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Speaking and Listening at Reception and Key Stage 1

1 Introduction

Developing Speaking and Listening at Reception and Key Stage 1 will involve children in a range of experiences some of which may be incidental and occur as part of ongoing involvement in play. However, such is the potential of group talk in supporting learning that it cannot always be left to chance. As well as encouraging students to engender an enabling classroom ethos for talk, they will need support in planning opportunities for children to collaborate to construct meaning together.

In teaching students about speaking and listening it is important to mirror good classroom practice in this area. Students are therefore encouraged to collaborate in small groups to explore issues and deepen their learning. The web pages focus on supporting students in forming groups and devising tasks for talk as these are problematic areas for students in the development of speaking and listening. These are also aspects which are often unplanned for resulting in learning being inhibited rather than promoted Blatchford & Kutnick (2003).

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Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Forming groups
    1. Group size
    2. Group composition
      1. Criteria for forming groups
      2. Planning for group size and composition
  3. Structuring Tasks Within A Curricular Context
    1. The potential of group talk
    2. Identifying talking tasks across the curriculum
    3. Features of effective talking tasks
    4. Using task structures
    5. Analysing talking tasks
  4. Other ideas for speaking and listening
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