- Set up shared experiences that children can reflect upon, eg visits, cooking, or stories that can be re-enacted.
- Help children to predict and order events coherently, by providing props and materials that encourage children to re-enact, using talk and action
- Find out from parents how children make themselves understood at home; confirm their preferred language and/or other modes of communication.
- Tune into children’s preferred modes of communication – perhaps direct questions feel confronting but shared making or an exchange of funny expressions or gestures creates a connection more effectively.
- Provide practical experiences that encourage children to ask and respond to questions, eg explaining pulleys or wet and dry sand.
- Alongside books, introduce story props, such as pictures, puppets and objects, to encourage children to retell stories and to think about how the characters feel.
- Displays can connect experiences across places or provide reminders of previous trips, events or seasons, for example.
- Set up displays that are interactive so children can touch, pick up etc and talk about/reflect on their experiences
- Provide for, initiate and join in imaginative play and role-play or real-life storytelling encouraging children to talk about what is happening and to act out the scenarios in character.
