A NEW programme to boost literacy in young children has been launched in Bradford nurseries.

The National Literacy Trust is working with the parents of two-year-old children in the city to boost parental engagement and language and literacy levels.

Early Words Together at Two is an initiative designed to help parents support their young child’s literacy and language development.

The programme trains nursery staff to work with parents, building confidence so that they can support their child’s development at home.

The early years home environment is crucial to a child’s development, with research showing it can have a greater impact on a child’s intellectual, social and emotional growth than the education, job or wealth of their parents.

Working with St. Edmund’s Nursery School and Children’s Centre, the programme takes place in 12 early years settings, with five weekly sessions for parents and children. In each session, a staff member will guide the parent and child through activities that, when enjoyed at home, are known to have a big impact on a child’s communication and cognitive development.

The programme is an adaptation of the Trust’s Early Words Together programme, which is proven to increase 3-5 year old children’s language development. It will build on the success of the Trust’s previous Early Language and Literacy Project in Bradford, a pilot project which boosted development scores across eight primary schools by an average of 12 per cent.

However, overall development scores in Bradford still fall below the national average. 66.2 per cent of children in the district reached a good level of development at the end of the early years foundation stage in 2016, compared with 69.3 per cent nationally.

Clare McGread, Early Years Programme Manager at the Trust, said: “Parents are the most vital figures in a child’s early development. Working with early years professionals in Bradford, we want to equip parents with the skills and confidence they need to provide a happy and productive home learning environment for their children. We’ve worked here for many years with our Bradford Literacy Campaign, and we’re excited to continue this work engaging parents and children across the city.”

Andrea Layzell, Workforce Development Leader from St Edmund’s said: “We want to raise parents’ confidence and introduce them to activities that they can share with their children at home.

“It’s very exciting to be able to work within a framework that help parents and early years settings to work together to improve outcomes for the children of Bradford. As passionate advocates for engaging parents, who we know are the experts on their child, the St Edmund’s team is very pleased to be one of only two local authorities to have secured involvement in the programme for Bradford.”

The Trust is part of a consortium of four charities working together to support families and practitioners improve the home learning environments of disadvantaged children. The consortium has received a Department for Education grant of £430,000 as part of a wider £55 million government investment in childcare schemes.