2. Speaking and Listening –
Key Issues

a. The importance of speaking and listening

Until recently most educators thought that becoming literate meant being able to read and write in the print media. Now, it is recognised that we need to include the oral skills of speaking and listening when discussing the early acquisition of literacy. It is through speech that children make meaning; speaking and listening skills are the tools for thinking and learning. This is fully explored in the Speaking and Listening pages by Jennifer Logue on this site.

The National Literacy Strategy (1998) largely ignored the development of Speaking and Listening while acknowledging that these skills underpinned literacy. However the PNS has attempted to rectify this with much more positive approaches to speaking and listening and the dialogic classroom. The National Curriculum (1999) saw the three strands of the English curriculum (S&L, Reading and Writing) as interdependent and equal but gave S&L no status; since it was not to be subjected to testing as the other two were, it has seemed less important. The PNS/QCA Speaking, Listening, Learning in Key Stages 1 and 2 (2003) and Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (DfES 2000) have made a start at redressing this imbalance.

The 2003 QCA document was a response to a number of concerns, not least increasing research evidence that suggested that while SATS scores in Reading and Writing might have shown an improvement that could be attributed to the NLS, children’s development as speakers and thinkers has not (Smith et al, 2004). Researchers, (Alexander, 2006, Mercer, 2003) have drawn attention to the links between talk and learning. The 2003 QCA document places a new emphasis on talk across the curriculum as well as in English, on small group discussion and drama.

Student teachers in the Early Years need to be aware of research (Burrell and Riley, 2004) suggesting that children are coming to school with poor language resources. Other research (Marsh, 2005) suggests that children have considerable language but that schools and teachers do not recognise this. Confusion is added by the number of children in urban schools who speak more than one language. It is important that student teachers engage in the debate about language deficit.