CNES Presentation for the Foundation Apprenticeship in Childcare

1. Communicating with Children

2. Communicating
with Children
Allowing children to make choices and giving
them opportunities and negotiating with
them about their needs and wants to help
them feel part of the setting.
All this requires for practitioners to have good
communication skills to support all the
children in their care.
It is important that practitioners can talk,
listen and use body language and facial
expression that is clear for the children to
understand.

3. Communicating
clearly with
children
It is important that practitioners are able
to communicate clearly with the all
children.
Clear communication helps the children
to understand what is expected of them
and supports them to learn how to be a
communicator.
If communications aren’t clear children
can be disadvantaged if they don’t have
the experience or cognitive development
to sort out unclear or mixed messages.

4. Good
Communication
Make good eye contact
Check that you have
the children’s attention
Keep sentences to the
point
Don’t be sarcastic
Think about children’s
language level and
needs
Remember children
may not know phrases
and words such as “ a
couple” or “in a tick”

5. Listening &
responding
to children
Giving children & teenagers time to talk to them is important
Listening is an important part and integrated in to working
effectively with children of all ages.
Babies need to see a response when they are vocalising, an adult
to smile and copy their babbling to encourage the baby
As children get older and become more fluent speakers, they
need to learn listening skills
Listen is an active skill children need to learn how to respond to
the adults working with them, so adults need to be active
listeners as well.

6. Active
Listening
Active listening is more than just
listening, it involves thinking
about what the child is trying to
convey.
Active listening giving children
your whole attention
Practitioners give opportunities
for active listening in routines for
example preparing snack and
chatting with the child about what
they are doing and what the
practitioner wants the child to do

7. Active
Listening Task
Make a poster telling me what
active listening is:
Remember to think about how
you include the child in an
activity and to make the routine
and child feel relaxed.

8. Good practice
when
communicating
with children
Practitioners need to:
Show positive facial expressions
Recast young children’s language
Expand children’s statements
Make sure you are down to the child’s eye level
Be interested and ask questions
Look for opportunities to carry on the conversation with
the child/children.

9. Practice not to
do with children
when
communicating
with them
Don’t:
Do
Interrupt children when talking with them
Interrupt
Dismiss or laugh at ideas
Dismiss or
laugh
Change the subject unless the child leads the conversation
Change
Allow other children to interrupt but encourage them to join in at an
appropriate time
Allow
Interrogate children with constant questions
Interrogate
Make children feel rushed or hurried time to speak as the child wants
too
Make

10. Case Study Listening to babies language
development
• Carla is a childminder, she has decided to keep regular
recordings of Charlotte, a baby she looks after who is six
months old. Carla tapes Charlotte for a few minutes each
week. Carla is surprised to hear the way in which, over a
period of time , Charlotte’s babbling evolves. Charlotte
becomes more tuneful in her babbling and also babbles
longer in her strings of sounds. Carla compares the tape
recordings to the milestones of language development and is
happy to see that Charlotte is making excellent progress.
Carla shares the tapes with Charlotte’s parents, who are
excited and delighted to have their daughters early sounds
captured.

11. Questions
from Case
Study
1. Why is it important to carry out
observations on babies' language
development?
2.Explain why it is essential that Carla
compared Charlotte’s language
development to normative development
or using milestone charts?
3. Why is it important that Carla involved
Charlotte’s parents in the observation?