Affording early years children plentiful oracy opportunities will give them a boost that lasts a lifetime, says Samantha Martin-Beagle…
High-quality oracy provision is more important now than ever, and like many essential life skills, its roots are firmly planted in the early years.
Children make sense of the world, build relationships, and express themselves through dialogue, and it underpins all seven areas of learning and development.
At Voice 21, we view oracy as a vital part of development for all children. We define oracy as the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding, and engage with others through speaking, listening and communication.
Research by the Oracy Education Commission updated this definition to include communication explicitly, acknowledging that talk is not the only form of interaction.
This inclusive approach ensures oracy celebrates all voices and empowers every child to participate fully in their learning.
Children with strong early oracy skills are more likely to succeed later academically and socially. A high-quality oracy education in the early years can support literacy outcomes at KS2 and have a positive impact on their life chances as adults.
It can also improve a child’s experience of education, allowing them to find more enjoyment and motivation at school.
Supporting oracy in early years means creating authentic and varied opportunities for children to speak, listen, and communicate.
Through these interactions, children begin to develop a strong sense of identity, learn social routines, and build the foundational skills that will support their learning for life.
Often the emphasis in early years is on teaching children to talk, yet oracy includes a broader set of communication skills, even from the very start.
The Oracy Framework helps teachers to plan a high-quality oracy education. It was created by Voice 21 and Oracy Cambridge and breaks oracy down into specific teachable skills linking to the physical, linguistic, cognitive, and social and emotional development of children.
Voice 21 works with a national network of early years settings, supporting practitioners to identify how to apply these skills to age-related expectations for spoken language development in their provision.
Children naturally mirror the behaviours of the adults around them. Since many children spend most of their week in EYFS settings, it is crucial that practitioners reflect on how they use their voice, body language and speech to teach and model skills from the Oracy Framework.
Why not try out these engaging activities inspired by the Oracy Framework in your own setting?
It’s easy to think that great early years provision is dependent on an abundance of resources or exciting activities. But it is responsive, attuned adults who make the biggest difference in helping children develop strong oracy skills.
Children enter our settings having had exposure to a range of experiences and opportunities that develop language and communication.
To support all pupils, adults can create opportunities for oracy by intentionally planning meaningful contexts for back-and-forth interactions.
These early conversations lay the groundwork for thinking, language, and learning. One way to generate dialogue is through Sustained Shared Thinking, where adults and children solve problems or explore ideas together.
This can happen during everyday moments like finding a lost jumper or planning snack time and turns routine tasks into valuable oracy opportunities.
For example, if a child wants to eat their snack outside but the adult notices it is likely to rain, the adult could model their thinking out loud and invite the child to help find a solution: “What a fantastic idea! Have you thought about how we can stay warm and dry while we’re outside?”
To make sustained shared thinking effective, identify a problem, encourage ideas and solutions, stretch and encourage children’s thinking when challenges arise, and celebrate their efforts.
Voice 21’s Talk Tactics for Early Language Development were designed as a scaffold to support practitioners to help deepen thinking and expand talking.
Children, particularly those with additional needs, thrive when vocabulary and sentence structures are repeated by all staff throughout the provision.
The resource is designed to be used in spontaneous conversations as well as structured areas of the timetable.
Ensure that your staff understand why the different tactics are useful for enhancing oracy and that they are confident applying them in practice.
This way children are treated like capable thinkers, and they will grow in confidence and independence through meaningful conversations in a safe, supportive space.
Modelling and planning oracy intentionally can and should happen in all areas of the provision. When opportunities are authentic to the child, it supports them to develop not only language but also the ability to think deeply and reflect.
The following oracy-rich interaction was recorded at a Voice 21 Oracy School in a Reception classroom where the children were in free play in the outdoor area.
Practitioner A joins the child at the water tray, crouches next to the child and uses gestures to point and indicate motion.
X, can I play with you? What an amazing waterslide you’ve made for your cars!
I’m sending them down the slide quick.
I wonder if the slide with more bubbles will make the car go faster or slower.
Faster!
You were right, the higher slide with more bubbles was a lot quicker. The car went very fast.
It’s because it’s really slippy.
Do you think the higher slide will be quicker than the lower slide?
Yeah, we can put more bubbles on it.
What would happen if we made the slide higher?
Then cars would zoom down the slide really quickly.
You said it would go faster, but what would happen if we used the dry slide?
Yeah, but I like the bubbles because it makes them really fast.
I’d like to know more about how you made them go so fast.
Here we see how practitioner A is responsive and attuned. Physically, they get down on the child’s level to make eye contact and actively listen, creating a meaningful interaction.
Linguistically, they comment rather than question, and repeat new vocabulary. Cognitively, the practitioner challenges their thinking by using the talk tactics of build, challenge, stretch and speculate.
Socially and emotionally, they ensure they have the child’s attention, follow their lead and model turn-taking.
What could high-quality oracy look like in your provision?
Hear from Voice 21 Oracy schools
Read Voice 21’s Ten Years of Impact report
Listen to the Oracy Education Commission’s podcast
Samantha Martin-Beagle is a programme lead at Voice 21.
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