Chatham Nursery’s Road to Reading
We value literacy skills in all aspects of our Nursery life.
We aim to develop a lifelong love of reading and writing in our children and through supporting their families at home.

Research has shown that children who find pleasure in sharing books and stories are well on their way to success in reading. It is important that parents and carers understand that sharing books and reading are not only pleasurable and fun experiences that will lead to later literacy success but also how books can develop speaking and listening skills, vocabulary, bonding, relaxation and comfort.
We need to plant the literacy seed so that reading and writing take root and flourish.

So how do we support children at Chatham so that we know that we are giving them the best possible start along the road to literacy?
• Periods of child initiated learning within our high quality dynamic learning environment which supports all our children’s learning.
• Trained staff who observe, wait and listen and teach in the moment if appropriate.
• Guided experiences and intentional teaching sessions to support individuals such as small group time and language groups.
• Children also access daily story times, singing, movement, nursery rhymes songs and games.
• Three language leaders within the setting who offer specialist support.

In order for children to become good readers they need to become good speakers and listeners. We ensure that talking with children and supporting talk between children is given time and space.

We have onsite sessions that promote  the development of language and literacy, including Time to sign, visits from theatre company, story tellers, musicians and termly family Book Club .

We work closely with Picton and Kensington Children Centre. This enables us to link with their resources to support early literacy and language development.

We know that by the time the children move on from our setting most will be aware of the possibilities of reading and writing. We will support them along the road to literacy and develop the joy and empowerment this can bring. We endeavour to make this possible by working in partnership with parents and carers “The most effective period for cognitive skill investment by parents is early on in the life of their child” (CUNHA and TEAL 2006)