Responses to your communication, for example movement, attentiveness to the speaker, and sounds from the home language and English for a child learning more than one language.
The different ways babies communicate - such as gurgling when happy.
How young babies tell you that they are tired, hungry, angry or in pain.
The things you do that seem to encourage young babies to vocalise more.
Where young babies direct their visual attention. Do they look at you when you talk to them? Are they beginning to look where you are looking to understand what you say?
How young babies begin to use gesture, eye contact and facial expression purposefully to make contact and hold your attention.
The range of speech sounds made by young babies as they begin to babble.
How babies listen to, concentrate on or gaze intently at things that catch their interest
The sounds and signs babies make.
How young babies respond to different tones of voice used by adults speaking to them.
Examples of young babies being calmed by soft speech or song.
The range of sounds young babies make.
Responses that tell you a young baby is listening.
The random marks young babies make in food.
How young babies fix their gaze on objects or on their own feet or fists.
8-20 Months
The sounds babies enjoy making and listening to.
The signs or words babies use, noting any words in home languages, to communicate what they want, like or dislike.
Babies' developing vocabulary in their mother tongue, as well as English, noting which words are in English and which are in the home language. Note in which circumstances the different languages are used.
Where babies look when you speak to them about objects and people nearby and when you point at the things and people you are talking about.
Examples of babies learning to play their part in a conversation. Do they stop vocalising when you are talking and wait for their 'turn'?
How babies watch and listen to other people who are talking.
How babies react when their name is called.
The different ways babies let you know that they understand what you say to them.
The ways in which babies respond when you look at a picture book together and you talk about the items on the page.
How babies use voice, gesture and words to attract attention, ask for things and refuse things.
Occasions when babies begin to point.
How babies participate in simple routines such as waving 'bye bye'.
The ways in which babies show you they have understood.
The wide variety of sounds and words a baby produces.
The ways in which babies show they are learning to locate the direction from which sounds and voices are coming.
How babies respond when they hear a familiar voice or when their name is called.
Examples of how babies respond to singing and rhymes.
How babies imitate the sounds and intonation patterns of speech they hear around them.
The range of speech sounds used by babies as they begin to babble.
How babies' responses develop as they learn to anticipate and join in with finger and word play.
Babies' interest in marks, for example, the marks they make when they rub a rusk round the tray of a feeding chair.
The movements and sounds babies make as they explore materials such as musical instruments, paint, dough, glue and the space around them.
16-26 Months
The meanings young children generate in their language through the creative ways in which they use words.
Young children's use of their first language, with peers and adults, and how children with several languages may use their home language in some circumstances, perhaps when they are very enthusiastic or excited about something, and English in others.
How children show that they understand instructions.
The different purposes for which children use language, for example, to name things and people, to comment on what is happening or to protest.
How children show they understand the 'to and fro' nature of conversation, for example, by looking at you to get your attention before pointing at something.
How children participate in repetitive games and rhymes, for example, do they show understanding and anticipation by waiting for "Go!" in Ready, steady, go! games?
The different ways that children respond to general talk around them and to talk that is directed at them.
The rate at which children's vocabulary grows.
How children begin to sing along with favourite action rhymes.
Which phrases children copy when you say them.
The ways in which young children respond to adults and other children and the circumstances in which this takes place.
Young children's responses to music, rhymes and stories.
How children listen and participate in nursery rhymes by trying to join in with actions and words.
Early attempts at words by children compared with how an older child or adult would say that word.
The range of vowel and consonant sounds used by children as they produce their first words.
Children's responses to picture books and stories you read with them.
Marks young children make when given a crayon, a brush or other tools.
The different ways young children make marks, for example, in dough or clay.
22-36 Months
How children begin to use words to question and negotiate.
Features of adult/child interaction, remembering these are culturally determined, and that conventions for interaction vary, both within and across speech communities.
How children show they understand more complex sentences and instruction.
The different ways in which children begin to combine words into short phrases and sentences.
Ways in which children use language to ask for help.
How children vary their intonation and stress patterns to ask questions or express surprise.
Situations where children use actions and some talk to support and think about what they are doing.
How children show what they understand, by what they do and say, for example, actions, questions, new words and the rhythms and intonations they use.
The words, phrases and sounds children like to say or sing.
The languages they understand and use.
How the words and phrases used by a child become easier to understand as time goes by.
Efforts by children to imitate words, even though they may only be able to manage an approximation of how adults and older children would say them, at first.
Children's responses to music and how they signal they know that music has stopped.
How children react when you make a deliberate mistake or miss out words or phrases in a familiar rhyme or storyline. Can they fill in the missing words?
Ways in which children respond to familiar sounds, for example, by looking at the door when the doorbell rings or looking towards the food preparation area when the microwave pings.
How the range of recognisable vowel and consonant sounds used by a child increases with time.
Children's favourite stories, rhymes, songs, poems or jingles.
What children tell you about the marks they make.
