Nikki Ludlam Children's Centre Support Teacher: How Boogie Mites supports Language skills

Boogie Mites

Many early years practitioners have been concerned to read recently of a survey that suggested that of 1,200 parents, 40% could not recite a nursery rhyme all the way through.

Taken from EYE Magazine, Volume 9, No. 7

For some time, research has indicated that children are entering the Foundation Stage with significantly lower communication, language and literacy skills. Following the Rose Report came the development of the ‘Letters and Sounds’ programme by the Primary National Strategies Team. This programme reinforced the importance of ‘getting it right’ for children during their early years, so that when they start school they already have an excellent ability to really tune into the sounds that they hear around them.

To achieve this we have to be immersing children in language and sound, allowing them to explore, experiment and truly understand how sounds fit together to become words. We need to make it fun!

One way some settings have found to achieve this is by using the Boogie Mites programme and resources.

Boogie Mites can be used alongside Phase 1 of the Letters and Sounds manual and is intended to support the role of music and physical play in laying the foundations for good language and literacy skills. The children and adults alike enjoy the songs, games and rhymes, and I have even heard the ‘Tidy Up’ song at the Tesco check out.

The Boogie Mites resources suggested can all be home-made from materials that could easily be collected by parents and practitioners. Children love to work with instruments that they have made themselves. Each song is linked to one of the seven aspects of Letters and Sounds that it supports and tips and suggestions for activities that complement it are offered.

In essence, Boogie Mites is about enhancing learning through music and having fun and it can be done anywhere.

Resources can be cheap and just needed a little thought to turn them into an exciting activity which will, no doubt, be returned to by all the children again and again.

Doesn’t it just make you want to go and join in the fun?

Nikki Ludlam
Children's Centre Support Teacher