The National Children’s Bureau (NCB) and Edge Hill University are working together to provide an exciting literacy training programme for students studying Early Years Education for the first time in the UK.
Making it REAL (Raising Early Achievement in Literacy) is a renowned evidence-based programme that gives educators the ability to support parents and guardians using a specific framework to help their children with early reading and writing at home.
The programme was developed in the 1990s by the NCB and the University of Sheffield, building on a study by Professor Cathy Nutbrown. It began as a project aimed at boosting literacy in the home learning environment and has been developed into an effective framework to support parents.
The project has been developed further and will now be offered to Edge Hill’s Early Years Education students thanks to the University’s new partnership with the Early Childhood Unit at the NCB.
Lecturer in Early Years Education Laura Gregory said: “Making it REAL is usually offered to practitioners already in post. Thanks to our partnership with the NCB our students will be given the skills to support parents recognise opportunities to enhance early literacy with their children at home.
“This has never been done before in any university in the UK and will massively enhance our student’s employability and boost their confidence and competence in supporting early literacy in a huge range of environments.”
Gill Holden, Early Childhood Programme Lead at NCB, said: “We’re very excited to be partnering with Laura and her team and embedding the principles of Making it REAL into the programme of learning for Early Years Education students for the first time.
“Engaging parents in their children's early literacy development has been shown to improve children's outcomes and help to narrow the gap between disadvantaged and other children and the Making it REAL Programme provides a framework to do that.
”We’ve helped put it into practice within a number of local authorities, resulting in positive outcomes for children and we’re delighted to be able to support Edge Hill to introduce it to their students.”
The Making it REAL programme forms part of the government’s wider social mobility plan based on studies of pre-school education that found that the home learning environment made a significant difference in children's learning.
This pilot year will train up to 60 students and three members of staff will be able to “Train the Trainer” meaning they can deliver the programme to future students here at Edge Hill University.
For more information about the programme and the training try Making it REAL training or Making it REAL.