates that children who take part in early literacy approaches make, on average, four months’ additional progress.

Once you have read the updated poster, you might want to:

• Visit the Early Literacy Theme in the Early Years Evidence Store to explore the evidence in more depth.

• Explore the Early Literacy page on the Early Years Hubs

• Reflect on what you have learnt with a colleague or with your team and consider how it might help you to review and develop your provision