Our monthly updates provide information and resources for early years practitioners to support communication, language and literacy developments.

March 2026

This month our Come Talk with Me Top Tip is:

“Making eye contact when your child talks to you will help them to know they are being listened to and build their confidence”.

Most of the information we receive is initially processed through our vision. Although vision is not fully developed at birth, infants as young as 2 days old have been observed to show a preference for faces looking back at them. Eye contact is essential for social–emotional and language development.

In fact, studies have shown that eye contact leads to greater language skills by the age of 2 years.

World Book Day – 5 March 2026

World Book Day was celebrated this month. The website has ideas to continue promoting plus resources for supporting reading for pleasure all year round.

New dedicated web page for Come Talk with Me Resources

We have many online resources to support your work promoting children’s communication and language with children, parents and practitioners within your setting. You can access these on the Family Information Directory website.

Communication Champion Programme

Are you keen to support children’s speech, language and communication development in your setting?

Would you like to join a free to access programme, led by qualified speech and language therapists?

Is the answer yes, find out how to become a Communication Champion and become a key advocate for the development of speech, language and communication for all children in Early Years settings.

February 2026

This month our Come Talk with Me Top Tip is:

‘Show an interest and comment on what your child is doing. More comments than questions will help to build their vocabulary.’

This is easy for us to forget during a busy day as a childminder or practitioner in an early year’s setting. The hand rule guides you to model four comments to every question to help you to stay focused and support vocabulary for all children.

Communication champions

To learn more about speech, language and communication to support all children, please sign up to become a communication champion with the children and young people speech and language therapy service. The communication champions for early years section on the Dorset Health Care University NHS Foundation Trust website has more information. You can also book on this terms workshops at Queens Park Learning Centre or Rossmore Family Hub.

January 2026

This month our Come Talk with Me Top Tip is:

Try and have fun with your child every day through chatting, playing, or with stories. This will help to build their language skills by building their confidence and self-esteem.

Here are some tips from Words for Life, Five Chats a Day to get you started. This also includes handy tips on how parents can help their child if they speak a different language from English at home, with voice over translations to the video clips shown.

The National Literacy Trust

Take a look at the latest newsletter from the National Literacy Trust. This is full of great ideas to share with parents, including Internation Language Mother’s Day activities and downloadable free resources translated into 19 languages.