ERO report on oral language development raises questions.
Opinion
Dr Sarah Alexander.
August 22, 2024.
The latest ERO report “Let’s keep talking: Oral language development in the early years” raises more questions than it answers.
It says:
- There is a significant group of children who are behind in oral development and Covid-19 has made this worse.
- New entrant teachers in schools in poor neighbours were nine times more likely to report children being below expected levels of oral language.
- Parents with lower qualifications were more likely to report that their child had difficulty with oral language.
- Parents reported that 70 percent of boys are not at the expected development level, compared with 56 percent of girls.
Question 1: Has children’s oral language worsened over recent years??
It’s not clear that the problem has become significantly worse in recent years. But what we do know is that it has been an issue for some time. This latest report therefore is a timely reminder that improvements have not occurred, and that action needs to be taken.
In 2017 ERO released a report on oral language. Then it called out the lack of knowledge of those leading ECE services and staff on “how children’s oral language develops, (how to) provide meaningful experiences and use teaching strategies that are effective in supporting children’s oral language learning.”
Question 2: Is Covid-19 to blame?
ERO cites a large Aotearoa New Zealand study that found “80 percent of children at age 5 are doing well, but 20 percent are struggling with oral language.” However, the study was conducted in 2019 and therefore this research was done before Covid-19 lockdowns.
In 2020, a University of Canterbury study reported that 60 percent of new entrants in some low-decile schools in Christchurch struggled to express themselves in words. The root causes were said to be complex, but included household stress, parents working multiple jobs to pay for the necessities of life and leaving them no time to spend with their children, and screen-time because it reduced talking time.
Recommendations for the use of digital technologies in schools, kura, and early childhood education were published earlier this year. I have pasted in below FYI a copy of Julie Cullen’s presentation on this.
It would pay for everyone involved in education to know the research behind the recommendations and follow the recommendations for their setting and age of children.
Had ERO asked about levels of parent participation in children’s learning activities within the ECE then maybe this would have been identified as having a main impact on children’s oral language development (in teacher-led centres). For example, I was told of one large teacher-led group of centres that communicated to its staff (after Covid restrictions were lifted) an expectation that any parents who stayed in the programme for more than 10 minutes should be guided to leave.
So perhaps Covid-19 is not to blame. What we do know is that families are struggling economically more, and the ECE sector is struggling a lot more regarding staffing and management/leadership.
Perhaps ERO could have asked about the impact of teacher-child ratios? Or more specifically, about opportunity for shared interaction between toddlers and staff?
In 1996 around a third of 200 toddlers in 100 childcare centres were observed over 20-minute periods to have no adult attention/interaction. When toddlers initiated interaction with staff (which they did frequently) a large proportion (a third) of their initiations were ignored. Joint involvement of teachers and children in activities was observed in only about 7% of the total observation time across centres. Smith (1996b, p.12) commented: “In a busy centre, it may be difficult to find the time to focus on shared attention with children”. Read more: Evidence on the Effects of Early Childhood Education: Systematic Review (oece.nz)
Results from the 2023 ECE Quality and Employment Survey of 3,000 teaching staff from across the ECE sector showed that more than one-third of the respondents (35%) held concerns for children’s learning and did not think children were being effectively educated. A third of the respondents (30%) felt they did not have time to develop individual relationships with the children in their care. And, of the respondents who worked at teacher-led education and care centres, 45.5% reported that minimum requirements for ratios had been breached at their centre.
Question 3: Would it help for teaching staff to do assessments of children’s oral language and provide this information to their parents/caregivers?
The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (with American English) looks at children’s understanding of words, and the DIBELS Letter Naming Fluency task which looks at children’s ability to say the ‘names’ of letters.
But, with any test there are issues of how the content and administration may be culturally loaded with potential for bias. Moreover, children who attend a Māori medium ECE service may do less well on a standardised test that measures what children attending an English medium ECE service are more likely to hear and practice, and vice versa.
Authentic assessment of children’s competencies and learning is key. It’s important for teaching staff to have time to get to know children individually, be involved in their play, and share knowledge between ECE and home with parents/caregivers about the child’s experiences and learnings. This gives teaching staff real insights into the child’s oral language skills and knowledge, to then promote and scaffold the child’s learning better.
However, standardised tests or assessments for evaluative purposes can help to confirm developmental issues or the extent of a speech impediment. Such tests are best done and interpreted by those who are trained in speech-language therapy.
Question 4: Why is the Coalition Government not recognising the value of staff in teacher-led ECE services being ECE teacher qualified?
ERO found that being ECE teacher qualified matters! Professional knowledge is the strongest driver of teachers using evidence based good practices. Most ECE qualified teachers (94 percent) reported being confident in their knowledge about oral language but only two-thirds of non-qualified teachers reported being confident. Qualified teachers reported using key practices more frequently, for example, using conversation to extend language. ECE teachers who reported being extremely confident in their professional knowledge of how children’s language develops were up to seven times more likely to report using effective teaching practices regularly.
But, not a single response has been received by either Minister David Seymour or Erica Stanford on the ECE teacher supply and workforce strategy document. Recommendations made in the document included:
- Support regulating for 50% ECE qualified and certificated teachers in the regulated minimum adult-to-child ratio for the number of children present and work toward achieving 80 – 100%in teacher-led centres. (Note that this would not preclude centres employing staff above the minimum regulated ratios who are not ECE qualified and teachers-in-training)
- Restore the regulatory requirement that a Person Responsible in teacher-led centres must be ECE qualified and certificated.
- Retain the recent law change that will require a Person Responsible in teacher-led centres to hold a full practising certificate.
- From 2025 onward require all primary trained teachers employed for the first time in teacher-led services to undergo an induction and ECE advice and guidance programme – or alternatively remove from policy that primary trained teachers can be counted for funding purposes in ECE.
Question 5: ERO reports that boys are behind, so how can this gender difference be addressed?
One obvious strategy would be for decision-makers at policy level to stop accepting that ECE is women’s work and recognise that it is work for men and women.
- 97% of teaching staff in teacher-led services are women.
- Boys do not see and talk with adults who are men in most ECE teacher-led centres.
- Girls tend to go where their teachers are, and so teaching staff can talk to girls more. Boys tend to be “left to be boys” and teaching staff can struggle to relate and engage in play that boys are interested in.
Qeustion 6: Should teaching staff be assessed for their understanding of words and ability to pronounce sounds and words for the home languages of children?
Parents and teachers have told me of their concerns regarding teachers who have English as their second language, particularly new migrants – that they are not always modelling correct English and children don’t understand what they are saying.
Other articles on oral language and literacy more broadly that may interest you
Heritage Language Te Reo Māori in Early Childhood Education
Learning Languages in ECE from a Young Age
Puppets and Puppetry for Children’s Sense of Wellbeing and Belonging
Wellbeing of Pacific Children and Families in Early Childhood Education
A Whole School Approach to Language Development in the Early Years
Home-based Literacy – Bookmaking, Home languages and Child Wellbeing
Embedding Literacy in an Early Childhood Education Programme: A Look into Montessori
* Members login and add your comments and questions here.
