£6.5 Million Funds from Department of Education For Early Speech and Language Intervention

Government Funds Preschool Speech And Language Intervention: 

New programmes to help parents support their children’s early learning has been funded by the Department for Education (DFE), which has allocated £6.5 million for intervention projects.

The money will go to groups that can provide self-sustaining projects, including voluntary and community groups, which will help parents teach their children reading, writing and language skills.

The interventions will be run by offering practical help such as home visits by trained early years professionals and online tools.

Speech and language skills are a priority for the funding, with the DFE saying that ‘deprived’ children as well as those with additional needs, are the ones most likely to struggle with language, literacy and word-gap when starting primary school.

The funding aims to help parents support their children’s language development by broadening vocabulary through online packages or reading and singing nursery rhymes.

Education Secretary Damian Hinds said: “Children from disadvantaged backgrounds or those with additional needs can face the greatest barriers in their early development, so it is important that where that help is needed it is in place as early as possible – such as through our free childcare for two-year-olds from lower income families which is used by more than 70 per cent of those who are eligible.”

Home-Start UK, a charity which organises volunteers to work closely with struggling families, has also received grants to continue the work they do. A £400,000 of it funded a ‘word pedometer’ programme to help new parents improve the quality of words they use with their babies.

“We know the number of words children hear in their very first days, months and years has a huge impact on their development,” Rob Parkinson, chief executive, Home-Start UK said.

“The grant from the Department of Education has been instrumental in establishing the pilot of this programme. Home-Start home visiting volunteers have been specially trained to work with the LENA Foundation’s word pedometer and resulting graphs, sharing them with the family in a positive and accessible way each week. The grant been essential in being able to secure subsequent funding to help expand the project and giving us the opportunity to demonstrate its life-changing impact.”

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