Let’s Talk about ‘Tizzy Time’
Hello!
I’m Hayley, an Early Years Educator in the pre-school room at Oaks Day Nursery, Swanley. I am also literacy lead within the nursery.
I deliver the Early Talk Boost programme to a group of six to eight children at a time. I run the sessions three times per week, and they last around fifteen minutes each. There are eight story books per course, and we read one together each week.
After completing my online training, with Speech and Language UK, through the Stronger Practice Hub I was sent a fantastic pack with enough books for every child and an adult copy, along with other props including musical instruments and toy animals.
Every book has a different learning focus, for example ‘Food Vocabulary,’ ‘Big and Little’ and ‘Actions words.’ We sing songs and play games together alongside the story books. The sessions are fun and engaging for the children: we refer to the sessions as “Tizzy Time” and they respond so well to the Tizzy the Tiger puppet. As soon as I bring the puppet out and say “It’s “Tizzy Time!” the children go to the reading area, where the sessions are held. The other main character in the books is called Jake - him and Tizzy are the best of friends!
Parental involvement is key within the course as each weekend the children take the book home and read it with their parents, bringing it back into nursery the following week.
Before starting the course, I speak to parents and give them a letter explaining that the aim of the course is to increase children’s understanding and that we will be working on children’s listening and attention skills, along with learning new vocabulary and building sentences.
At the end of each week, I give written feedback to parents via our nursery app ‘Babydays.’ I inform them what the focus is for each session, what games we have been playing, songs we have been singing and the level of engagement and understanding that the children have shown. I have been told by parents how much their children love reading the “Tizzy and Jake” books at home.
I really enjoy seeing the children make progress, especially in their confidence in talking in front of their peers. Some children may start the course a little shy and reluctant to talk in front of others, but by the end they are forming sentences and smiling when they answer questions.
Another area where they tend to struggle to begin is with is understanding ‘prepositions.’ It is great to have time to work on language such as “on,” “under” and “in” using the Tizzy puppet, making the activities fun.
So far I have completed the course three times with different groups of children, ending each course by Tizzy presenting a certificate to each child.