Talking Partners has been designed to give children the skills they need to address many of the explicit and implicit speaking and listening demands of the National Literacy Strategy.

Each week children work on activities which help them to:

• Develop their understanding of the structure and meaning of texts;

• Analyse specific features of text such as setting and character;

• Use language and skills they have learned to generate their own stories and;

• Report back successfully, on the work they have covered, both in a small group and back in the classroom.

They have the option to use different forms of spoken language

• Recount
• Narrative
• Instruction giving
• Describing
• Reporting
• Explaining
• Questioning

Through this range children are able to hear, use, practise and consolidate language they need for literacy and cross curricular learning. Throughout all the Talking Partners activities there is a particular emphasis on encouraging children to speak and listen for a purpose. Children have to learn to discuss, explain, describe, predict, question and negotiate. They learn to take turns and organise themselves and the tasks. They need to understand that to communicate effectively they have to speak, listen and respond.

'Talk' frameworks are used to help children learn what to say and how to say it e.g.

The frameworks can be used by adults to model, praise and prompt specifically. This will encourage children to use the frameworks more independently.