Ways in which children begin to develop fine motor skills, for example, the way they use their fingers when trying to do up buttons, pull up a zip, pour a drink or use a watering can.
30-50 Months
The gestures and body language children use.
Children's responses to stories and information books you read with them.
How children act out rhymes and stories.
Instances of children recalling and recounting their own experiences and sharing them with others.
How children take account of what others say during one-to-one conversations.
Children's understanding of instructions and the questions they ask.
The range and variety of words that children use.
How children are beginning to develop and expand on what they say, for example, "Come in, it's time for dinner. You'll get hungry if you stay out there".
Children's developing use of a preferred language and whether this has changed since, for example, attending the current setting.
The different ways children answer "Yes", "No", "What?" and "Where?" questions. Do they provide appropriate information in response to different types of language?
How children begin to add grammatical markers to the ends of words to indicate verb tense, possession or plurality, for example, "Play", "Playing", "Played".
Examples of how children participate in group discussions. Can they wait for their turn while other people are talking?
How children use talk to think through and revise what they are doing. For example, following a farm visit, Fiona talks as she rearranges toy farm animals, "Put baby sheep here... oh no... no mummy... that sheep has lost its mum".
How children use talk to connect ideas and explain things.
The rhymes and rhythms that children enjoy, recite and create in words and music, for example, tapping out the rhythms of their names.
How long children are able to listen to a story being read to them one-to-one or in a group of children.
Occasions when children express their enjoyment of stories and rhymes and how they participate as part of a group.
How many items children can remember when talking with an adult or looking at a picture book and talking about the things they see.
Ways in which children begin to combine more than one consonant sound together into consonant blends as their use of spoken language develops.
The stories and poems children choose and know how to follow. For example retelling a story, using words and phrases from a well-known story.
Children's familiarity with the way books work. For example, turning the pages and telling the story using the pictures and using phrases such as "Once upon a time".
Children's references to and understanding of how print works. For example, asking what a word says or what instructions mean.
Children's recognition of their names, or letters or words, in scripts other than English.
The marks children make and the meanings that they give to them, such as when a child covers a whole piece of paper and says, "I'm writing".
Reading a letter - In a nursery, a practitioner shares a letter with two children discussing the marks one child has made. [transcript]
You can watch the video via modem or slow / fast / superfast broadband connections. If you are behind a network firewall, why not click here to view a flash file of the video. You do need to have the flash plugin.
The way children control equipment and materials.
The marks children like to make.
40-60+ Months
Children's readiness to engage in conversation.
Children's awareness of conventions, such as taking turns to talk.
How children link statements to develop stories and explanations.
The purposes for which children use talk, for example, to gain attention or to resolve disagreements.
How children concentrate on what others say and their responses to what they have heard.
Rhymes and songs children know by heart.
Children's made-up songs.
Children's growing vocabulary.
The occasions when children speak clearly and confidently and show awareness of the listener.
How children use talk to reflect upon, clarify, sequence and think about present and past experiences, ideas and feelings.
How children link one thing to another to explain and anticipate things. For example, "We won't play out today because it's too windy... you might get blown away".
Ways in which children use language in their pretend and imaginary play.
For children speaking languages other than English, note which language is dominant, as well as their use of gesture and intonation to convey meaning.
Children's alternative versions of favourite rhymes that draw upon their phonic knowledge.
Children's knowledge of initial sounds at the beginning of words, short vowel sounds within words and endings of words. For example, Ranjit notices the letters in his name whenever he sees them, such as 'j' at the beginning of jam.
How children link sounds to letters and begin to use this knowledge to write words, for example, "Pz cn I hv a d" (Please can I have a drink).
Children's confidence in blending and segmenting and in using grapheme-phoneme knowledge to read and spell regular consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words, including consonant digraphs and long vowels.
The ways in which children use their phonic knowledge and the number of grapheme-phoneme correspondences used for reading and writing in a variety of contexts.
How children read simple words by sounding out and blending the phonemes all through the word from left to right.
Children's book choices.
Children's understanding about how information is kept in different places and can be retrieved.
Children's understanding of the elements of stories, for example, Mehmet refers to the 'beginning' and 'end' of a story. He says, "I don't like that ending. I think he should've run away and been happy ever after".
How children use non-fiction books.
The favourite books, songs and rhymes children turn to, to be re-read and enjoyed.
The phonic skills children use in decoding text.
The strategies that children use to read.
The words that children recognise, such as their name and signs such as 'open'.
The confidence with which children use their developing phonic knowledge.
How children use writing to record things or to communicate, for example, Marcus writes "Marcus, fz (Faraz) and tm (Tommy)" on a drawing of himself and his two friends playing together.
Instances of writing for different purposes such as labelling the contents on the outside of a box.
How children make use of phonic knowledge as they attempt to write words and simple sentences, for example, "I went to see fiyuwercs and hat to pc by the hut" (I went to see fireworks and had to park by the hut).
Children's dexterity in using a range of tools in their play and writing.
Acknowledgements
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