Schools Week – Tom Colquhoun 
The language of very young children is best developed by involvement in the “tennis match” of conversations with parents and carers. A child who grows up in a communicative family builds their language in an environment geared to language development. Word meanings are established by being related to familiar contexts and supported by repetitive use. And young children who have experience of nursery rhymes and songs are better placed to develop phonological awareness (recognising and working with the sounds of spoken language), without which they may struggle to become proficient readers and writers. (more)