Language assessment and language work in daycare

Language is more than words. It is the tool children use to understand the world, participate in play, resolve conflicts, and ask for help. Because language has such great importance for a child's later life – also in school – the legislator has set rules on language assessment in the daycare law, and the municipalities have the responsibility to ensure the rules are followed.

§Who is language tested

According to the childcare law, the municipality is responsible for language assessment of all children around 3 years of age who do not attend childcare. Children who attend childcare are language assessed around 3 years of age if there are linguistic, behavioural or other conditions that suggest the child may need language support. The municipality must also language assess children from 3 years onwards until school start if they neither attend childcare nor have previously been language assessed at 3 years of age.

• 01All 3-year-olds without a day care place are assessed for language by the municipality.
• 02Children in childcare are assessed for language needs at signs of requiring speech support.
• 03Non-assessed children can be language-assessed right up to school start.
• 04Parents are involved in both assessment and follow-up.

§Your role in language work in everyday life

The language assessment tools themselves and the formal follow-up are typically handled by a pedagogue or language adviser but the daily language environment is created by all adults around the child — you included. It is about putting words on what is happening: telling what you are doing while helping with the jacket reading aloud and talking about the pictures singing songs and playing with rhymes and nursery rhymes. The more language a child encounters in natural situations the better the ground for language development.

§When there is a need for extra language support

If a language assessment shows that a child needs language stimulation the municipality must offer it — among other things bilingual children without a day care spot who are assessed to need it must be offered a language-stimulating offer of 30 hours per week at a day care. Parents are continuously involved and given guidance on supporting their child's language development at home so the effort is not only at the institution.

As an educational assistant you help create a rich language environment in daily life — through conversations at the table stories before nap time and the thousand small words that fall while you are together. It is not a test but it is one of the most important language initiatives a child meets.

“The best language work rarely happens at a table with a test sheet — it happens in conversation while the jacket is zipped up.”