Understanding prompts This is a useful prompt to ensure that Understanding is covered and taught effectively towards the 40-60 month age band. www.earlybirdyeducation.com

Understanding www.earlybirdyeducation.com Include lots of instructional writing and step by step guides in the learning environment For example:- Construction- step by step guide to build an aeroplane UW-Cooking instructions, how to make? Reading/writing- instructions for story characters Maths- positional instructions to follow a map Allow children to explore their environment and resources e.g. digging, planting, wind up toys. Children will learn best from their own interest so encourage them to follow their own curiosity and scaffold them along the way e.g. “I wonder why this soil is hard?” Leave lots of open ended activities out to support and scaffold their understanding and learning. Provide lots of role play stimulus off familiar stories and traditional tales e.g. puppets, props and costumes. Encourage children to act out a narrative and act out what they know. Introduce unfamiliar stories and a wide variety of text to encourage children to think about a text ad predict what may happen next. This will help develop early inference skills and help children to unpick and understand a text in more depth. Understanding Responds to instructions involving a two-part sequence. Understands humour e.g. nonsense rhymes, jokes. Able to follow a story without pictures or props. Listens and responds to ideas expressed by others in conversation or discussion. Encourage children to become independent by tidying up, putting things in the correct place, setting up the snack table. All these tasks will give you opportunity to give simple instructions and introduce language e.g. above, behind etc. and will give the children the opportunity to put their understanding into action. www.earlybirdyeducation.com