Families to receive extra support to help with children’s early language skills

New support to help parents improve their children’s early language and literacy skills at home before they start school have been announced today (30 April) by Education Secretary Damian Hinds.

Two schemes will build the confidence of parents to support their children in language and reading at an early stage. This has been shown to help close the so-called ‘word gap’ – the gap in communication skills between disadvantaged children and their peers when they start school.

A new £5million scheme will be run by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) to trial projects to provide practical tools and advice to parents so they can help their children learn new words through simple steps like reading and singing nursery rhymes.

Alongside this, an £8.5million programme has opened for local authorities to fund projects to improve early language and literacy development for disadvantaged children.