Early Talk Boost

What is Early Talk Boost?

Early Talk Boost is a targeted intervention aimed at 3-4 year old children who need help with talking and understanding words, helping to boost their language skills to narrow the gap between them and their peers. The programme aims to accelerate children’s progress in language and communication by an average of 6 months, after a nine week intervention. 

Children who are selected to take part in the intervention will attend three sessions per week during circle/story time, each lasting 15-20 minutes delivered by an early years practitioner. The sessions include activities that cover the foundation skills in speech, language and communication that children need for learning and understanding new words, as well as having conversations.

Further information can be found in these documents and the introductory video below:

• • Early Talk Boost FAQ
  • Early Talk Boost Overview Presentation
  • Early Talk Boost Evaluation Report

What are the benefits of Early Talk Boost?

The benefits are:

• • Supports children who are not achieving their expected levels of progress in their language development
  • Can be used to demonstrate to Ofsted how you are focusing on developing staff skills
  • Help to build relationships with parents, by reinforcing the language skills the child learned during the group sessions
  • Demonstrates the effective use of your Early Years Pupil Premium allocation
  • An all-in-one speech and language solution package
  • Can be used by non speech and language specialists
  • Proven to improve children’s language and communication through our evidence base
  • Designed to be sustainable so you can deliver the intervention multiple times to new groups of children
  • A dedicated team to support you to maximise the impact of Early Talk Boost in your setting
  • Identify, monitor and track children’s progress before and following the intervention with the online tracker  

Further information can be found in these documents below:

• • Latest Tracker Figures for Children's Progress

What does Early Talk Boost include?

There are two parts to Early Talk Boost.

The first is Early Talk Boost training delivered by our regional team of Licensed Tutors. The training is for early years practitioners working with groups of 3-4 year olds in early years settings. Participants will develop the skills and knowledge to understand the rationale behind Early Talk Boost, identify appropriate children, measure their progress and deliver the intervention successfully. 

The second is the Early Talk Boost Intervention Pack. The pack includes everything you need to run the intervention. Specifically, the pack includes:

• • The Early Talk Boost Intervention Manual containing detailed group session plans and required resources
  • 10 Jake & Tizzy Complete Sets (Titles 1-8) that have been specifically designed and written for the intervention
  • Early Talk Boost Participant Book
  • Tool Bag including all of the resources needed for intervention activities
  • Access to the Online Tracker where progress can be monitored to support Pupil Premium

Example resources:

Costs

There are two costs to Early Talk Boost.

The Intervention Pack costs £550.00 and the cost of training is set individually by our Licensed tutors. If you are a small setting you might wish to consider grouping your staff together with other settings for the training and sharing the costs between yourselves. 

See a breakdown of the affordability of Early Talk Boost over time here.

Next Steps

Visit the Find a Tutor page to find an Early Talk Boost Licensed Tutor near you using the Map. The Licensed Tutor can arrange training and quote the cost of training. You can then purchase the Intervention Pack directly on our online shop. 

Alternatively get in touch on info@speechandlanguage.org.uk or call 0207 843 2515 to talk to our team about Early Talk Boost or to arrange training.