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This is part of a collation for each learning area of the
Early Learning Goals and Stepping Stones. Click here for the full index

Use words and/or gestures, including body language such as eye contact and facial expression to communicate.

Listen to favourite nursery rhymes, stories and songs.

Join in with repeated refrains, anticipating key events and important phrases.

Respond to simple instructionsListen to others in one-to one/small groups when conversation interests them

Use familiar words, often in isolation, to identify what they do and do not want.

Use vocabulary focused on objects and people who are of particular importance to them.

Use simple statements and questions often linked to gestures.

Use intonation, rhythm and phrasing to make their meaning clear to others.

Listen to stories with increasing attention and recall.

Describe main story settings, events and principal characters.

Question why things happen, and give explanations.

Build up vocabulary that reflects the breadth of their experiences.

Begin to experiment with language describing possession.

Begin to use more complex sentences.

Use a widening range of words to express or elaborate ideas.

Have emerging self-confidence to speak to others about wants and interests.

Use simple grammatical structures.

Ask simple questions, often in the form of 'where' or 'what'.

Talk alongside others, rather than with them. Use talk to gain attention and initiate exchanges. Use action rather than talk to demonstrate or explain to others.

Initiate conversation, attend to and take account of what others say, and use talk to resolve disagreements.

Initiate a conversation, negotiate positions, pay attention to and take account of others' views.s

Extend vocabulary, especially by grouping and naming.

Use vocabulary and forms of speech that are increasingly influenced by experience of books.

Link statements and stick to a main theme or intention.

Consistently develop a simple story, explanation or line of questioning.

Use languages for an increasing range of purposes.

Confidently talk to people other than those who are well known to them.

Enjoy listening to and using spoken and written language, and readily turn to it in their play and learning.

Sustain attentive listening, responding to what they have heard by relevant comments, questions or actions.

Listen with enjoyment and respond to stories, songs and other music, rhymes and poems and make up their own stories, songs, rhymes and poems.

Early learning goals for
language for communication 3
Pg 52

Use action sometimes with limited talk, that is largely concerned with the 'here and now'

Enjoy rhyming and rhythmic activities.

Distinguish one sound from another.

Listen to and join in with stories and poems, one-to-one and also in small groups.

Show interest in illustrations and print in books and print in the environment.

Begin to be aware of the way stories are structured.

Talk activities through, reflecting on and modifying what they are doing

Use talk to give new meanings to objects and actions, treating them as symbols for other things.

Use talk to connect ideas, explain what is happening and anticipate what might happen next.

Uses talk, actions and objects to recall and relive past experiences.

Show awareness of rhyme and alliteration.

Recognise rhyme in spoken words.

Have favourite books

Handle books carefully

Suggest how the story might endKnow information can be relayed in the form of print

Hold books the correct way up and turn pages

Understand the concept of a word.

Begin to use talk instead of action to rehearse, reorder and reflect on past experience, linking significant events from own experience and from stories, paying attention to sequence and how events lead into one another.

Begin to make patterns in their experience through linking cause and effect, sequencing, ordering and grouping.

Begin to use talk to pretend imaginary situations.

Continue a rhyming string.

Hear and say the initial sound words and know which letters represent some of the sounds.

Enjoy an increasing range of books

Begin to recognise some familiar words

Know that information can be retrieved from books and computers.

Use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences.

Use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events.

Hear and say initial and final sounds in words, and short vowel sounds within words.

Link sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet.

Use their phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words.

Explore and experiment with sounds, words and texts.

Retell narratives in the correct sequence, drawing on language patterns of stories.

Read a range of familiar and common words and simple sentences independently.

Know that print carries meaning and, in English is read from left to right and top to bottom.

Show an understanding of the elements of stories, such as main character, sequence of events, and openings, and how information can be found in non-fiction texts to answer questions about where, who, why and how.

Draw and paint, sometimes giving meanings to marks

Engage in activities requiring hand-eye co-ordination.

Use one-handed tools and equipment

Ascribe meanings to marks

Draw lines and circles using gross motor movement

Manipulate objects with increasing control.

Begin to break the flow of speech into wordsUse writing as a means of recording and communicating

Begin to use anti-clockwise movement and retrace vertical lines.

Begin to form recognisable letters

Use their phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words.

Attempt writing for different purposes, using features of different forms such as lists, stories and instructions.

Write their own names and other thins such as labels and captions and begin to form simple sentences, using punctuation..

Use a pencil and hold it effectively to form recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed.