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Evaluation Of Talking Time Efficacy Trial

Evaluation of Talking Time Efficacy Trial

The development of language and communication skills can have an important impact on children’s academic achievement, and their employment outcomes as adults. This project evaluates Talking Time – an intervention aimed at improving the oral language skills of children aged 3-5 years, designed by experts in child language acquisition and in early years professional development based at the Department of Education at the University of Oxford and University College London. The evaluation is funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), while the intervention is co-funded by the EEF and the Early Years’ Stronger Practice Hubs.

Project Status

Ongoing

Related Theme

Education and Skills

Funder

Summary & aims

Talking Time is an intervention designed to provide high quality professional development to early years’ practitioners that will enable them to deliver a programme of engaging structured activities to children aged 3-5 years in small groups in the nursery setting. The programme aims to develop supportive conditions for language development, specifically, meaningful and engaging structured small-group experiences which allow children to hear and rehearse language in the context of multi-turn conversations.

The intervention has been designed by experts in child language acquisition and in early years professional development based in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford and University College London. Trainer-mentors recruited by the Oxford delivery team will deliver the intervention to early years’ practitioners.

The EEF is funding an efficacy trial of the Talking Time programme to provide evidence for what works to support oral language development of young children and to support education recovery following the pandemic. This study will include early years settings from both the maintained and private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sectors.

Methodology

This evaluation will assess whether the Talking Time programme has an impact on the oral language development of children aged 3-4. The evaluation will comprise a randomised controlled trial, which will enable examination of the quantitative impact of the programme on children’s language skills. The evaluation also involves an implementation and process evaluation, to understand the extent to which the programme is implemented as intended, perceived impacts on outcomes, and to add greater depth to the quantitative findings, including the extent to which there is support for the causal pathways set out in the underlying theory of change. Finally, the evaluation will also estimate the cost of the programme.