The Early Years Conversation Project (EYCP) is a professional development programmeA programme is a package of support, including professional development, that helps early years educators to improve particular areas of practice and children’s outcomes. designed to support early years practitioners develop practical strategies to improve two and three-year old children’s communication and language skills.
The programme aims to promote conversational responsiveness by training and mentoring early years professionals to use the ShREC approach (Share attention, Respond, Expand, Conversation) in their everyday practice.
Practitioners receive one and a half days of face-to-face training. They also complete six live online modules over eight months, with wrap-around support from an experienced team of mentors.
This evaluation tested whether the programme improved children’s vocabulary and broader communication skills, as well as practitioners’ knowledge of early language pedagogy, compared with usual early years practice.
It was tested through a randomised controlled trialAn RCT is used evaluate an educational programme by assigning settings to one of two groups: the intervention group, who receive the programme or the control group, who continue with business as usual. This ensures that any differences in outcomes can be confidently attributed to the programme, providing a robust estimate of the impact and contributing to the evidence for what works in improving educational outcomes., under best possible conditions.
Strong foundations in early communication and language skills are associated with better educational outcomes later in life. However, there is limited robust evidence on programmes designed to support practitioners working with two- and three-year-old children.
An earlier pilot of the Early Years Conversation Project, also funded by the EEF, demonstrated evidence of promise for improving children’s communication and language outcomes.
- Children in nurseries who were offered the Early Years Conversation Project made no additional months’ progress in receptive and expressive vocabulary on average, compared with children in similar settings who continued with their usual practice.
- Among children living in the areas of highest deprivation, those attending nurseries who were offered the Early Years Conversation Project made two fewer months progress in receptive vocabulary, compared with those in similar settings who continued with their normal practice.
- Children in nurseries that implemented EYCP with high fidelity and who attended the setting regularly appeared to make more progress in receptive vocabulary compared to children in control nurseries.
- Practitioners who were offered the Early Years Conversation Project improved their knowledge or language pedagogy.
- Practitioners reported greater confidence in supporting children’s language and communication development, as well as changes to their classroom practice through the use of the Early Years Conversation Project strategies, including the ShREC approach and interactive book reading.
- Practitioners perceived the programme to be beneficial for all children, regardless of their language background.
This evaluation does not provide clear evidence that offering the Early Years Conversation project improves children’s language and communication outcomes.
Among children in nurseries who experienced the programme as intended and engaged more fully with its activities, greater progress was found. This suggests that leaders could consider EYCP as an option for improving receptive vocabulary, but they should think carefully about whether they can implement the programme consistently and at sufficient intensity, rather than viewing it as a light-touch professional development offer.
Overall, the findings should be interpreted as inconclusive rather than as evidence that the programme is ineffective, reflecting the trial’s low to moderate security rating. The evaluation also highlighted challenges in assessing language development among two-year-olds, including children’s engagement with assessments, assessment length and completion of parent questionnaires. Although the measures used were well-established and designed for this age group, these challenges may have affected their ability to identify language improvements, providing useful learning for future evaluations.