Early Level Literacy Assessment Tool (ELLAT) is used in East Ayrshire as part of monitoring and tracking processes across the Early Childhood Centre (ECC) and Primary 1.
This ELLAT provides early years practitioners and class teachers with valuable information about each child’s early development and understanding of literacy. Information is passed on to schools as part of effective transition processes between the ECC and Primary 1.
ELLAT follow up intervention
There are a variety of ways ELLAT follow up support can be delivered. Some children may receive additional support from the class teacher while others may work with an East Ayrshire Support Team (EAST) teacher or classroom assistant. Some children may be given activities to work on at home.
Routine assessments, carried out in EECs and in Primary 1, as well as class teacher observations, will have shown that your child may have gaps in her/his literacy learning. Further assessments are carried out individually to identify particular areas of development and an intervention may be put in place to address these areas.
An ELLAT follow up intervention developed by EAST is targeted to identified pupils to provide further opportunities to become more secure with foundation literacy skills. It is hoped that this targeted, short-term intervention will assist children to ‘plug the gaps’ that are impacting on their literacy development, thus enabling them to progress with their reading development at an appropriate pace.
What it involves
Your child may be extracted to a quiet area with a small group of pupils to work with an EAST member of staff. Wherever possible, this is during the class literacy time. A lesson may include:
- reading a story book
- rhyming
- letter sounds
- alphabet knowledge
- blending sounds
- sight
- sight vocabulary
How you can help
Reading
Reading a variety of texts to your child as often as you can, pointing to the words as you read, is very beneficial. While you are reading you could ask questions such as:
- Can you point to the front cover?
- Can you find me the letter “s”?
- Can you show me where to start reading the story?
- Can you tell me what you see in the picture?
Rhyming
Secure rhyming skills will enable pupils to develop an ‘ear’ for our language. It lets them hear the sounds and rhythm in words and is a very important skill which can be developed through fun activities such as:
- Can you give me a word the rhymes with “cat”?
- Reading/singing nursery rhymes together
Letter sounds
Encourage your child to identify and say correctly the letter sounds in words, for example, c for “cat”. The following activities can be used at home:
- Play eye spy using the letter sounds
- Play snap with the letter sounds
Alphabet
It is important that your child knows that letters have a name as well as a sound. The following activities will help with this:
- Sing the alphabet song
- Play snap with the letter names
- Encourage children to find the letters within words
Blending
When your child is ready to start blending the sounds together to make words, it is important that they are saying the sounds correctly.
For example, "l" instead of "li” and “t” instead of “ti”.
The following activity at home will help with this:
- Robot talk: speak like a robot in sounds (for example d-o-g)
- Switch roles where you say the word and your child becomes the robot
- Ask what sounds they can hear in “sun”
Sight vocabulary
Fun activities that provide repetition are ideal to help your child learn their sight words. Examples of this are:
- Snap games
- Bingo using sight words
Benefits for your child
The main aim of the additional follow up support is to equip your child with foundation skills to become more independent when reading and writing.
Because they are working as part of a small group, the class teacher/classroom assistant/EAST teacher is able to direct instruction to areas that are specific to your child. Some examples of these areas are letter sounds, alphabet, blending and rhyme.
Further information
If you would like further information, please contact your child's school in the first instance.