St Margaret's Infant School

• Talk Through Stories grows children’s vocabulary through partner talk. Children need to talk, if we are to develop their language. 

• In Story week, children get to know – and love – the story through talk: they understand the plot, the characters, and their actions and motives. 

• In Vocabulary week, the talk focuses on eight words from the story. These are words that children are unlikely to hear in everyday conversation but are likely to come across in stories. For example, in I’m in charge by Jeanne Willis, we chose bellowed, startled, barged, sneaked, grinned, dreadful, stomped, refused. 

• Children develop their understanding of each word by using the words in the context of their everyday lives. 

Talk Through Stories is for Year R, 1 and 2 children. It is especially for those who do not come from a language-rich home and to promote the use of more complex vocabulary for all. 

We help children love each story and go on to use ‘Tier Two’ words (words they rarely encounter in every day conversation) from the story in everyday contexts.  

This extends and deepens vocabulary so that children can understand the books they will soon be able to read for themselves.  

We chose stories that we believe are worth reading and re-reading – stories that children will love. We began with old favourites that many teachers are likely to know, such as Can’t You Sleep, Little Bear? by Martin Waddell and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.  

We then moved on to more recent literature, such as Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival and I am Nefertiti by Annemarie Anang and Natelle Quek.